Spafford

Hello Lin ... This is a very thorough and helpful explanation; now the light begins to go on. I read through this thread the other day and wasn't completely following all that was said. In fact, I watched part of the slide show you reference above. Very nice slide show ...and I was intrigued by the 15% preload you used in your show. This seemed to work very well ...and I follow your point about simple transitions vs. more complex animation. I'm helping my brother with a project for his company ~ creating small slide shows that he will then stream on his website and the website of a national agricultural journal. Trying to think through the solution. The explanation about FLV vs. SWF is very helpful. I am assuming the ag journal has a technical team. I will try to connect with and see how they handle "flash" videos, as they probably have experience in this realm. I'll least be able to 'ask' semi-intelligent questions. Thank you again ...and Happy New Year! Kind regards, Kelly ...

Apologize for re-visiting an older thread. Read through it the other day and found it quite helpful. Question ~ take a look at the following video (found it on another website). http://www.findingjoymovie.com/ >> Can this be duplicated with PTE? >> Like the fact that the video "buffers" without starting first ~ and this is clearly 'messaged' to the customer, if you will. Again, any ideas on how they do this? >> The quality of the pictures is also very respectable I'm a newbie when it comes to streaming video ...but, this website seems to do an exceptional job of managing some of the details that were addressed in this thread (generated back in September'08). Simply trying to understand whether this same thing can be accomplished today with PTE (perhaps 5.6)? ...and, if so how? Thank you, Kelly ....

A couple of other comments. We just finished creating a very elaborate slide-show for my mother's 70th brithday. We did voice-over w/music, using about 90+ audio sound bites. Many of the audio clips were recorded with the Roland Edirol R-09 Digital Recorder; which we borrowed from a friend. He uses it semi-professionally, if you will, to record off-site recordings for our church (e.g. Bible Studies). These are then posted on the churche's website for many to access. The quality is very good. We were quite pleased with the results. Also, in terms of the voice-overs you may want to consider Goldwave with a "voice-over" pplug-in. We had planned to use Audacity, until we were introduced to Goldwave. The voice-over plug-in worked very well. I cannot imagine trying to do the voice-overs manually, if you will, on over 90 audio clips. See the following: http://www.goldwave.com/plugins.php Kelly ...

Hello Al and Colin ... Thank you for your help. If I can, may I ask a couple of follow-up questions: >> The slide show is a story of my mom's life, and will be filled with ~ 90 minutes of audio clips from her children (4), grandchildren (~20), my dad and her sisters (2) Audio Clips = Expressions of love, honor and memories Typically, I would not remotely entertain a 105 minute slide show ~ will the audio clips make it more tolerable? If I were to use a menu, to break it up, would that hinder the flow of the slide show? Is menu fairly "easy" to do? We're runnig out of learning time I think it will be fairly emotional for my mom, so don't want the slide show to become sluggish and/or too broken up. Given that we're racing against the clock would value your perspective, as we don't have a lot of time for experiments, etc. We (more acurately, my son) has done many slides shows, typically 5-15 minutes; capturing memories of our vacations and times as a family. ...but, nothing that remotely approaches this magnitude. Thank you, again. Kelly ....

Hello ... Need some help completing a slide show for my mom's 70th Birthday. We're down to a week and half, so this is becoming a bit of a white-knuckle exercise. Slide Show stats (so far): Over 650 pictures, 83 audio sound bites of memories from family members and ~90 minutes in length. At any rate, here's our latest puzzlement ...actually three puzzlements: >> When we changed the slide duration time, it reset all my customized slides. Why? >> Why can't we play the slide show in the time-line window? Why? >> Any ideas on how to gracefully increase the length of slide show? We need it to be ~ 105 minutes o We're currently at 8.5 seconds/slide Thank you very much, Kelly .... PS. We're using Pictures-to-Exe 5.0

Hello ... My family and I are in the midst of making a fairly elaborate (and hopefully special) slide show for my mom's 70th birthday in November. We plan to use a Digital Projector to show it to her and the rest of the family (on Thanksgiving Day). Question #1 ~ How dramatic will the difference in the viewing experience be if I use a HD Digital Projector {e.g. Optoma HD70 Projector} vs. a standard 1024 x 786 Projector. I have access to a 1024 Projector, but would have to purchase the HD Projector. I want this to be special for my mom, but am trying to weigh the value of purchasing a projector (vs. borrowing one ~ specifically a 1024 x 786). Question #2 ~ If I use the HD Projector {720p}, what would be the optimum image size of my pictures? Thank you for your insights/perspectives! Kind regards, Kelly ....