Lin Evans

Gary, Listen carefully - Link all audio you want to move to slide one then drag the first audio clip linked in the timeline and the others will move with it.... You are overthinking this... It will do exactly what you want to do. Lin

Hi Gary, You asked if there was a way: "So let me try again. Is there a way to highlight a group of audio clips in their track and then move the highlighted group as one group?" The answer is yes. As I said, you should not even try to do this from the timeline. It's exceedingly easy to do. I can move seventeen or twelve or three or whatever number in less than 20 seconds. Click once to highlight the clip, click again to link it to slide one. Click, click, click, click. It's not difficult unless you make it difficult. Put your suggestion in the Suggestions for Next Version section of the forum and I'm sure it will be considered. Best regards, Lin

Barry, To survive in a changing market, a product must serve both the existing base and the future base. The worldwide market for video and animation is growing exponentially while the market for still frame audio visual presentations is diminishing. I can only speak for the market potential for a presentation product here in the US with which I am quite familiar, but in order to grow, when you essentially "own" the relevant level of AV market in the UK and most of Europe, other markets are very important. In the US there essentially is no market for the same purposes as PTE is used in the UK and Europe. So to gain market share here, features are required which that market requires. To be fair to Wnsoft, supporters must get beyond their own personal interest. I realize that you and most of the users of PTE in the UK and perhaps Australia as well have little or no consuming interest in video and animation so those features are of less importance. I understand this very well. PTE must be easy to use and be able to allow the user to create, as Robert so accurately said, an attractive AV in a half hour. This is paramount. Without this type capability the product will simply not sell to the existing AV market and without a tool which has this capability, there will be fewer people attracted to AV oriented clubs, etc. To give us the features which we want for AV purposes, there must be sufficient income from sales.To continue to produce PTE and keep Wnsoft viable, the product must expand into alternative lucrative markets. Both existing and new markets must be served. It's really that simple. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Go to Projects Options, Audio Tab and link each that you wish to move as a group to slide one (don't try to do it from the timeline) then when you drag the first audio in the timeline from the beginning the others will be attached and not overlap or change their relative positions vis the other audios. There really is no downside to doing this that I can think of. Best regards, Lin

Hi Roger, On the main page of PTE. Left click on the little blue arrow by Comment then click on "Insert Text Template" and you will have a drop down menu with the items which may be inserted automatically via the EXIF and Metadata including available IPTC data. The content of any of the fields you find when you further mouse over EXIF or IPTC can be selected. The data in those fields chosen will be automatically extracted. Other than these fields, no other data is available. Roger, since different camera companies slightliy modify the terms and since different software sometimes uses marginally different terms for these data, I would suggest filling in all IPTC and user available fields in Lightroom on a test file with the actual name Lightroom provides as the descriptive term. Then call all the available fields on a test image where they have been filled and you will then be able to determine exactly which fields are being extracted by PTE under which relevant title. For example, PTE calls an IPTC datum field called "Author Title" which "may" or may not be the same field LIghtroom describes as "Title" - by doing the above you can determine which is which. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bert, Sounds like you essentially know how to put the two images on the screen, you just need to understand how to place a black stripe between them? There are several ways you could go about this. Of course you could create a PNG file consisting of a stripe of black and just insert it into your image and position it between the two main images. I'll make one for you if you like - it's a very easy thing to do. The other way is to use the rectangle and you could copy/paste it into as many sequences of slides as needed. The way you do this is to create a solid rectangle - black in your case. Go to Objects and Animations.and click on the Properties Tab. Make sure nothing is selected in the objects list (click mouse outside of all objects) Right click and choose Add, then Rectangle. Change Fill Mode to "Solid" and choose black for your color. This will place a solid black rectangle which will cover everything on your screen. Next click on the Animations tab. Now click on the word Rectangle in the Objects List to select it. Look at the Zoom block which will say 100% on both the right and left sides. In the middle, between the two values of 100% there is a small square which looks like a window. Click this square and it will change to look like a button. What you have done is to separate the two values so you can change either of the 100% zoom values. Click on the little "down arrow" beside the word "Zoom" on the left as you view the screen. Hold down the left mouse button and observe that the rectangle eventually becomes a line. When you have it the size that you like as a separator for your two images, Move it into the desired position by using the Pan value (the Pan control on the left as you look at the screen). Now you can simply copy this new rectangle by selecting it in the Objects List and right clicking and choose copy and apply it to any subsequent slides, paste it to the Objects list (be certain nothing is selected there - you don't want it to become a child of some other object) and adjust the pan value to place it where you wish. Best regards, Lin

Hi Andreas, By now you have probably discovered that the 32 bit limitation (PTE is presently a 32 bit software) does indeed impose a limit on executable size which is around 2 gigabytes. Since 4K is actually 8 megapixel, there is no advantage for each and every one of your slides to be at a 14 megapixel size (14,155, 776 pixels). Only slides which have a zoom in to 1:1 size will be improved by using the full pixel matrix dimension resolution. If you resize them all to 8 megapixel and use compression equalling Photoshop 8, you may be able to get the show down sufficiently in size to fit into the 2 gigabyte limitation. If particular slides have a deep zoom-in, then use the full resolution for only those slides. In the future, PTE will be a 64 bit software and this limitation will be changed dramatically, but for now to stay under the 2 gigabyte executable file size imposed by 32 bit limitations and still provide for 4K resolution, just make resized copies in a separate folder with identical file names, and direct PTE to open the show there and everything should work fine. Best regards, Lin

Hey Barry, I had to look up the meaning of "digestive biscuit" - a term I had never heard. Apparently it translates to "cookie" here in the states. I agree - if PTE could make us an Espresso and a digestive biscuit, that would be "icing on the cake" - What do you say, Igor? Can it do that? LOL Best regards, Lin

Hi guys, Even more reasons why the future of PTE depends on the combination of event photographers and young people who are very interested in special effects. In the world there are those who "do" and those who "watch." The watchers out number the doers by a huge percentage. Products like PicturesToExe have to be oriented toward those who do. Event photographers create presentations for various audience. They create video and still images for clients (wedding photographers, etc.) and for audiences. For example - many years ago I was the official photographer for the 10th Annual UFO Congress in Laughlin, Nevada, a week-long event attended by hundreds. My job was not only to photograph the speakers but also to create candid photos of the crowd in attendance which were displayed in a continuous running format on a large projection display. My show was made with a very early version of PicturesToExe and the running show was stopped just long enough for me to add additional images, compile the executable and start it back up. I created CD's for the show producers to market to those in attendance and it was well received. Older people who make up the bulk of camera clubs, in general are not particularly astute when it comes to computer literacy. Things must be kept simple or they simply will not bother with it. For the most part, they are not the future for this product. Younger people grew up with computers, cell phones with cameras, video games, fairly complex software and no fear of swimming in these waters. These young people are highly enamored with video, animation and even effects. They will become tomorrow's user of presentation products, but the simple show which tells a meaningful story with images and audio which we who use PTE for AV purposes love, is not going to impress them. The event photographer must capture the attention of his/her audience and must do it fairly quickly. Time is money for them so transition effects and "styles" are paramount. A competitive product must then be able to allow them to quickly create a fairly flashy show to sell to their client. This is why the competition has been so successful. As mentioned many times before, the competition's income stream is probably as great from their sales of styles as from their main products. To survive and compete, PTE must offer these features and must actively market to the younger generation. To become THE product in the minds of tomorrow's market, the product must become embedded in their vocabulary today. There will probably always be a small market consisting of the true audio/visual enthusiast derived from camera clubs and competitions, but this will not sustain growth for the company. Exploring new markets is paramount and I can't stress enough the importance of video in this equation. No, PTE should not become a "video only" oriented product, but video and special effects and even more importantly, features giving the user the ability to incorporate their artistic creations in their presentations must constitute a significant part of the product. Teaching people to use the product can also become a viable profit center. The competition hires professional wedding photographers to attend electronic shows and demonstrate their product. They were at nearly every COMDEX show I've attended and have seminars across the country. Of course there are no more COMDEX shows, but PMA, Photokina and other such photography related events must have representatives for PTE in attendance and having a small booth with demonstrations would go a very long way toward promoting this product and making it one of the first in the minds of professionals who are the first-line market prospects. These type marketing efforts have made the names of the competition's products an everyday household word among event photographers in the US. That must happen with PTE if it is to become a successful competitor in this country. Best regards, Lin

We're all just dreaming Igor - nobody really expects to have all the desired "features" quickly. It's lots of work and you and the crew have done an incredible job already of giving everyone the best tool available for presentation shows! We truly appreciate it and love what is now already possible with PicturesToExe!! Best regards, Lin

Wouldn't it be nice if all this could just be done in your text editor, copied and pasted directly into PTE complete with formatting, fonts, etc., without having to do the conversions then if a mistake is found, rework it all? I think that feature would be very useful, especially if there is a great deal of text. Best regards, Lin

Hi JT, Perhaps both. Proportional to the amount of new business users vis desired growth, and exponentially regarding the present user base size. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Because of your recommendation long ago, I use Atlantis myself and find it to be not only a genuine value, but a truly good editor. But when I carefully craft text to be copied and pasted into PTE, with the exception of spell correction it's all for naught. Just a single long string of text is entered and then the painstaking job of putting in line breaks and such begins. One little mistake and you start all over. To be a viable tool for business, where text is at least as important as images, PTE really needs the ability to word wrap, accept at least the fundamentals such as the editor on the forum. Then it would, in my opinion, open up an entirely new market as a competitor for PowerPoint. With only a small portion of this worldwide market, PTE would increase sales logarithmically. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dieter, In the User Guide here: http://docs.picturestoexe.com/en/techniques/addvid2 Scroll down and see: "Playing a video over multiple slides" Best regards, Lin

I'm sort of the opinion that we don't really need a "spell checker" - what we need is programable line wrap and the ability to have multiple fonts in the same text object. . The really difficult thing about entering anything other than a few words in PTE is that when it's copied from Microsoft Word or other text editor, everything ends up in a single gigantic string. The the user has to first decide which font they want, even though they have carefully chosen the font underlines, bold, italic, etc., in their word processing software. Then how large they want the text to appear, choose a font and then begin the terribly slow and manual process of manually entering line breaks. When text is numerous, it adds literally HOURS of work to get it all correct. The spell checking can be done with the very powerful tools in the text editor, but to get it to look right in PTE is a monumental undertaking. I think having text line wrap and the ability to use the fonts already chosen along with subscript, superscript, italics, bold, underline strike through, etc., derived from the document copied and pasted would make PTE a much more viable tool to the business environment. It's just way too difficult to deal with text in PTE. To put a single word in bold or italics or underlined, for example, one has to create a second or multiple text objects and insert it (them) in the proper place within the first. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, It was a 22 year old girl who was jumping when the bungee cord broke - she ended up in the river, but wasn't badly injured. Actually, the operators of the jump have invited her back for another free jump and she may do it from the last I heard of the situation. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/01/woman-survives-plunge-after-bungee-line-snaps-video/ No, the cords are not the same length for all jumps. The last jumpers at the Royal Gorge had an 800 foot fall. The actual height of the bridge floor to the Arkansas River at normal flow height is 1053 feet according to the most accurate measurements but has been variously quoted at 955 feet and 1053 feet so even assuming the lesser of the heights, the 800 foot fall had 155 feet to spare. I've been to the Royal Gorge Bridge literally a hundred or more times. The Bungee jump isn't a public available thing like it was at Victoria. Only a few jumpers have been licensed to jump there. Last year a terrible fire destroyed a lot of the surrounding structures and took out over 30 of the wooden planks which make up the bridge floor. When I first began going to the Bridge back in the 50's anyone could drive across it in their own vehicles which we did several times. Later they only allowed foot traffic and now they have "tour" vehicles which take people across. The structures are being repaired, and everything "should" be back in opperation by the middle of this month or at least by early October. There is great zip line at the canyon - that's a real treat - one of them is over 1700 feet long and there are a total of 20 zip lines. Here's a link for more info: http://www.royalgorgerafting.net/colorado-rafting-trips.php#ZL?_oskwdid=13272474&_engineadid=37085544096 Best regards, Lin

Hi Guys, Today, the retrieval process doesn't usually involve a second person being lowered down. There are several methods. If the waters are amenable, a boat on the river allows the jumper to be gently lowered into it and the crew removes the bungee and it's hoisted back up. The harness and such is returned later via the crew. If the river is not amenable to this, the person is simply winched back up and when they reach the jump point are pulled in and turned upright by the jump crew. In some cases they right themselves depending on the equipment so that they can return to the jump point in the upright position. Here in Colorado we have one of the highest bungee jumps in the world at the Royal Gorge Bridge.http://10mosttoday.com/10-highest-bungee-jumps-in-the-world/ Best regards. :om

Actually, I don't believe it would "hurt" PTE at all to have this feature. The competition has a plethora of "input formats" of which many (most?) are absolutely obsolete or never used by anyone and it's just more marketing fodder for them. Having additional output formats including BluRay would be a big plus for PTE advertising and having a viable "player" would actually be a very useful one. Best regards, Lin

YouTube "converts" all videos uploaded to their own formats but doesn't convert all video sizes correctly. If you stick with wide format HD sizes such as 1280x720 or 1920x1080 or if you use 1024x768 or 640x480 you will usually get a video which gives you the correct image without clipping off the top or bottom. Unfortunately when you go to other aspect ratios it sometimes isn't compatible with their conversion process. I tend to use 1280x720 myself because I use a significant amount of animation which generally doesn't do well on YouTube at full 1080P. If I have a show which I want to fit the 3:2 or 4:3 aspect ratio display, I generally use 1024x768 in my own mp4 to upload. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, Suggestion in your email.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Claudio, That's great! We all learn new things about PTE every day I think.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Claudio, I don't see that behavior on my systems. Do you have "Scale Keyframes in Objects (on time change)" checked under slide options? If you have a slide with this checked and change the slide time, all objects associated keyframes will change relative to the new slide time. For example, if the keyframe for an object on a slide duration of seven seconds is set to a position near the end of the slide display time and you double the slide time to fourteen seconds, that keyframe will be repositioned near the end of the fourteen second slide. If this feature is not checked and the slide time is changed, the keyframe will remain at the precise time it was in relative to the beginning or zero time for this particular slide. If you could provide a sample PTE file where this happens perhaps we can sort it out. Best regards, Lin

HI Folks, As many of you probably know, Wnsoft has an official FaceBook page and we also have a FaceBook Group which as of right now is a Closed group. There are three types of groups, Secret, Closed and Public. The differences are seen below: We are in the process of deciding whether to make the group Public. The advantage is wider publicity, the disadvantage is that spammers and posters who push pornography have become a problem with some of the PTE's competition's public groups and it becomes a task for the administrators to keep up. Hopefully this wouldn't happen to a PTE group, but it has happened to several of our competition's FB groups so it is a consideration. If we have a sufficient number of administrators to keep up with policing the posts, deleting offending posts and banning those who abuse the privilege of posting to an open group. One person can't really keep up with it so if we go Public with the first group, then we will need to add volunteer administrators from different time zones to keep things tidy. The purposes of having groups are multiple. First, we can discuss things about PTE and other software, post links to our shows as well as links to the official FB page and to Wnsoft and the more people who join the group, the wider the publicity for PicturesToExe. We want to invite all users of FaceBook to please join the present group and when you do, please add your entire complement of FB Friends as group members. Even if they are not PTE users, if you add them they will become aware of PTE and perhaps get excited about using it. If they choose not to want to be in the PTE group, it's very easy for them to opt out and leave. There is no reason why we can't also have regional FaceBook groups. We could have a group for the UK, a group for the USA, a group for Europe or specific countries, a group for Russia, for China, for South America, etc. We might want to have a PTE Animation group, a PTE Style and transition Creation group and so on. The more groups we create, within reason, the wider the publicity for PicturesToExe and the better for Wnsoft which needs to grow the user base to continue to provide new upgrades and new features. There are many, many thousands of users in groups for the competition, so let's get going on this and see if we can give PTE a big boost!!! Here's a link to out current Closed group, just request to be a member and I will immediately approve it as soon as I see the request. https://www.facebook.com/groups/picturestoexefans/ Best regards,Lin

Hi Bert, And here is the original when she was just a child herself.... Best regards, Lin

I'd bring her an apple any day! L