fh1805

Ron, I think you treat it like any other application software; but not being a Mac user, I'm not 100% sure. Peter

Brian, No apology needed. We're all volunteers on this forum. We give what time we can, when we can. Thanks for the "heads up" on Machete Lite. If I decide that PTE's own "Convert Video Clip" feature isn't doing what I need, I'll give this a go. Peter

Which is why I was looking for a video editor package (). I have, for the moment, decided to use the "Convert Video Clip" function off the right-click menu in the File List panel of PTE v7 to remove the "shaky bits". Peter

I have tried this a couple of time now and cannot get it to work. I right-click on a video file in the "File List" panel of PTE v7 and select "Convert Video File". I specify the trim that I want at the front and back of the clip and then highlight the "Destination File" name. I am unable to change the contents of this field. The text can be highlighted; but it cannot be changed. I don't see the point in providing a field for the file name of the destination file and then not letting the user enter a file name of their choice. regards, Peter

Eric, Do you have an iPad3 and did you use it to do the playback? Peter

Yes. In Project Options...Comments, click on the link Insert Templates and select Slide Number then Set for Existing Slides. You can change the size placement and colour of the numbers via the Comments tab as well. regards, Peter

OK folks, here's an update! I have now found time to capture a video with the camera mounted on a tripod. What a difference in sharpness and overall quality! As far as I'm concerned, hand-held video is a big "No!, no!". (The old advice was true: it's the subject that moves, not the camera"). Even displayed at 1920x1080 (i.e. interpolated up from 1280x720) the quality is just about acceptable; especially if used as a background to still images overlaid in "picture in picture" style. I ran the clip through PTE's video converter and trimmed off 4 seconds from the front and 11 seconds from the back. The file came out much smaller, as I had wanted all along. Placing the two versions (ex-Nikon and ex-PTE converter) on the same slide and doing Preview, showed no loss of video quality but a slight loss of colour saturation. The converted clip now looked very slightly over-exposed. Investigation of the File Properties of the two files showed that both were 24fps 1280x720 AVI; the original Nikon was written using MJPEG codec, the PTE converted one was written using MPEG4 codec. Presumably the loss of saturation is a consequence of the change of codec. So, the bottom line is that I now have a video workflow that I can use for my "field trials" later this month and next month. It would be nice to regain the colour saturation (or not lose it in the first place). Anyone any thoughts on that aspect? regards, Peter

Igor, I've just downloaded and installed this beta version. I noticed some behaviour associated with the actual download and install that I'd never seen before. I use Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) and, after the file had been downloaded using Firefox browser, there was a longer than usual period of time taken up by "scanning for viruses" in the Firefox download window - perhaps 10 seconds rather than just the one or two seconds that I have become used to. Then, when I double-clicked the downloaded file in order to run the installation I got the Windows "spinning doughnut" for over a minute. There was time to launch Task manager, ask it to show all processes and to see that a process called MsMpEng was running. This was described as being associated with Anti-MalWare (I suspect it is part of MSE). Eventually I got into the installation, but when it got to the point where it is unpacking the code from your distributable file, MsMpEng became active again - taking about 10 seconds to check the module picturestoexe.exe. Have you changed the way you package the code? I am just a little concerned that, if Microsoft have tightened up on something, those of us who use MSE could find ourselves hitting problems at install time. At the very least, it seems we're going to suffer longer delays than we are used to while MSE does its thing.

Brian, Could you please give a simple formula that will tell us how to calculate the "safe" Pan rate? Thanks in anticipation, Peter

Tom, You're missing the point. They are trying to kill of the desktop and laptop PCs! Peter

I meant right-click on the web URL that you want to open (Google or whatever) and open that in a new window or tab of the browser.

Depending upon your browser's capability and settings, you could always open your new target in a new window or new tab (off the right-click menu). That's how I control the hopping around to gather quotes and links. Alternatively, if I know at the outset it's going to be a complicated post, I'll prepare it as a Word document and then just copy and paste the text into the forum. Peter

Dave, My problems are documented in a different topic. The two topics may be related and may have some common aspects and, possibly, end up having a common solution. But lets keep this topic for D7000 issues and my original topic for the D300s issues. regards, Peter

Gary, The slide displayed in the mini-viewer area of the Timeline view DOES reflect the last one you looked at in O&A. What doesn't happen is the timeline itself isn't scrolled horizontally to put that slide's "flag" visible within the Timeline view. Since PTE can re-position the scroll of the Slide List in the Slides View, I think it should be able to re-position the scroll of the Timeline in the Timeline View. I'll drop Igor an e-mail asking him to take a look at this. Peter

When my desktop crashed last summer I deliberately chose a low capability graphics card because I didn't want to end up building sequences that would not run smoothly on my laptop (which I use to drive the projector when "on the road"). I have already made a mental note that the move into video might sound the death knell for the laptop. Peter

That's the conclusion I have come to. I need to take some video that I know is silky-smooth and rock-steady. Then, and only then, can I make a true judgement about jerkiness. Peter

Hi smokinggoldfish, Seems like you and I are on the same learning curve! Peter

Tom, If I let PTE convert the video clip the result does not look as sharp or as smooth as if I use the original. And, yes, I was using the Properties tab fields in O&A to do the trimming of the "original" file. I've found something that works - using the original file. I'm now searching around to see if anything else gives a better quality and/or reduces the overall file size of the EXE. Having PTE "discard" the off-cut frames would reduce the EXE file size without compromising the quality I get by using the original video file. If you are saying that I can trim at the point of conversion by PTE, then I need to investigate that option. This "video" business is proving to be a long and complicated learning curve! Peter

Tom, I agree that there is already a trim function in PTE. But it doesn't physically discard the unused frames. The entire video clip (expressed in MBytes) is included within the EXE file created from the project. What I am proposing is that, at the point of creating the EXE file, the unwanted frames should be physically discarded, thus keeping the final size of the EXE file under control, and no bigger than it needs to be. Peter

You and me both - and no doubt many others, too!

Wouldn't it be nice if PTE helped keep down the size of EXE files, that included video, by including in the EXE only those frames of video which we have indicated, via our trimming parameters, are the ones we want?

Gary, Re-read my previous post. I wrote: And I don't convert my videos to AVI either: that's how they come out of the D300s. I've thought of a much better solution than trying to find a suitable video editor. Give me ten or fifteen minutes then check the Ideas and Suggestions part of the forum. regards, Peter

Gary, Thanks for helping me through the trimming phase and into the file save phase. Unfortunately, "As Original" is NOT as original at all. My original AVI file shows as 39813kbps in the Details tab of the Properties for that file. The so-called "As Original" shows as 2937kbps. The visible difference is that the "As Original" exhibits flicker and jerk that is absent from the original. The Custom options did not allow a bit rate higher than 32000. Even at that value, there was still flicker and jerk. I conclude that, under the covers, there is some other conversion activity taking place that is degrading the visual quality of the video clip. It is not giving me what I want, which is video that plays just as smoothly as the original but simply has a chunk of the start and of the end missing.

Gary, I just have done. I thought I had been clicking on the OK button. However, this time around I realised that it isn't trimming; it is cutting! I have to make two cuts - one to remove the front end and one to remove the back end. I was thinking it would work like an "audio trim" in Audacity, where you select the bit you want to keep and trim off the ends with one click. It doesn't seem to work that way. You have to cut off the waste at the front and then separately cut off the waste at the back. However, even when I get the cutting done correctly, when I then save that clip, it saves it at a much lower bit rate (under 3000 compared to over 38000) and the result doesn't play as smoothly. I want software that will allow me to remove the unwanted frames at the start and end of a video clip (a clip that exists in AVI format) and then save the result as an AVI at the identical bitrate that my source clip was recorded at. I didn't see any way in which I could modify the bitrate of the saved AVI. I'm rapidly getting the impression that these free video editors and videoconverters are all aimed at those who want to reduce a video clip down to a size that will work well when played back/downloaded off t'Interweb or played back off an iThingy device. They do not seem to be interested in preserving the original quality of the file. Peter

Having previously given up on AVIDEMUX and ViewNX2, I have now tried Freemake Video Converter and Windows Live Movie Maker. Neither of these products, as far as I can see, meets my specification of requirements. They will both do a Trim of the video file but when I asked then to save the trimemd version, Freemake saved the whole file again whilst Movie Maker insisted on saving as a WMV file. So I'm still looking for a simple video editor that will do a trim and then save the trimmed file in exactly the same format and to the same specification as the original source file. Is this too much to ask? Peter