JEB

Ron, Also in your "Profile" you get your last 5 posts and last 5 topics. John

Ron, I think if you go to "Members" and look yourself up you have the ability to see all your posts andtopics. John

Yachtsman1, Simply because I find it less confusing. I want to see the wave forms (music, voice-over, sound effect) and hear the audio, while also watching the slides and have the ability to make adjustments to all. Each to his own. John

Hi, I have added my vote as a “Definite YES”. I think it has summed it up very well by a number of people. I for one have struggled along using Audacity on one PC and PTE on the other while trying to get a rough synchronization prior to loading into PTE to make the final adjustments. I have made a couple of long documentary type shows recently (30 minutes) which have required considerable synchronization between voice-over, music, sound effects and images, anything that would make that a simpler process would be most welcome. The way I look at is that I use Photoshop to prepare my images and I would be more than happy to continue to use Audacity to prepare my audio but I would love PTE to do to my audio what it presently does to my images only the trick will be to merge the two activities satisfactorily. Thanks for giving us the opportunity of expressing our opinions. I have absolutely no doubt that they will be listened to and acted upon by Igor. Regards John

Hi Lin, I was about to concede defeat till I saw DAVEG's post. Have a look at this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londonderry_Air Thanks DAVEG. We Celts have got to keep together! Can we call this an honorable draw now Lin? Regards to all and I hope we've all got something out of this. And to Maureen a big thank you for hosting this debate. John

Hi Lin, I think we may have to agree to disagree on this one! QUOTE - “Had you no experience or knowledge of the geographical locations in Maureen's slideshow and no knowledge of the composer of the music, ask yourself if you would have the same feelings about the appropriateness of the musical selections.” Having asked myself the question framed in your final paragraph above, my answer would have to be “yes” in regard to the location but certainly “no” regarding the composer. I had never heard of the man but his music reminded me of Peru and the North American prairies (my interpretation). Out of curiosity I looked him up and had my suspicions confirmed. I'm sure you know that the composer, who's name now slips me, is an American and wrote the music for a film set in North America somewhere. For my money he did a very fine job given that it had the effect it had on me and I understand some others. I don't know what his ethnic background is, it doesn't matter a toss, what does matter is that he set out to create a mood that would engender specific feelings on his audience and with me at least, he succeeded. I'm no music buff but I'm well aware of the history of bagpipes and that we Scots have capitalized on them down the ages. I was also aware of the ethnic influences on bluegrass though, I suspect as a musical style it is less well understood this side of The Atlantic than it is on your side. I accept your point that music is international and ever changing but “Danny Boy” is still and always will be an Irish tune. I'm not sure I follow your references to various International orchestras as once again their ethnic make up will have, I suspect, minimal influence on an identical piece of music. The conductor will I would imagine have much more influence but even he is presumably working from the score as written by the composer. As has been said by others this has been an interesting discussion and for me underlines the fact that the choice of music is just as important as the images. Even if the choice is for ones own satisfaction rather than a wider audience. Good Night, Bonne Nuit, Buenas Noches, Bon noite, Buona Notte, John

Maureen, This is getting confusing. THE PROMISED LAND is not my AV - must be someone else I'm afraid. HIGHLANDS & SKYE was one of mine, I remember the criticisms! Particularly getting worked up over the colour of the frames. Thanks for the kind words in any event. Lin, I've not had time to read what I guess will be a well considered reply. I'm being called for a meal so will look forward to reading it this evening. Regards John (JEB)

Ken http://uk.britishcolumbia.travel/en-CA/default.htm Having visited both I think I can tell the difference. No bears in the Lake District now - but watch this space. There are some folks in Scotland (that's the bit above England) who would like to re-introduce bears. John

Ken, What are you on about? Perhaps I'm too thick and missing the point. Come to think about it that is quite likely. The Lake District has got nothing to do with Scotland other than it is sometimes described as “Scotland in miniature” and I'm quite certain most Lakelanders would not like that description one little bit! If Scottish or Irish music were used on an AV of Ontario's Thousand Lakes (or is it Islands?) it may, perhaps, be more appropriate, given the impact of the Scottish and Irish settlers of the 1700's, than in an AV of The Lake District of England (that's the southern bit just next to Wales). {joke} As for these nutters that have been prancing around Edinburgh this week in their kilts celebrating the anniversary of a man who had little cultural connection with the Highland people of Scotland all I can say is that in this economic climate we'll take anybodies money. As a Nation (I'm getting my hackles up!) were not known for being that proud! Regards John

Hi all but particularly Maureen. I am beginning to feel somewhat guilty having started all of this off. Let me start by reiterating that I thoroughly enjoyed your images but was and remain distracted by the music. I am relatively new to this hobby but to state the obvious, understand that there are two aspects (Audio & Images) which should be given consideration, though perhaps not in equal measure. Beauty is in the eye (and perhaps ear) of the beholder. I totally accept that we,l as individuals, make our shows for different reasons at different times. Sometimes to please ourselves, sometimes to please a wider audience and that is when it gets tricky. For whatever reason we are inspired to make, or perhaps I should say create, an AV we are, I suspect, driven by our emotions. I guess in most cases it is the visual aspect that is the catalyst, whether it is a landscape, flower or piece of industrial machinery like a steam train. Sometimes it may be a piece of music or perhaps even a sound effect (though that does stretch even my imagination) that sets us off. I suspect that most people in this game come from a visual background so perhaps we should pay a bit more attention to the music aspect. I think it may be possible that we forget or ignore the emotions that inspired the composer to write their music. These impulses are likely, I guess, to have been very similar to those that inspired the photographer to capture their image. If that is so then surely we are duty bound to consider this when mixing the two elements. Lin, I find it difficult to accept your theoretical view regarding cultural or ethnic aspects of music. It is far too clinical a view for me. Nice in theory but impractical in reality and perhaps even disrespectful to the composer and the culture it represents. I am conscious that I have a record of hijacking topics so if a moderator wishes to move this elsewhere please feel free! Finally Maureen as I said in my original post your images are “fantastic”. I'll be down in the Lakes later this year and looking forward to it immensely as ever. Regards John

Maureen, Thank you, that was fantastic. If there is any part of the UK (other than Scotland!) I would like to live it is the Lakes. I visit at least once a year and recognize many of the classic views and was introduced to many new ones. The standard of photography was breathtaking. I liked the way it flowed with the music. However I have one comment regarding the choice of music and that is that initially it transported me to The Andes and then to the open prairies of North America! I looked up the composer, James Horner and that confirmed my suspicion. Sorry, but I think the music needs looking at but perhaps its just me. Just one other small point, have you considered changing the order of the B&W transition? Perhaps if the colour came first it might be better. Very seriously I think it is a lovely show and will be keeping it to look at whenever I feel the urge to get down to The Lakes. Regards John

Good morning Lin, You are quite correct. I'm just impulsive by nature and also keen for the audio issue not to be overlooked so the devil in me took over! For the record I'm not actually against video and could see myself using it were it available. But................ Regards John

Hi, Surely the control of audio is much more in keeping with slide show software than video! John

Limey, WONDERFUL !!!! Yes that does it for me. All I need to know are the attributes, set them once and if need be, again for any last minute additional slides. Thank you very much for being so persistent. Peter If you haven't had a try with this I think you may find it worth while doing so. Thank you all again. John

Limey, You're quite right! I had forgotten about that little comments box above the main window. And by deleting and/or substituting text I can achieve a consistent position on selected slides. As you say by using the "Position on Slide, Line Spacing, Offset and Size" controls in PO/Comment/Tab you can locate the title/caption to virtually any consistent location, i.e. away from the safe TV Zone. There is one limitation however, in that you can only allocate one "start" point. Correct??? I very often use frames so the way I title at present is that when I have portrait images I title them in line with the bottom left hand side (sometimes this requires two or three lines of text, 20-25 characters/line and the bottom line is lined up with the bottom of the image). Your method handles that very well. However, I generally title landscapes centrally under the image i.e. a second "start" point. I'm sure I can alter that and title portraits and landscapes bottom center. Mike, Peter, I will do some work on your ideas but one thing at a time for this old brain!! Regards to you all, John

Hi, Limey, From what I can gather this (Comments option) doesn't work for me as I require a different caption/title on each slide and your suggestion puts the same caption/title on each slide with no way of editing a comment on an individual slide. Good try! Thanks for your input. Tom, Thank you. Your suggestion works in part. It enables you to set a standard size/colour etc but it only works if you set the caption at a central position horizontally on the slide so that captions of different lengths extend equally to either side of the center point. If you require a caption on the LHS as I often do in a portrait format situation it extends disproportionately outside the frame (hope that's clear!!). Peter, Playing with Tom's suggestion got me thinking if part of your solution (moving the center point to the LHS would work but for the life of me I can't work out how to move the center point. I'm sure I've done it when playing with objects in the past but ..... Perhaps you can advise. Thanks all, John

Good evening Peter, Thank you for your reply. I follow much the same method as yourself though with a couple of variations. I'm not quite as organized as you. Having been caught out in the past by failing to rastorize, my work method changed to ensuring I did so on each occasion I created a text object and as you know this requires a unique name being allocated to each text object. As I also tend to allocate captions as I work through a show rather than all at the one time, this has in the past, lead to naming problems. However now that we have the new text method in 5.7 that issue has been eliminated I presume. The other point you make of making the text a child of the main image is something I have deliberately avoided only because of occasionally using Pan or Zoom. I very often use a frame so I suppose it would make sense to make the text a child of the frame. Its a great shame that only you and I appear to have this problem and consequently are not able to influence Igor into addressing it - or perhaps he will pick up on this and give us his views - are you listening Igor? Regards and thanks John P.S. Hope to see you in Carlisle on the 18th of July.

Hi, I'm back! I am surprised that there has been no response to the above and hope that I have not offended by sounding too presumptive by expecting my problem to be resolved in my absence. I certainly do not wish to give that impression. However, my problem remains and would very much appreciate help in an explanation of the "Size/position in pixels of parent" dialog box particularly in relation to the text box in O+A. I find it VERY difficult to believe that others do not have a problem with positioning text accurately over different slides and live in hope that there is a solution that so far has passed me by. Regards and in hope, John

Hi, I wonder if somebody could explain (in as simple terms as possible - I'm quite thick when it comes to numbers) what the “Size/position in pixels of parent” box in the “Common Tab” of O&A is all about. I have ignored this up till now as I have never been able to work it out. I have a very basic idea of the parent/child concept but have never found a use for it in my work. Can it be used to assist in obtaining a regular font size across selected slides. To explain a little more. I regularly have a need to use captions or tittles in some but not all slides of some of my shows. I use the same font in each slide and aim to position captions at the same location of these slides. I had hoped that 5.7 was going to address this issue, perhaps it has, but it's not apparent to me. Am I alone in finding this a problem? I would very much appreciate an explanation of my initial question regarding the “size/positioning” box even if it does not address my titling issue. In any event any advice on the titling issue would be greatly welcomed. The technique I do apply is copying and pasting a text box from one slide to the next and over-typing the text. This works quite well provided the original has not been rasterized as this leads to naming problems. However now that there is no need to rasterize perhaps that particular aspect has gone but it is still very messy and time consuming. Regards John P.S. I am going to be “off air” for a few days so please forgive me as I will not be able to reply to all these solutions!!!

I think you're fishing Ken! Good try John

Hi, I can't give you a definitive answer to this and suspect only Igor can do that. However, if my memory serves be correctly, the introduction of this facility was a major innovation for PTE at the time. Presumably it was a time consuming and costly process. It may well be with the uncertainty of future developments in this field Igor has sensibly given himself a degree of protection by not including it in the main PTE package. I suspect, though do not know for certain, that there may well have been some tweaks to VB included in some of the PTE upgrades during this time. I don't know enough about these things but I understand that in some products enhanced software facilities (perhaps VB) are resident in the basic package and only activated by a product key. Just a thought. Regards John P.S. I'm certain that when and if there is a major upgrade to VB we will all know about it.

Hi, I've been dipping into this topic off and on for a few days and find it quite fascinating. I am relatively new to this game. Like many people I have always owned a camera but I've only recently been finding out what all the buttons are for. I tried with a film SLR about 25 years ago but by the time I got the film back from processing I had forgotten what it was I was trying to do! Digital certainly has made the learning process much simpler so I have great respect for those who have come up through the film route. AV is my driving force. I got into this by accident. In my final years of work I found it beneficial to personalise Power Point presentations to potential clients by including photographs of their business. This then led to me using a service then being promoted by Kodak to provide CD's of film images with something called JPEGS! which I then put into PP and bored family and friends to death. The rest is obvious. However the point of this post is to say that I too have been trying to promote AV within my CC (yes I'm now an active member) to the extent that two years ago I donated a modest trophy for an AV competition which has been reasonably successful (Club membership of about 35 and about 8 “interested” AV'rs). I was quite reluctant to do this as I am not comfortable about competitions (and in particular most judges) but recognise that they (competitions not necessarily the judges) are a necessary evil! The rules that the committee have agreed to are very simple and have changed and no doubt will continue to change as things evolve. This year for instance we dropped the EXE condition as a couple of members use Apple Mac. We also abolished the time limit which had previously been 8 minutes. We let the club members judge the entries. Authors are excluded from judging any entry. Anonymity is impossible. A form is distributed to all present on the night and members are asked to award up to 5 points for each of 4 categories. This requires a bit of explanation but is built on views expressed during previous AV nights during the year. AUDIO – Is soundtrack appropriate, clear or distorted. VISUALS (Photography) – Composition, Lighting, Photographic effects, Viewpoint, Exposure, Focus, Colour Balance etc. STRUCTURE (content) – Beginning, Middle, End, Emotion, Originality etc. PRODUCTION (Presentation) – Length (Too Long / Too Short. Effects (Pan/Zoom etc.) Overdone? Titles, etc. The whole idea is to make it as easy as possible for people to become involved and it appears to be working – but I do have to do a degree of cajoling throughout the year! I like the idea of using the PTE trial software and will be giving this some thought for next year. Regards John

Hi Lin, Thanks for that. Something about looking outside the square comes to mind! Cheers John

Hi, I can't be sure if this is something that has always been the case or if it is something that has occurred during recent updates. I suspect the latter. I find that images displayed in the “Selected Directory Window” are not listed in the same order as in the folder on my hard drive (generally chronologically). This can be quite frustrating when compiling a show. Has anybody else come across this? I use the “Horizontal View” but suspect it will be the same in other views. Regards John

Mary, Patrick, I thank you for drawing my attention to the "darkness" of some of the images. I have had a play in PS with a couple of them and note that I can selectively bring out more detail in some of the shadow areas, so will pay more attention to this in the future. Mary, When I responded earlier and referred to the castle, I assumed you were referring to the second image of the castle (3rd of show) rather than the second image of show (1st of castle). I agree totally with you now that I have adjusted the shadow area - quite a significant amount of detail was lurking there! Thanks again to you all. I will continue to make adjustments where I think it possible. This was put together quite quickly throughout, in that most of the shots were taken in a hurry and that was also the case, to obvious effect, in the creation of the show in PS and PTE. Regards John