KyDan

I was torn between leaving the scenery on the screen longer and trying to keep the run time manageable. You can always watch it again Thanks for your comment!

You may think watching someone else' s vacation slide show is about as much fun as watching paint dry or being stuck in an elevator with an insurance salesman but..... Just in case you are interested- in 2010 we Cruised to the Caribbean, spent spring break week at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation area in western KY, We spent a full month touring the south west with our travel trailer and motorcycle, we had a couple smaller weekend trips and wound up the year at Cumberland Gap National Historic park. So if you are sitting there with winter on your mind you can view the video and see some warm places! It is us on vacation but if you can look past our faces (and we aren't in every photo) you will see some pretty spectacular scenery. I told my wife we were going to visit every park with canyon in the name and we darned near did. 60 MEG and about 20 minutes run time. Here's the link-- http://tinyurl.com/4fczhh5 Comments welcome. Dan & Rita in Kentucky good ole USA

Another free file upload area that I use with good luck is called Dropbox.com Another suggestion, if the file is not too big to e-mail you can simply change the extension from exe to zip and tell your friend to simply change it back. You don't even have to zip it, just change the extension and it will fool the mail client into sending it.

In version 6.5 one can hold down the shift key when having the cursor over the rectangle top and side grab handles Great thanks to you both! One more if I may.... I don't suppose there is a way to set a default size for the rectangle smaller than 100 is there?

P2E deluxe ver 6.0.3 I'm building a P2E slide show and want to annotate several vacation photos. If the background is un-cluttered I just add text in a contrasting color right in the photo. If the background is too busy I add a rectangle, color it and then add text to the rectangle. I learned to do this by watching Lin's great tutorial video. THANKS again Lin! I have one question-- here's my steps-- just so we're all on the same page. With my photo in the preview window I click "objects and animation" On the right side of the screen in the "objects list" box I click a blank area so the photo is not selected. Near the top left of the screen I click the "add rectangle" icon. On the top right I click the "animation" tab Under the Zoom setting I can use the up down arrows to change the size of the rectangle. I can click the "connector" between the 2 zoom settings so I can change height and width together or separately. My question: I would like to be able to use the grab handles on the rectangle itself to drag it to the needed size. No matter what I do, the rectangle grab handles always change the size of the rectangle proportionally. I would love to be able to grab and drag rectangle width OR height separately. Can this be done?? Thanks!!

Duration and file size please??

As a "seasonal" user of PTE and these forums I was absent when this thread was started and active. My sincere condolences and apologies for the late date of this message. Can someone please post a link to the facebook page mentioned by Lin?

Not trying to beat a dead horse but here I go anyway--- How does this sound?? The PTE DELUXE license allows the purchaser to receive FREE UPDATES as long as the license is in effect. When the license expires the ONLY thing that stops working are future free updates. Software that was installed PRIOR to license expire date CONTINUE to function normally AFTER expiration. End---

OH my gosh!!! This is surely one mis-understood topic--- even by members with well over 1000 posts in this forum. I thought my question was fairly straight forward. I followed the link to Peters FAQ here-- Peter's FAQ I have extracted these lines from his post as they seem to answer my original query. What this means in practice is that your VideoBuilder key will work with its original PTE version "for life" and with any higher version installed during the life of the key. But if you upgrade PTE to a new version after the key has expired then VideoBuilder will not function fully until you have renewed your subscription by buying a further two years of key life. I believe this means that I can upgrade to the newest version of PTE DELUXE with Video Builder even up to the last day of my license. AFTER my license expires I will still have a fully functioning PTE & Video builder. Of course I know that further upgrades after the expiration of my license will require another license purchase. Thank you all for your support. I am not trying to get away without paying. I fully expect to purchase a new license and future upgrades but as I said, I am perfectly happy with what I have now and am relieved to find it will continue to function as long as I care to use it. I also thank you all for technical support in the past and future. The PTE product is GREATLY enhanced by the support available in this forum. Peace to you all.

It's me again...... I've been trying to follow the conversation above. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person. but..... Peter's post # 13 above seems to say that I will be able to upgrade within my current registration period (thru January 2012) and assuming I do not upgrade AFTER that date, I WILL BE ABLE TO BURN VIDEO within the PTE program AFTER THAT DATE. post #14 above seems to say no. I still don't get it. ALSO-- I am happy with my current version UNLESS a new upgrade will allow me to include brief video AVI clips in my slide show. Does the newest upgrade include this feature? Thanks again for helping me understand this "simple" concept!!

Greetings! I may be in the minority around here. I am a fairly long time user of PTE but on a very sporadic basis. I manage to talk myself into creating about 1 slide show per year if that. These shows are purely a means of saving, compiling my vacation pictures from the previous year. Just letting you know I'm not brand new to this but sometimes the old memory fades between uses of PTE so I wind up asking the same questions. On the other hand I find myself watching my PTE shows over and over. They are so much fun and they help me remember the good times. I have version 6.0.3 It says standard upgrades free for life Deluxe upgrade free until Jan 2012 I know I can download the new version for free. It will work with all deluxe features assuming I can find my key. Here is my question-- Once I've downloaded the new version will the deluxe features stop working after January 2012?? I've always been in the dark here.... I know that after that date NEW versions will require a purchase but will my old -- DELUXE features continue or stop on that date? If I may ask another really basic question. Does the newest version allow the addition of video AVI files to my PTE show? Peace & Love! Dan D.

Very nice! I want one!! Was unable to find any reference to One Man by MusicBeyond via google.com Can you give a link?

Peter, you can mark this one SOLVED. Good job!

Very nice. I can't give any suggestions to improve it! All I can say is I was not tempted to hit Esc. Good show. Only one suggestion for you and maybe others...... Just saying you've put a show on beechbrook.com leaves me wondering if I'll be able to find it when I go there. After a few days won't your show move from the top? Will it be harder to find and download? Can you give a clickable link to the file in your introduction here?

I'm a bit fuzzy as far as new versions and license fees go. Question: If my license fee is current now and I install version 6.0 I assume it will work. What happens when my 2 years are up, assuming I don't attempt to upgrade after that time?? I guess what I'm asking is this-- If I stop paying AND stop upgrading, will the version I have continue to function after 2 years?

Ken, if I come home with one more "black box" that connects to the TV, my wife will skin me alive!!! (Just added a wireless router to my computer and Roku box to my TV yesterday!!) For now I can store my cheap DVD player in the cabinet under the big TV and pull it out for the annual "viewing of the vacations". (I left myself a note in the vacation DVD sleeve so I'll know what to do a year from now.) The old memory ain't what it used to be! We really do use our panasonic DVR on a regular basis. It's hard to beat watching your favorite program without commercials!

Thanks to you all. It's obvious that with all the options on today's electronics there is no easy answer to this display issue. I believe I have found MY answer but others may have to pursue other means. My TV is a Sharp Aquos and I've found that the "view mode" button on the remote is what I needed to fiddle with but..... the options available to me when I press that button depends on the input the TV is receiving at the time. In other words, if I'm watching a digital broadcast program my options are different than if I'm watching the same channel in analog view. (My cable TV company supplies me with both analog and digital versions of all local TV broadcast signals) So back to me trying to view my P2E DVD show.... I have a panasonic DVD/VHS recorder machine connected to my TV. It's great in that it will record digital TV shows onto re-writable DVDs. We use it all the time to record TV shows for later viewing as well as watching commercial DVD movies. (It also will easily copy old non-copy protected VHS tapes onto DVD with just the push of a button. This is great if you have old home "movies" on VHS tape.) The problem for me is that machine refuses to play a computer made DVD. I have tried DVDs burned on 3 different computers and it won't play any of them. So when I want to watch my P2E show I must pull out a little cheap $29 DVD player just for the occasion. I plugged that cheap player into the front jacks of my panasonic machine just because they were there and easy to reach. The result was a side to side stretch on my big screen TV. The "view mode" button on my Aquos TV did not give me any options that made any improvement in the stretch. So just because I wanted to cover all the bases-- just now I tried my little cheap DVD player plugged directly into the DVD input on my TV. BINGO! Now when I hit my TV "view mode" button, I am given the option for "side bars" which gives me black bars on the sides and a proper ratio on screen. My slide show is no longer stretched!! Once again you have come to my rescue and I thank you! With all the viewing options today with different screen ratios on computer and TV I doubt this issue is going to get any easier for a while!

I have a view button that toggles between zoom and stretch but it doesn't seem to make the DVD display in the correct ratio. I wonder if some DVD players might be able to change this but the one I have doesn't seem to want to help me there either.

Greetings, I know this topic was discussed recently but I'm afraid to say some of the questions and answers were a bit over my head. Also I have a slightly different question on proper display. I recently created a family slide show. I used photos that are 1600 x 1200. I have rendered a DVD of that show. When I watch it on a 42" wide screen TV with screen size of 1920 x 1080 the show is stretched extra wide to fill the screen. I can live with that. It's not extreme but if I can improve it I'd like to try. I do not care if there are black bars on the sides of the screen. In fact, I would prefer black bars with no distortion in the images. Re-sizing and cropping all my photos seems like a lot of work for me. ( I know how to batch re-size them but the ratio is not changed) Is there some setting in P2E that I can use to make the DVD display properly? Specifically in the Project Options screen tab what should my settings be for Aspect ratio of slide? Virtual size of slide? Should the box be checked for Fixed size of slide? Can someone give a beginner a very basic description of what these 3 items do for me? I know some of you regulars are probably rolling your eyes because this has been covered before! I would just experiment and try different settings and burn a DVD for each to see the results but my computer takes over 3 hours to render the show so I am hoping there is an easy answer to my needed settings and I will then try another burn. Related question-- Do the above settings need to be changed if I create an MP4 file and watch that on my HD TV via a Western Digital media player or Playstation3 console? (I don't have one of those yet, but can borrow one on occasion) Thanks for your help and patience!

Hi Don, I'm envious. My first attempt was not nearly as slick as yours. I'll just chime in to agree with some others. I found the blue water text slides somewhat distracting. I liked the title slide but on the rest I suggest a text over on the slide itself. I did this on a few of mine by simply adding the slide twice. Put text over on the 1st and then fade to the 2nd copy without the text. It allows the viewer to see what you are talking about while they read. Purely my opinion. All in all a very nice show. I may have to check out some of those sound effect credits you gave at the end!

Can you stand to read one more opinion I freely admit that my P2E useage is sporadic at best. Once spring arrives, my time spent in front of the computer is greatly reduced. Also, since I am more than a bit frugal, I try to econimize with new software where ever possible. Having said all that-- I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned the free photo editing software from Google.com called Picasa. I know it's not in the same league as Adobe Photo shop but it will allow cropping, re-sizing and some photo editing. It's very simple to batch re-size an entire folder of images. For my most recent photo show I re-sized the images mostly for file size so the resultant exe file would be more "downloadable". I experimented and found that I could reduce my original photos from 2272 x 1704 @ around 1 Meg down to 1200 x 900 @ around .1 Meg (100 k) with only slight mottling visible in the blue sky shots. For now at least, I'm using Google picasa. It's got a fairly easy learning curve and you can't complain about the price! My 2¢

Wow, (blush, shuffle, shuffle) aw shucks...... I feel like I was sitting along the street playing my guitar and Bruce Springsteen walked by and said "you sound pretty good". One final comment and I'll shut up. My dear old Dad (who died nearly 30 years ago) took many reels of 8 MM home movies. If he was filming at home he would spend lots of footage and be sure to include ALL my aunts and uncles and grandparents, cousins etc. BUT HE was almost never included. He just about never handed the camera to someone else. I have nearly 2 hours of old movies from the 40s, 50s and 60s and my dad is found in there about 8 seconds. Also, when he was on vacation he would spend long minutes panning this river or that mountain and very little of the people who where there with him. The river or mountain most likely looks the same today but it's the people we are interested in when we watch those old movies. I try to keep this in mind when I'm taking photos of our vacations. I think maybe I include my wife and myself too often but I hope my children will appreciate the mix 20, 30 years from now when I'm gone. This brings up a totally different subject-- what media will be available in 30 years. Will they be able to view a DVD burned in 2010? Don't answer that in this thread but it might be worthy of a new discussion. Peace and many thanks to you all.

Mark, I enjoyed your Yellowstone show very much. Narration was good and appreciated. I do have to take one small exception to your comment that Yellowstone in summer is clogged and the roads blocked by double wides. Yes it's a busy place in the warm season but we visited there in late June 2005 and found the roads quite passable daily and while parking lots at major attractions were near capacity, we were always able to find a spot to park. We also found that with just a bit of hiking we could escape much of the hustle and bustle. Many visitors are either unable or unwilling to venture more than a short distance from their cars. Again, the photos and show were very nice to watch. Thanks for sharing!

Davy, point taken. Next time I'll let the last song play to it's end. Dan

No I didn't thanks!! I tried to hit my "pause/break" key and that didn't stop it.