fh1805

The first basic step when adjusting your digital images is to adjust the Levels. This makes sure that the black really is black (R,G,B = 0,0,0) and the white really is white (255,255,255). Once we know what software you are using we may be able to offer more specific advice. regards, Peter

I'm baffled by the absence of sound on your EXE file. It is my understanding that, in order to do the Preview, PTE builds a temporary EXE file and runs that. I don't understand how the Preview works but the EXE doesn't. Maybe someone else can offer some thoughts on this one. The DVD issue is well known. Your DVD-Video is built to PAL or NTSC standard as appropriate - and thats only something like 760x560 pixels (I forget the exact vales). If you then play that back onto a large HD TV screen, the images get interpolated to fill the screen on at least one axis. (Interpolation = adding pixels that were never there in order to enlarge the image. This always results in a degraded image) regards, Peter

When you say you "played the preview", do you mean that you used the "Preview" button at the bottom of the screen, or did you use the mini-player (the area in the upper right corner of the screen)? How did you add the music: via Project Options...Music tab or via Add Sound? What file format was your music: MP3, WAV, something else? regards, Peter

If you want to stay mainstream (i.e. Photoshop) but don't want to pay the high price, try Photoshop Elements. It's a fraction of the price and has almost everything you will need. regards, Peter

Anthony, Anything to do with Objects vs solo images? Or with JPEGs vs PNGs? regards, Peter

Jon, Yes, you are correct. TheMPEG4 is a video stream and so you will only have "Pause/Play" control. But as Gary has said: the quality, in comparison to DVD-Video, will knock your socks off! Good luck with your purchasing. Peter

That does make it look like a bug associated with handling Templates. I'm sure Igor will sort it out quite quickly. regards, Peter

Charlie (Aginum), Do you get the same result if you open a PTE project file from a folder that is not your template folder? regards, Peter

Dave, The code is the same in all language versions. Only the language text file changes. You can prove this for yourself by "View...Language" and pick a different language (unfortunately Welsh isn't one of the supported languages). regards, Peter

Jon, A year or so ago, in a similar position to yourself with regards an ageing TV, I decided to get a HD TV with a USB input port. I can now produce a "HD Video for PC or Mac" from PTE and copy that onto a USB storage device and then play that back through the TV. The quality, when viewed on the much larger screen and from across the lounge, is almost identical to that of the PTE EXE file viewed on the smaller computer monitor at a couple of feet away. If you are going to buy your new TV from a local store, why not create such a video file and then take it with you on a USB storage device and insist that you see the resultant quality for yourself before you buy. regards, Peter

Jim, Let's not get sidetracked with the Windows Media Player "problem". I, too, have found that WMP cannot play HD video when other players can. It's probably a problem associated with codecs. We'll park this one. Now, you say that at one point it looked like you had got past your problem and could have burned a DVD. Think back carefully, at what point in the testing did that happen? What had you just done prior to that erroneous click? What did you then go on and try after giving up on the possible DVD burn? I feel that the apparent willingness of PTE to move past the point where it had previously stalled is highly significant. If we can get a better understanding of this we may be able to identify a workaround. And if this is a bug, we be able to point Igor and the team at the part of the code wherein lies the fault. Also, and as an aside, I am going to try and change the title of this topic, to remove the reference to myself. I don't want other forum members put off replying because they think this is a personal discussion between the two of us. regards, Peter

Jim, Can you successfully Publish a short (2-3 slides with music) sequence as a HD Video, taking defaults as set by PTE? What I am trying to determine is whether it is just the DVD-Video that's the problem or the entire Video-Builder. If you use Facebook, YouTube or an iPad/iPhone, you might care to try those options as well. Let's narrow down the scope of the problem if we can. Then we can set about investigating the specifics. Also, following DaveG's standard diagnostic step: can you create a custom AVI that you can then burn using an independent DVD burner such as Nero or Roxio or whatever you have. This will prove that your DVD burner device is working. regards, Peter

Jon, The DVD player does not have a computer in it, at least not in the sense that we normally mean. Therefore it does not have any concept of "a slide" or of "manual control" of when to move to the next slide as in a PTE slideshow. The DVD player is designed to play video streams. These are a continuous sequence of frames. Each second of one of your slides will comprise either 25 or 30 frames (depending on whether you are in a PAL region or an NTSC region). I believe that the best you can hope for is to use the "Pause" and "Play" buttons on the DVD remote control in combination with quite short slide elapsed times, perhaps just two or three seconds. You can then pause on each slide. regards, Peter

No need to uninstall v6. Both versions will happily coexist. The only thing to be aware of is that the file associations will work only with one version - usually the last one to be installed. If you feel you need to uninstall either version, you should find the PTE Uninstall program via Start...All Programs...Pictures-to-Exe vn.n or you can use the Windows Control Panel...Programs and Features to do the Uninstall. regards, Peter

Dave, In post #1 Igor talks about the overlap of the video playback and the two transitions. In my suggested solution, a slide that was based on a video clip could have both transitions automatically locked to it. That would then preserve this behaviour if the slide got moved within the sequence. I have agreed, during this long discussion that, for me (who uses no video and has no camera capable of video), turning off the Show... and Keep... options returns PTE to its old way of working. But that isn't going to be an option that is appropriate for everybody. Speaking as someone who answers an awful lot of questions about PTE (both on and off this forum), I see a need to keep everything as simple and easy for the user as possible - especially the new user. Anything that either causes confusion or is difficult to understand and explain should be addressed and amended. As the posts above make clear - there is great scope for confusion with the behaviour of the code as it presently stands. I agree that we need to await Igor's findings; but there's nothing wrong with making suggestions, is there? regards, Peter

Ken, The longer this discussion has gone on the more I am coming round to your way of thinking. Here's a suggested solution: - Slide Duration = the time that the slide is fully visible excluding all time spent in the transitions - Transition duration = the time that the transition effect takes to complete - Each slide can, at the users discretion have one or both of its transitions "locked" to it. - If this slide is then moved, the locked transition goes with it and replaces the existing transition at the new place in the sequence. At the old place in the sequence a default transition is added to fill the gap. - If the traansition being replaced is also a locked transition, PTE must warn the user and not commit the change without the express permission of the user. - In the Slide List display, show the transition as a "mini-thumbnail" between the slides - with a different colour or a "chain" icon to denote a locked transition This would give us the total control that we need to maintain creativity in respect of transitions that overlay video clips or animation. We would know that we had moved a slide and that we had, therefore, to check the effect at both its new location and its old location. And it would, hopefully, be very simple to explain to new users. Would this be more complicated to program? I don't know. But in my long experience in the IT industry, computer programmers were paid to solve difficult problems - and the best ones really enjoyed the challenge of doing just that. regards, Peter

Jim, It does. And your licence will then remain good for whatever version(s) of PTE you have installed on the day that it expires. Only when you install a new version of PTE, after the expiry date, will you need to consider an upgrade. It also implies that you bought this present licence round about May 2010 or just before then. Does that ring any bells with you? Bottom line - PTE Licence validity is not your problem. So, what is? regards, Peter

Yes, but you have to define the link yourself: View - Advanced Options - Set Graphical Editor Peter

My understanding of this subject is now as follows: View...Advanced Options...Show full slide duration - If this value is unticked, then the times displayed, in the Slide List, for the transition duration and the slide duration, will be exactly those which we have specified via Project Options, as amended by any changes we made via Customize Slide. To those of us with experience of versions of PTE earlier than v7, this is how it always used to be. - If this value is ticked, then the slide duration (in the lower right corner of each thumbnail in the Slide List) will include the duration of the transition into the next slide For example: Slide duration set at 4 seconds and transition duration set at 1.5 seconds - Unticked = 1.5 top left, 4.0 bottom right - Ticked = 1.5 top left, 5.5 bottom right View...Advanced Options...Keep full slide duration This option determines how PTE behaves if you "drag and drop" or "cut and paste" a slide from its present position in the Slide List to a new position; for example move slide #2 to a position between slides #4 and #5. - If this value is unticked, PTE behaves as it always did. The transition duration into the next slide is not included as part of the move. - If this value is ticked, the duration of the transition into the next slide is included as part of the move – and thus the entire timing and synchronization from that point onwards has the potential to change unexpectedly. Unless you are including video clips or are building complicated animations, it will probably be best to untick both options under View...Advanced Options. If I have got any of that wrong, please let me know and I will edit this post. I intend to use the text of this post to create a new FAQ but want the information in that FAQ to be correct and to have been verified. regards, Peter

Dave, If I try your option two and make the changes with just one click on the OK button under Customize Slide, I get the same result that I got before (3.5 + 5 = 8) If I follow your option two but click OK after the Effect change and then re-select the two slides and do the Slide Duration change I get what I would expect (5 + 5 = 10). Whether I do A before B or B before A, whether I do A and B under just one click on the OK button or under two separate clicks on the OK button, the end result should always be the same - and it isn't! This is a bug - QED! Whichever way I look at it, this code is not "fit for purpose". Igor has to address this matter - and urgently. We need a bug-fix release and I think that it should go through formal beta testing by ourselves. We, each of us, have identified various anomalies. We now know the tests we would want to apply to that bug-fix version whilst it was in beta. regards, Peter

Guys, This code is riddled with bugs and anomalies. Try this one. - Set View Advanced Options Show full Slide Duration and Keep full Slide Duration both to be ticked - Set Slide Duration to 4 seconds in Project Options Main - Set Effect Duration to 1.5 seconds in Project Options Effects - OK these changes - File New - Ctrl+click select two images from the File List panel - Drag these into the Slide List area - Note the transition times, durations and total duration values that are displayed - Note also that both images in the Slide List are still selected (highlighted) - Click on the Customize Slide button (noting that the pop-up window shows "(2)" slides are being processed at the same time) - Change the Slide Duration to 5 seconds and the Effect to be a "Quick" - Before clicking OK, decide in your own mind what values should now be displayed against each slide in the Slide List for Slide Duration and Effect duration; and what the total show time should be. I get Slide 1 duration = 3.5 seconds, Slide 2 duration = 5 seconds; both transitions = 0 seconds; total sequence time = 8 seconds. All logic says the answers should 5 and 5 = 10. This code is buggy and needs urgent attention from Igor and team or else we are going to be spending hours trying to explain the inexplicable to both new and existing users of this version of PTE. regards, Peter

Dave, Thanks for that point of clarification. Methinks I need to build a new master Template with all the options properly set. regards, Peter

If by "switched the old method on" is meant using View...Advanced Options to untick the "Show full Slide Duration" and "Keep full Slide Duration" options then this does not turn the old method back on. I agree, that with the two options unticked, the transition and slide durations associated with each slide remain fixed no matter how you move the slides around in the Slide List. However, having just changed those values on the test sequence mentioned in my previous post, the total elapsed time is still showing as 18 seconds. No matter which way I try and approach this, the displayed numbers do not add up to an intuitive total. I set my slide time at 6 seconds per slide. I set two seconds of that to be the incoming transition time. I expect the total sequence time for four slides to be 4 x 6 = 24 seconds - and it isn't. It's 18 seconds. That, for a new user, is going to be very confusing! Peter

After my first test I am distinctly unhappy with the current situation. I worked through the following steps: - Create new project - View…Advanced options…Show full slide duration and …Keep full slide duration both selected - Project Options – Slide = 6 seconds, Effect = 2 seconds - Add four images to Slide List At this point the Slide List shows the slides with values 2/6; 2/6; 2/6; 2/6 (using Daniel's notation). Switching to the Timeline, we see Slide flags at 4 second intervals (with the first two seconds of each slide showing as the transition). The total show running time is given as 18 seconds. This is NOT intuitive. The intuitive value would be 24 seconds (4 slides x 6 seconds per slide). A slightly less intuitive value would be 16 seconds (4 slides x (6 seconds per slide – 2 seconds per transition)). The actual value is neither. The time allocated to the last slide has a two second allowance for a non-existent transition to the next slide. In my humble opinion this is bad program design; and will lead to confusion for the new user. regards, Peter

Daniel, Thank you for your detailed posts on this subject. You have identified an aspect of the changes made to Slide/Transition durations that I had not fully appreciated before. I can see great potential for confusion in the minds of new users to PTE. I should have investigated this in more detail during the beta programme but didn't because I thought I understood it. Now I see that my own understanding is incomplete. I'm going to investigate this issue today and will add further posts here later today once I see (and hopefully understand) what is happening. Dave, For new users of PTE, I think use of the O&A window to help explain this is likely to add still further confusion. A new user is, in my opinion, more likely to associate the O&A window with animation events rather than as the means for adding slides and controlling transitions. I think this issue (of slide/transition duration) is something that has to be explainable within the context of just the main window. regards, Peter