JEB

Yachtsman1, I have had a look at my SX50 User Manual and came across a number of user settable options that may have a bearing on your issue. I couldn't see anything about Frame Lock but on pgs 56/7 they talk about Input Signal Type. Apart from NTSC, PAL, SECAM, NTSC4.43, PAL-M & PAL-N you can also select 1080i, 1035i, 720p, 575p, 480p, 575i & 480i. I have no idea what the last group are but perhaps they have some relevance as they suggest that "when images from AV equipment is not projected correctly (irregular colour or no image), you can select an input signal manually". Pg 53 offers - Adjusting the Tracking when the projected image flickers due to a tracking error. Hope this is of use. Regards John

Hi, I have just completed a 40 minute documentary PTE show which used 450 images a commentary compiled from 23 Voice clips, 9 music tracks and 2 sound effect tracks. I used Audition to create, firstly, a voice track and then a separate music track before mixing both down to one track for PTE. I adopted this approach to give myself a degree of flexibility when synchronizing with the slides in PTE. I do the initial synchronizing by running the PTE show without sound on one PC and the soundtrack on another PC alongside. A degree of ambidextrous skill is required!! This is not the first time I have done this sort of job but no way would I call myself an expert. I have to say I am 100% with Peter on this. I don't keep a record of the time I spend as I do this for pleasure (I think) but I suspect that the audio aspect of this project must have represented about 50% of the total time and 99% of the frustration. Regards John

Good morning all, I don't know how relevant this is but as I have been following this thread for its duration, as our CC may be purchasing a new projector in the near future the following may be of interest. I have a Canon SX50 and an HP laptop with a nVIDEA 7600 graphics chip which I am very happy with. Normally when giving AV presentations at the club I use my own kit. Last night I used the club's desktop which is a much higher spect. m/c than mine but with my SX50 rather than the club's ageing projector. I prefer to project with the PC screen off and had set the desktop to that mode. What I found was I could NOT ESCAPE from a PTE show using the ESC key on the keyboard of the desktop as I can from my laptop. (Just double checked this morning). This may be relevant to what you are saying Peter. Regards John

Hi, I understand what you are getting at now. My fault for not reading your post correctly. I don't know if I can give you an accurate answer for this as this would be for Igor to give a reason for the present situation. However some people work with many objects which if thumbnails were used would be counter productive as presumably they would have to be of a size whereby they could be reccognised. I guess that is the main reason. However, some of us, and I count myself as one of them usually only use 3 or 4 objects so this idea could be a good option but wheather it justifies writing this into the priogram is another matter. Remember you can change the name of the object within PTE to make it more meaningful. This is something I do most of the time. Regards John

Hi, I'm not sure I understand your issue. Perhaps you are using the Classic View option rather than either the Horizontal or Vertical Views. They can be found under the View Tab at the top of your screen. John

Hi, I have an H2, purchased quite recently after reading posts on this forum and am vedry pleased with it. I only use it for voice recording in a controlled environment. Havn't used it outside as yet. I had tried a number of mics including USB linked to PC and laptop but was very dissapointed with the results. For me the H2 is superb. Regards John

Hi, I had a look at this post several days ago and downloaded the test PTE show meaning to run it on my set up which is a Canon SX50 and HP Pavilion with a GeForce Go 7600 which has 256 MB. Only this afternoon have I had a chance to run the show. I ran it three times and took notes only on the 2,3 runs. All I detected were minor blips on some of the pans 4 on the 2nd and 6 on the 3rd run. I have to say these were MINOR. I suspect most people would probably not notice unless asked to look for them. I did NOT get the problem you were describing. By blip I mean a VERY SLIGHT stutter. I should also say that these occurrances did not happen on the same slide on these two runs. Hope this is of help. I trust this is still relevant as I have not read the progress on this topic since I downloaded. It all looks a bit techie and daunting to me!!!! Regards John

Hi, Like Yachtsman1, I also have a number of MG CD's. However I find that I don't use them very often as I'm afraid they are all very similar with little variety so I have recently purchased a licence which has given me considerable freedom of choice. John

Lin, I appreciate your explanation, below, as this is a constant irritation to me and I suspect others. "The fonts are often rasterized to PNG (your choice) and they are not embedded. Size can be made uniform by observing the "zoom" numbers for the text object. For technical reasons it's difficult to use a fixed size font. One of the problems is that different computers have different installed fonts, thus the reason for having PNG rasterizing which makes the actual font a "picture" of a font and thus not amenable to precise sizes except via the zoom factor. It is less convenient in some ways than having a numeric association or font "size," but infinitely more flexible." Even though I am not technical I accept that there must be limits to what we should expect from PTE and that there has to be a degree of compromise. I understand the reasoning of using PNG files and am happy with that. I think I understand the "different fonts" implications. However as I see it the major benefit of some sort of number method to standardise the size of a font at the creation stage would be of great help to those of us who use titles intermittently throughout our shows. Once selected and rasterized the number used to select the font size on my computer is surely irrelevant to any other PC. Using the method of inputting the zoom numbers or indeed copying and pasting are time consuming. Regards John

Igor, That's very encouraging news. I'm sure everybody appreciates that you have shared this news with us and so promptly, particularly those of us who have been fortunate enough in not having had to make the move to Vista. I for one put a great deal of faith in this wonderful Forum led by you and your colleagues and of course the input from a number of leading members, whom I will not mention by name, in case I miss someone - but we all know who they are. Perhaps MS have at last got it right!!! Here's hoping. Regards John

Ken, Very interesting reading! John

Hi, From what I have been reading in the press recently it looks like Windows 7 is getting closer to release. My understanding is that it is being released in a Beta form imminently and that it is projected for general release early in 2010. I would appreciate confirmation of my understanding of the significance of Windows 7 from those of you who are close to this topic. In layman terms, I understand that it is not just a simple evolution from Vista but should be, what Vista was intended to be but failed to live up to. If this is a reasonable analysis then presumably those of us who have stuck with XP should hang on for another year, or more realistically, two years before upgrading our hardware. I believe that 7 will be less memory demanding than Vista so surely this is also good news, though no doubt our beloved Microsoft and PC manufacturers will cook up some other reason for us to have to purchase new kit in order to run the software. This will also, as I see it, have an impact on the decision as to whether or not (or perhaps more realistically - when) to upgrade to Service Pack 3. Views and opinions on how this will impact on PTE and of course Photoshop, which is presumably the most important other product used by a large proportion of our community, would be interesting. Regards John

Dave, I'm with you on this. "time for re-grouping, consolidating and making what we already have more intuitive" John

Igor, + After switching between Slides list and Timeline modes the program adjusts scrollbar position to make visible selected slide. WONDERFUL, FANTASTIC It must be Christmas!!!! Thank you, John

Hi, For what it’s worth I too have had the same problem on two occasions recently. On each occasion PTE turned out to be correct and I wrong. However, I found that after deleting the offending image (file) I found that I had to save and CLOSE PTE before reopening it and selecting the correct image. As I have stated elsewhere it is odd that PTE tells you the path but NOT the SLIDE NUMBER. Very annoying! Hope you get is sorted out soon. John P.S. No substitute for following the rules as stated by Peter but........./

Ken, LumenLux, I saw Ken's post late last night, slept on it, as I suspected what you, LumenLux, said was likely to be the case. I was going to look, reluctantly, at the template option this morning but have decided to let that pass as I actually much prefer the zip option in any event. I do try to keep a file discipline, however on this occasion I am working with many hundreds of images from seven different people (cameras) and as you say "when the creative juices are flowing" you get carried away. The bit about "creative juices" has done my ego no harm - it's set me up for the day! Hopefully Igor will take note! Regards John

Igor, Just a small point but something that I guess would be relatively simple to implement and could save much time and frustration at a period of HIGH tension! When backing up to zip recently, PTE gave me a couple of warnings that I had used “two or more files with the same names, but located in different folders”. Great! My fault, I admit that, but easily done when working on large complicated shows. The warning directed me to the locations of these files on my PC - but not on which slide they were being used. Fortunately on this occasion I was able to guess where to look (as objects on certain rather complicated slides). If it can so easily do the former can it not also tell in which slides to look? May not be as simple as I think but if it is it could be worth implementing at some point. Regards John

Igor, That's correct, only since using 5.6 Beta. Can't even specify which one as I have been using most of them fas they have come available. It has only happened at the most three times. Regards John

Hi, I received the attached Error Report while working with the mini player and navigating within the timeline. The programme froze and would not respond. I have had similar problems once or twice recently though not an error message. I have been using the new Betas as they have been issued so can't say in which version I had these previous occurrences. Hope I've posted this in the correct place. John

Hi, I too had been frustrated by this action. However, I wonder why we have the option to switch Type 1 & 2 off. If it is simply to work around a problem then it actually creates another problem. With both turned off you have now idea which slide NUMBER you are viewing at any time. You know the slide file name and size from the bar along the bottom. A box indicating the SLIDE NUMBER would resolve this issue. Peter, with Type 1 the cursor moves from left to right and jumps back to the left when it reaches the end of the line and with Type 2 the cursor stays in the centre and the slides move from right to left (or is it left to right?). The point is that when switched off the slides remain static and the cursor moves off the right hand side and goes walk-about and you have no idea where it is! Thanks both for clarifying this for me. Hopefully Igor will pick up on this and perhaps offer an explanation in case I am still missing something. Regards John

Brian, Yachtman1, Thank you both for your interest and advice. The picture you attach Brian is the 75W version of the 175W version I was quoting above. In my total ignorance I thought the higher the number the better!!! I think perhaps it was your posting (certainly picture) that I was looking for from an earlier date. Yachtsman1, I take it you are basically in agreement with Brian as it has a 3 pin plug and I have stated to Maplin what my intended use is. I have e-mailed Maplin asking them to confirm the requirements identified by Brian and await their response. Thanks again. I will advise you when I hear from Maplin. John

Thanks Ken but Yachtsman1 has put me on the right track. I was not able to trace this on the Forum but after a search for "invertor" on the WWW I found on Maplin's web site what definitely appeared some months ago here, together with a picture, the following. 175W Micro Invertor * Provides AC 230V mains from your DC 12V cigarette lighter socket * Maximum of 175 watts of power for 5 minutes and 140 watts of power continuously, with 280 watts surge capacity * Angle adjustable DC lighter plug for versatility - compact size makes it easy to store in the glove box Only £29.99 I don't know about these things but I think I recall from that discussion that 140 watts is sufficient for a lap top. Any advice on this would be appreciated. I don't intend running an electric fire through it!! Regards John

Hi, I have been searching, unsuccessfully, for a post from about 3 months ago in which somebody mentioned adaptors to allow a laptop to be run from a car cigarette lighter. Can somebody point me in the right direction please? Thanks in anticipation! John

For what it's worth I also agree. Also Tony Falla's post relates to this. Let's have a fix please (or explanation if we're doing something wrong). John

Ken, Peter, You are both correct. I found it just where Peter suggested. What it appears to recognise is, if the box on the music tab within Customised slide labelled "Play new background music" is ticked then the "P" (probably why it's P) appears as you suggested. It does not appear to matter if music remains listed, it's the tick in the box that matters. This is sort of a solution for me I think, as all I would need to do is arrow through the time-line watching for a "P" to appear. It would, I think, be better if a little colour code appeared on the bottom of the relevant slide. Yachtsman1 I have found the programme and downloaded it but as you may agree it is not now necessary but thanks for reminding me of it. I will keep it should I need it in the future. Thank you all. John