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Pete & Lin, Not sure what you mean by "other key". If you have already installed a fully-licensed version of PTE on both computers then you should not have any further problems. If you mean that you want to upgrade from an earlier, and licensed, version of PTE to v5.52 the just run the software install. PTE v5.52 will find the key from the previous version and will use that. Hope this helps. regards, Peter

DaveG, Are you hinting that Umberto's problem may be Vista related? I think you could be right. I'm hoping to do some tests later on today. regards Peter

Tom, Seems to be a response problem on the Internet/MediaFire tonight. I'm getting download speeds of 25-30KB/sec where I usually see 200-250KB/sec. I'll try again tomorrow sometime. regards, Peter

The following is taken from the Licence.txt file for v5.52: " One registration key allows to use PicturesToExe: - For one PC only (for any number of users). - Or for one user only who has two PCs (home PC and laptop, for example). In other cases you have to buy two or more registration keys." I was in error in my previous post. Regards, Peter

Pete & Lin/Yachtsman1, I also believe that your PTE licence allows you to install on up to three computers used by members of the same household. regards, Peter

Umbeerto, In me you have a very strong and vocal supporter of the need to have this "switch" as an option in a future release. Earlier this year I built a sequence that was made up of spinning wheels (It was called "Kaleidoscope" and was posted in the sequences part of the forum). Each wheel was made up of four rings. Each ring was made up of twelve objects. Including the parent frames on which the objects were placed, a total of 52 objects per wheel. On one slide I dearly wanted to fade in twelve of these wheels, one after the other. I would have had to program at least 1248 keyframes to achieve what I wanted. If a parent's opacity could be passed on to (inherited by) its children then I would have had to program only 24 keyframes. I don't want to force opacity to be inherited all the time. I understand - and use - the flexibility that the present situation gives us. I just want to be able, for a particular parent, to declare that all the children of this parent inherit the parent's opacity. regards, Peter

Hi Gary, I think I understand where you're coming from, as they say. I've never really tried to use "Auto Spread.." or "Arrange All Points" except to understand questions posed by others (such as yourself). I need to spend a little more time doing some experimentation to improve my understanding. I'll be back later this week. regards, Peter

DaveG, I was somewhat remiss in my earlier post in not making it clear that I was working in WAV files all the time. The only time I export as MP3 is when I'm satisfied that the soundtrack file is exactly as I want it for the final form of the sequence. regards, Peter

John & John, I, too, would like to see further improvement to the user interface. I think a good approach would be if Igor and his team were to alternate between adding new "fancy" features in one release then, while we get to grips with those new features, in the next version produce a revision of the user interface with only very limited new function. (A bit like he did with v5.0 - massive new function in O&A - followed by v5.5 - limited new function but a major rework of the user interface). But, like you, I'll just have to wait and see what is in v5.6. For all we know there might be some improvements to the user interface. Patience has to be the name of the game, I think. regards, Peter

Gary, What is "synchronization" about if not about working with both the images and the audio at the same time? If you have no audio you have nothing to "synchronize" against. Don't be frightened by the Timeline. It's just a different way of showing your sequence details. The Slide List shows you your images in the order that you have chosen; but it gives no indication at all about how those images are laid out along a timeline. The Timeline view shows you how your images are laid out along the timeline; but gives you no idea what each image looks like - unless you click on one of the numbered "flags", at which point you see that image in the mini-player. There is so much information that we need to see about our images, soundtrack, timings, transition effects, objects, animations etc. that it is impossible to fit everything into one window. We have to have a series of windows, each based upon a particular aspect of the sequence. And so we have: - Slide List - to see images - Timeline - to see timings and soundtrack waveform - O&A - to see objects and animation John's suggestion about bringing all the "audio" bits together into one place makes a lot of sense. regards, Peter

Umberto, The way I work around this is to export my soundtrack file from Audacity but give it a version number (e.g. ProjectA-ST1, then ProjectA-ST2, etc.). In this way, Audacity can always successfully write the file. And then all you need to do is go into Project Options in PTE and "Remove" your existing soundtrack file and "Add" the new one. Adopting this approach means you can always take your PTE project back to an earlier state because you have all the previous versions of your soundtrack. regards, Peter

Gary (and others), Approach things this way. Set up a simple three slide project: Black Slide, Black Slide, Black Slide. Have available another image (it doesn't matter what this image is for this little exercise). Now, select the middle black slide and go into the Objects and Animation option. Click on the "Add Frame" icon - this puts a Frame object in the object list Click on the "Add Frame" icon again - this puts a second Frame object in the list but as a child of the first Frame object Click on the "Add Image" icon and select an image (anything except the Black Slide will do) - this puts the image as a child of the second Frame Next select the newly added image and set its zoom parameters to 50% on both axes (this is just to make what happens next a little clearer to observe) Study the keyframes that currently exist. The Black Slide main image has just an origin keyframe. Each of the Frames and the added image also have just an origin keyframe. Next step is to give ourselves some time to play with: so use Customize Slide to set the duration of this slide to 12 seconds. Now select the first Frame by clicking on its name in the objects list. Insert a keyframe and set the "Keyframe Time" to 2000. Insert a second keyframe and set this one's "Keyframe Time" to 10000. Change the Rotate value on this second keyframe to be 720. Play this animation. Your image should make two complete revolutions clockwise. Next select the second Frame. Insert keyframes at 4000 and 8000. On the second of these keyframes make the zoom value 20%. Play the animation again. Now, as the image rotates it should shrink in size. You are using the outer Frame to control the rotational animation and the inner Frame to control the linear events such as Zoom, opacity and pan (we've done it with Zoom but we could have done it with either of the others). We could have programmed this animation the other way round, with rotate on the inner frame and the linear events on the outer one. The important thing is to keep the rotate and the linear on separate frames. My use of the word "linear" in this context has got nothing to do with linear and non-linear effects of Pan, zoom and rotate. I am using it simply to differentiate from the rotate action. Hope this makes sense. regards, Peter

Mark, I think you have a great idea here but I also have to agree with the others that the images change far too quickly. For what it might be worth, I sense that lurking within that sequence of yours is a much more powerful one waiting to get out. Keep the music. Keep the vertical orientation. Keep some of the images of the towers. Concentrate on the faces of the people: the shock, the horror, the dis-belief, the tiredness, the utter exhaustion. And if you really want to make it an all-American sequence, why not try Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" as your music. It carries the same melancholy, mournful mood as your current music. Whatever you do, or don't do, with this sequence - good luck with it. regards, Peter

Frank, In Project Options...Main tab try ticking both "Synchronize music and slides" and "Auto spread slides along music". This will do what you want but if you look at the sequence in the Timeline display it will appear as though the slides will extend way beyond the music or stop short of the music depending on whether you have too many or too few. If you Preview the sequence it will adjust all the timings so that they fit the music duration exactly. If you want the Timeline display to show things as they will really be then do "Arrange All Points" off the "Timed Points" button. regards, Peter

Frank, I'll draft a new FAQ to explain how to link to other posts and other threads. It will go into the November batch. regards, Peter

Eric, I wasn't suggesting that the pair of you should drop out of this thread immediately. Can I now suggest that if, at the end of your dialogue, you feel there is information that would be useful to the wider audience on the Forum, please feel free to post a summary of that dialogue here. regards, Peter

DaveG, Use your discretion as to when/if it becomes more appropriate to continue any dialogue with Eric (Yachtsman1) via PMs rather than in this thread. regards, Peter

Hi Umberto and welcome to the Forum! When you want to combine both linear events such as pan and zoom with rotation events it is best to make use of "Frames". You can add a frame to your main image by going into the Objects & Animation view and clicking on the left-most icon on the tool bar to "Add Frame". You will need two such frames plus the image that you want to pan, zoom and rotate. You need to add the frames and the image so that they have specific "parent-child" relationships as follows: - Frame1 ----Frame2 ------Image (I've had to use the minus sign to indicate the indentation that you will see via the parent-child relationships in the Objects list in the O&A window) Now programme all your rotate activity on Frame2 and all your Pan and Zoom activity on Frame1 (or the other way round, it isn't important - just keep all rotate on one frame and all linear on the other). This should keep a smooth rotation speed during all the panning and zooming. Hope this gives you the effect you are trying for. regards, Peter

Eric, If I understood the debate you had in your thread (with contributions from potwnc and DaveG amongst others), you are connecting your PC directly to the TV and are playing your exe file back directly to the TV, are you not? In other words your TV is being connected to the PC as a secondary monitor, in the same way that your digital projector connects to the PC as a secondary monitor. If my understanding is correct then what we have here is another possible topic area for an FAQ: Can I connect my PC to my TV to playback PTE sequences? I'll add it to the To Do list. regards, Peter

Colin, Many thanks for your reply. It all adds to my understanding. regards, Peter

You guys are wizards! That's fantastic! Can't wait to get my hands on v5.6. Thanks for the taster, regards, Peter

I'm posting here wearing my "FAQ Compiler's hat". Last month I posted a draft FAQ in the Tutorials section on the subject: Why is the DVD-Video picture quality poor on my TV? (See here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....showtopic=8721) That draft was compiled from material extracted from several other posts on the Forum, most notably those by Brian (Conflow) Following discussions involving both Brian and DaveG (some of which took place off-forum via an exchange of PMs), I now feel that my own knowledge and understanding is still incomplete. So I am looking for help. I understand the issues involved in selecting an image size (pixels x pixels) for a show destined to be viewed on a computer monitor or projected via a digital projector. But I am less clear about the situation with respect to image size in sequences destined for DVD burning and TV viewing. My current understanding of the DVD-TV issues is as follows: The act of preparing the images for burning to DVD will always result in the images being re-sampled to either 720x576 for a PAL system or 720x480 for an NTSC system. Three questions on that statement: Is it correct? Are those two systems the only two systems that Video-Builder supports? And if not, what pixel dimensions apply to the other systems? Would a pass through re-sampling still take place even if the original images were 720x576 (for PAL) or 720x480 (for NTSC)? And if so, would that pass make any other significant changes to the images? When the DVD-Video is played back, there will always be a re-sampling pass in order to scale the image up to the actual resolution of the TV being used? Is that correct? On both occasions that re-sampling occurs there will be, as a consequence, a loss of definition and a loss of perceived sharpness. The image will be degraded not just once but twice! Is that correct? The above statements are applicable to playback on both analogue and digital TV systems. Is that true? Hoping you can help me get my own understanding up to the mark so that I can then distil that into a revised version of the FAQ. regards, Peter

Eric, Your challenge for tomorrow is to use Audacity to combine the music, voice-over and sound effects into a sound-track file (WAV or MP3). regards, Peter

Eric, Well done! Perseverence got you there in the end. Now have a good rest before you try anything else. Your an "old dog" and you shouldn't be trying to learn all these "new tricks" all at once. Aim for one a day from now on! regards, Peter

Howard, Don't be - we're a friendly bunch! Anyone who tries to use the mic and line inputs to a PC's soundcard for voice-over recording is just asking for all sorts of noise problems. It is just not the right way to go, in my opinion. And in those two words "acceptable" and "limitations" can be found the secrets of your success. You use it for what it does well and steer clear of things that it cannot handle so well. regards, Peter