fh1805

Cor, I've just downloaded and run your "Test Chain show" - by double-clicking Reeksen.exe file. It seemed to run OK. I saw seven images each separated by a black slide: Kleurenfestival, Zeeland, Justitia, ZOO Antwerpen, Stadsfestzaal, Smog Alarm and Pauze. However, I had to use ESC key to get out of the sequence. The whole sequence set looked as though it was built for 1024x768 (4:3 aspect) and it occupied the centre of my 1280x1024 (5:4 aspect) monitor with my Windows desktop visible all around the edges. There was no flicker or other interruption to a very smooth show. Is that what you wanted to hear?

DaveG, Re slowness of site and timeouts. I've dipped in and out several times over the past two hours this morning on a broadband link without experiencing any problems. What automated background tasks are running e.g. Anti-virus updates, Windows software updates? If your machine is running in what I sometimes think of as "quiet mode" with no such events taking place than the problem is likely to be with your network supplier. Re Vista - don't believe all the horror stories you see/hear/read. I've been running two Vista machines for over six months now and haven't had any major problems. Sure, Vista has tightened up its attitude to security - to a state of paranoia at times - but it doesn't stop me doing anything that I want to. Certainly, some of my older software was rejected by Vista as being incompatible (I had to replace Photoshop Elements 3 with Photoshop Elements 5 for example). And yes, I get that annoying "flashback" to the desktop between shows when running them off a menu but Igor has previously indicated that he will fix this. But, like I found Windows XP to be - the code is stable. So go on, take the damned thing out of the box and play with it!

Hi DaveG, I've just downloaded your zip file and run your Menu.exe and everything seemed to go as expected. I didn't apply the instruction to turn off the Windows taskbar - and it was displayed. Why do I need to hide the Windows taskbar to run your sequence? I never see it when I run any of my own?

Barry, When I commented about the ending of your sequence I wasn't implying it was too long. I just felt that it seemed to come to a natural end point (the castle with the bagpipes playing) where I was expecting the credits to roll - and then it moved on into another mini-sequence. Let me try and explain it better. You started with wet vegetation (non-landscapes) accompanied by bagpipes then moved into those stunning landscapes with music and then came back to bag-pipes accompanying non-landscapes (the castle). To me, at the time, it felt as though I had seen a beginning (the wet vegetation), a middle (the landscapes) and an end (the castle) - this three section structure being further reinforced by the use of bagpipes-music-bagpipes on the soundtrack. That was the point I was trying to make in my previous post. I'm not suggesting you've got it wrong - just trying to convey to you how the viewing experience felt for me.

Barry, I wish you'd stop moving the goalposts so frequently! Just when I think I understand what I've got to do to match your latest sequence, you produce another one that has even more new techniques for me to reverse-engineer. It's just as well I like a good challenge. Like some others, I found the rain sound effect just a little too low to be effective. And I suspect that that came about because of your use of headphones to do the soundtrack mixing. The headphones mask out the interference of background noises that will be present when the sequence is listened to on PC speaker systems. (Or are you going to insist that we all wear headphones to listen to your soundtracks when watching the sequence on our PCs? - Only joking!). I also felt that the sequence has two end-points. The first, and to me the more natural one, came with the images of the castle and the re-introduction of the bagpipes into the soundtrack. At that point you had produced a sequence that had a beginning, a middle and an end - and all nicely wrapped up between two lots of bagpipes. The images of the boat on the loch seemed to me to be superfluous - but fantastic in their own right. I've heard it said several times that knowing when and how to get out of a sequence is often the hardest part of sequence building. However, this is a sequence that, as others have said above, clearly demonstates the points you've made elsewhere on forum about the quality of the images. You always get the basics right - and then go one step further to enhance them. A salutary lesson for us all! Thanks for sharing this with us.

Ron, Whilst I agree with your sentiment about the software being made for the majority, rather than tailored to the needs of any one individual, I have found the discussion about Barry's (and others) ways of working to be interesting. I don't know whether or not you've tried Barry's method, but if you haven't then can I suggest that you reserve judgement. I hadn't until I carried out the test mentioned in my post above (#152). Having tried it I can see that it could have its uses. I don't have a single way of working (as I posted elsewhere on this forum recently). To have discovered a new way of working which, I can see, could be useful and possibly quicker than any of my current techniques is the sort of thing that makes membership of this forum community so priceless. To return to the point about the direction taken by the software development: Igor has set himself a very difficult challenge - trying to satisfy as many of the, sometimes conflicting, requests that we place with him. He does an excellent job but he is constantly working under the handicap that (if I might mis-quote a great American statesman) "you can't please all of the people all of the time". Igor, you get it right more often that you get it wrong. Keep up the good work!

Barry (and others), I've just done a little test using Barry's method of working and I think I now understand what is happening to give the massive apparent length of music. Every time you do a "Cut Transition" it moves the selected slides with their durations to beyond the actual end of the music. (Fine, I don't have a problem with this!) Over a series of such "Cut Transitions" the amount of "excess time" can become considerable as has been discovered. As one then plays the music and adds the "New Transitions" the images are brought back to the desired position on the Timeline. The final image, when that is brought to its correct point on the Timeline by the final "New Transition" event, carries with it all the remaining duration including all that has been amassed via the "Cut Transition" activity. To get the proper duration for the sequence, all that is required is to Customize that final slide to have a duration that matches the actual end of the soundtrack. It would be most useful to have a Menu command or Button that allowed "Set last slide duration to end at end of music" in order to get the correct time set precisely. Note that having this as a Project Option (which was my first reaction) probably wouldn't work because it would not then allow the "Cut Transition" process to work as it does at present. But a Menu Command or a Button that can be used once all the transition points are set would then provide a quick way of synchronising the end of the last slide to the end of the soundtrack. If this solution is adopted can I suggest "SyncLast" as the button title?

Barry, If your suspicions are correct (that it is tied in with "Cut transitions" activity) then, did you do about 60 such cuts (simple maths - 500 minutes of music divided by original 8 minutes = c.60)?

John, I understand where you are coming from on this - and where you'd like Igor to help you go with it. But... To get the best effect when synchronising images to music involves more than just spreading the images out evenly along the music. The best results are achieved by carefully placing each image precisely at the natural emphases in the music. The only way to achieve this end result is, usually, to have a unique duration on each and every slide.

It is my understanding that, assuming the BAT file technique will work as desired, the user of it must remember that all aspects of the pathname and filename MUST conform to DOS's naming conventions (i.e. a maximum of 8 alphanumeric characters - A-Z, 0-9). And, on trawling through my memory banks from many years ago, I seem to recall that there was a command (CLS ?) that you could use to clear the screen of everything except what the executed programs generated. I also seem to recall that Windows95 had an MS-DOS command line interface. I don't know whether Windows XP and Windows Vista have such a feature or not. An alternative approach might be to code the show file names into a txt file (along the lines that Colin indicated above) and then read that txt file with a simple Visual Basic program that initiates each show in turn. I'm not a Visual Basic programmer so can't be sure of this. User tom95521 seems to be one of the forum's VB "experts", if he reads this thread perhaps he will clarify this point for us.

Jeff, Let me see if I can explain Barry's methodology - as I understand it. He first sorts his images into the order that he wishes them to appear by dragging them into the Slide List from the File List (and also possibly by using the "digital light box" to get them into their proper order). He then adds the music to the project. Next. he removes all the transition points from the timeline. Note that the transition points in the timeline can be processed independently of the images in the Slide List. Now he commences playing the project (i.e the music) and clicks on "New transition" at every point where he wants a slide transition to occur. Each time he clicks the button, PTE assigns the next slide in the Slide List with that particular transition point. At the end of the music the AV sequence will be properly synchronised to the musical emphases that Barry wants to use. (Or at least, he'll only have some fine tuning to do if he was a touch early or late clicking the "New transition" button any where). Barry, I hope that is the gist of what you do, even if the mechanics of how you do it might be a little off. Please correct me if I'm wrong because your methodology is one that I feel I ought to try at some point. (Andrew, Al and others: I assume your technique is similar).

Jeff, With the Timeline view active, just drag an image from the Slide Panel to wherever you want to have it inserted in the Timeline. All the other images and their transition points remain as they were - and you can then customise the transitions of the new image to suit. You no longer need to position the blue triangle to be your insertion point - just drag what you want where you want it.

Igor, I've just installed v5.5 beta 5 and can now confirm that the installation process does not carry forward the default template setting from the previous version. See thread here for a brief dialogue between The Dom and I on this subject: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8245 When the pop-up window asked me which version's settings I wanted it to copy I told it v5.5 beta 4. Last night I checked that v5.5 beta 4 was set up to use a template called "My Template". In the Templates folder I have three templates: "Auto with music", "Manual" and "My Template" (which I set up to do this testing). The installation process has connected v5.5 beta 5 to the Templates folder correctly (when I do File...Templates...Manage templates... I see the folder with all three templates present) but it has not carried forward the setting of "My Template" as my default template. It is an annoyance rather than a serious problem but I hope it is something that you can correct in your install process for the next release of PTE.

Thanks Dom, Following up your hint as to the location of the templates, I've just used Vista's Search tool and found that the templates are stored in C:/Program Data/PicturesToExe/Templates/ where Program Data is a hidden folder. I've also just ensured that v5.5-beta4 is set-up to use "My Template" as the default template. I'll check that this setting is retained when I install the next beta of v5.5. I think I might have become confused having so many active versions of PTE on my system at present (4.49, 5.1, 5.5-b1, 5.5-b2, 5.5-b3 and 5.5-b4). I need both v4.49 and v5.1 because they are the two stable versions that I use regularly. I haven't got around to uninstalling any of the betas yet but the parts that I use are so stable that I don't really need them all.

Further to my previous post... None of the beta versions of v5.5 has a Templates folder in its directory structure under C:/Program Files/WnSoft PictureToExe/. V5.1 does have a Templates folder but this folder does not contain any of my Templates. V4.49 does have a Templates folder but this folder is empty. Where does PTE store my customised templates?

Igor and team, I'm installing each beta of v5.5 as it comes out. Although I always take the option to copy forward the settings from my previous version, this does not copy forward the settings from my default template. Each time I install a v5.5 beta I have to produce a new default template. Is it possible to have the install copy the default template settings along with the other settings, please?

Jim, Glad you found my previous post on this subject. In the earlier 5.0x versions of PTE the "Wait for key press..." option wasn't there and so manual control was nigh on impossible. Igor put that option into v5.1 and everything then worked fine. Like you, I build quite a few manual sequences as well as automatic ones and until v5.1 came along I had to retain v4 to give me what I wanted. Now I have just about abandoned all use of v4. I'm currently using v5.5-b3 and have just downloaded v5.5-b4. The manual control is still there!

Ron, I've downloaded and installed beta 4 and it runs OK without a reboot. My system runs Vista Home Premium.

Brian, The features that you describe as being important to you are, I believe, all available in PTEv5. I, too, build manually controlled persentations and can definitely vouch for the following: - Forward (can be set as a response to either Left-click or Right-click on the mouse or can be called up via the Navigation bar) - Backward (can be set as a response to either Left-click or Right-click on the mouse or can be called up via the Navigation bar) - Freeze (can be controlled via the Spacebar or via the Navigation Bar) - "Jump out" (can be programmed off any slide via the "Action on mouse click" field on the "Common" tab in the "Objects & Animation" window. The overall "Manual Control" is set in v5.1 and higher by ticking "Wait for a key press or mouse click to show next slide" on the "Main" tab of "Project Options" The only point I cannot confirm is the point about "Full-screen" mode and "Windowed" mode as I never use anything other than "Fullscreen". But both options are there on the "Screen" tab of "Project Options" Hope this helps you with your decision making

Jeff, You might find it worth upgrading to v5.1. This version had a new DVD burning engine. PTE is currently at v5.5 beta 3 (which is very stable code) but it does have a significantly different user interface. If I was in your position I would upgrade first to v5.1 and satisfy myself that this had solved the DVD burn problem and then upgrade to v5.5 and explore the new user interface features.

endevil, If you haven't already come across it, you might find this thread of interest. It concerns techniques for constructing a Frame or Mask to fit over images. http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....5&hl=Frames

Hi John, A lovely atmospheric sequence. I have to agree with Dave's comment above: it seemed dark on my monitor, too. But perhaps you wanted to achieve a sombre, brooding atmosphere. If so, you've succeeded. If that wasn't your intention then perhaps the images are excessively dark. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Unlike others who have contributed to this discussion, I don't have a specific way of working when creating my sequences. Example 1: the "Whitby Abbey" sequence that I posted a little while back started out simply as a location which I knew would produce some pleasing images if visited at the right time of day. I captured the images first. Then used Windows Vista's file Preview facility to take a look at them at nearly full screen size and decide which of them I wanted to shortlist for the AV sequence. The shortlisted images were copied into the "Whitby Abbey" folder and a new project in PTE was created and the images dropped into the slide list. A further review then took place during which the sequence of the images was adjusted and those not required were removed from the slide list. Now that I knew roughly how many images would be used, I could estimate how long the music needed to be (my "rule of thumb" is 6 seconds per image with an allowance made for Title, Credits and two black slides). I then found a piece of music that was: - of approximately the right length - of a suitable mood (i.e matching the mood and subject of the images) - to my mind, this is more important than anything else I was then able to finish the build of the sequence in PTE and decide what transitions, animation and "tweaking" in Photoshop was going to be required. Example 2: A month or so later I spent three separate days (spread over an eight day period) at my local steam railway. I had identified the pieces of music that I thought would be appropriate before I went to do the photo shoot. I had also given some thought to the kind of images I wanted and the most readily accessible track-side locations from which to photograph the steam-hauled trains as they passed by. Once the images had been uploaded into the computer the actual build process was pretty much as for the Whitby sequence (except that the music had this time, been pre-selected) Example 3: I'm building up a sequence in which all the images are taken along a farm access track, the start of which is just 30 seconds walk from my front door. In this case I first wrote an introductory voice-over script and then set about capturing images to illustrate those words. But the body of the sequence will be a series of mini-sequences each set to its own music and having its own theme and showing the scenery and flora in various weather conditions, at various times of day and at the various seasons of the year. So far, I've built one mini-sequence based on a shoot in mist and fog and another based on two days of snowfall. I'll be going out in the not-too-distant future to do the spring flower photography. So, as you can see, I adopt a "horses for courses" approach: sometimes its images first, sometimes its music first and just occasionally its pre-planned.

Tom, Your sequence seems to me to be a very creative piece of work. I think your combination of images and music works fantastically well. However, I think this sequence needs a "Goverment Health Warning" along the lines of "Watching this sequence can seriously hurt your eyes". (Only joking!). I'm curious to know: was there anything in this that could not have been done with v5.1?

On a similar line of thinking: Would it be possible to make the timeline in the O&A window look more like the Timeline in the Main window? I'm thinking now in terms of giving it "Tick" marks at every tenth of a second and being able to display the waveform. Both of these would make it easier to synchronise visual effects to the soundtrack.