fh1805

Joy, When working on your audio file you should have a screen display similar to the attached. Your duration wil be 2 minutes where mine is 10 seconds. Your fade out will be however long you made it, mine is 2 seconds. And your Offset will be whatever you needed to move the start of the playback the appropriate amount into the sequence, I chose 4 seconds. regards, Peter

Joy, As I said in my previous post, PTE v6.5 installs alongside v6.0. So you do not need to remove v6.0 straightaway. You could keep both whilst you try out the new features of v6.5 (on a copy of your project file and not on the real thing!!!). Once you feel comfortable with v6.5, then you can uninstall v6.0. But do remember that after editing and saving a project file using v6.5 you will not be able to open that project in any earlier version of PTE. regards, Peter

Joy, Ken has pointed you to v6.5 beta 12 (the latest beta version). Your v6.0.1 does not have the ability to manipulate audio tracks. You need v6.5 to do that. Because v6.5 is still in its beta programme, it isn't available via the WnSoft.com website. It is only available via this forum. PTE v6.5 will co-exist on your PC alongside v6.0.1 but remember: once you have editted a PTE project in v6.5 you cannot then edit it at all in v6.0.1. regards, Peter

Hi Joy, No there is no "lock" capability within PTE (although I can see that this could, at times, be useful for both music and images). If you are using PTE v6.5 (any beta level) then you can apply adjustments to your music tracks. You can specify at what point in your sequence the music should start (via the Offset value); at what point in your music item the playback should begin (via the Start time value) and at what point in your music item playback should end (via the Duration value) regards, Peter

Davy, I can assure you that none of the images has been deliberately stretched 'per se'. Several of them have had their perspective distortion corrected (converging verticals straightened). Inevitably that will have altered the apparent relationships of things to one another. The original images were 3008x2000 from my Nikon D70 - the images as used were 1920x1080. That alone posed some interesting compositional challenges. I'm slowly learning that, if the end result is going to be 16:9 aspect ratio, and the starting point is going to be 3:2 aspect ratio, then there is a need to "shoot wide" in order to leave more scope for the re-composing/cropping activity during the post-processing. Unfortunately I was brought up as a slide photographer who was taught to "get in close and fill the frame, it's your only chance". As a digital photographer who now shoots most of the time with AV in mind, I find that I have to ignore that old advice. At the taking time I mustn't fill the frame; and the digital image as captured by the camera is only the beginning, not the end. It is proving hard to shake off the habits of a lifetime. regards, Peter

Gary, "Start Time" specifies how far into the sound clip you want it to start. "Offset" specifies how far into the sequence you want it to start. You need to use "Offset" to achieve what you want. "Duration" defines how much of the audio clip you want to play. regards, Peter

Dave, No, it doesn't have HDMI. One step at a time! It has DVI - which is a big step up from VGA. regards, Peter

Now that I have invested in a 22" wide-screen PC monitor and can view both the EXE and the YouTube video in full 1920x1080 HD, I can see what you've all been saying. Streaming HD video just isn't a patch on the quality that the EXE can deliver. However, when the video was being "downsized" to fit my 1280x1024 monitor, much of the visual "interference", that I now can see, just was not noticeable. regards, Peter

Back myself after a break to do some serious shopping. I decided I was being foolish building 1920x1080 sequences when I couldn't see them properly. So, purchase #1 has been a HP 2210i PC monitor. Its native resolution is 1920x1080 and I now understand what all you folks have been raving about - seeing your images at that kind of size and resolution. A real eye-opener! (sorry, couldn't resist that pun). Purchase #2 was a pair of Bose Companion 2 PC speakers. I encountered a pair of these in use last weekend when they filled a medium-sized village hall with their sound - very impressive! Having replaced my Sony PC speakers I now realise that all my AV soundtracks actually have some bass frequencies. I can now hear - and sometimes feel - those base frequencies - bring on Widor's Toccata!!!!. As a result of those purchases, my viewing experience has just gone up by several levels. This is not going to be good for my waistline. I'm going to be tempted to spend even more time in front of the computer. However, back to my problems. I had already identified the need to delay the JPEG conversion by considering how I would have approached a similar problem with my audio workflow. In the audio flow I do everything with 16bit PCM WAV until the very last step when I export to MP3. (And that reminds me, that with my new speakers I now need to test a few different compression levels on the MP3 files. I might actually hear a difference now). Anyway, back to the images... I've gone back into the workflow and exported from Lightroom as 16bit TIFFs. This led to the discovery that I cannot do much with 16bit TIFFs in Photoshop Elements, so went back and exported again at 8bit TIFF. I then took the 8bit TIFF into Elements and did File Save As JPEGs, producing an image at each even numbered quality level (i.e. 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12). Then built a little PTE sequence showing each of these images in turn: 0 to 12 and back to 0. Sure enough, as Dave predicted, Q8 is the level at which the image becomes acceptable. So the revised workflow, for the time being, will be to export as 8 bit TIFF and save the JPEGs at Q=8. regards, Peter

I apologise for the length of this post; but in order for any of you to offer useful advice, you need to have all the details. I am in need of some advice. I recently made some significant changes to my image workflow and am now experiencing some problems. The changes that I made were: switched to using RAW files out of my Nikon D70 (instead of large JPEGs) introduced Lightroom v2.6 to process the RAW files switched to 1920x1080 as my AV image size (from 1024x768) The problems that I am experiencing are usually seen in clear blue skies. They take the form of very obvious and unsightly banding of colour and/or areas of sudden changes of pixel colour. My investigation into these problems is, perhaps, hampered by the fact that my PC monitor is only 1280x1024 and so I never see the images at their native 1920x1080 resolution. My workflow currently is: import the RAW files from the camera’s storage card into Lightroom (the images are stored on an external hard drive – J: and automatically backed up during import onto another external drive – K:) adjust white balance in Lightroom (if desired) apply Auto Tone (if desired) export the images that I want to use as 100% JPEGs open these images in Photoshop Elements v7 crop to 1920x1080 as follows: create a new image with just a transparent base layer of 1920x1080 use the Move tool to drag the image onto this base layer adjust the crop using the Move tool handles add a Levels adjustment layer and set the black and white points where I’d like them use Enhance…Adjust Lighting…Shadows/Highlights to lighten the shadows if desired use Enhance…Unsharp Mask to apply a little sharpening File…Save As… JPEG quality 6 Please note the following: I chose Lightroom rather than Capture NX because I was able to take an unwanted copy from a friend, thus saving a significant amount of money I chose Lightroom rather than Adobe Camera Raw because Lightroom offers more capability for image manipulation. (Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop Elements doesn’t seem to be particularly “feature rich” – but perhaps I am wrong there and someone can enlighten me) Once the images are opened in Photoshop the workflow is as it used to be for the JPEGs coming out of the D70 (except that the crop size is now 1920x1080 instead of 1024x768) I feel certain in my own mind that any weakness in this workflow is going to be either in the way I am using Lightroom or as a consequence of the 1920x1080 images being “downsized” by my system in order to show them on my 1280x1024 monitor. I’d welcome the thoughts of those who may have been through this learning curve in the past. regards, Peter

Dave, None, I'm afraid. That decision has already been taken. It was never "in my hands". regards, Peter

Dave, I'm not saying that the quality is as good as an EXE. Of course it isn't. But, to my eyes on my system, it knocks the spots off the old NTSC/PAL/SECAM DVD-video for TV. I'm doing these trials because a local museum, where I do one day a week volunteer guide duty, has enquired as to whether I could produce some sequences that could be run on their LCD TV in the museum reception/shop area. As I have no experience in this area, I'm having to acquire it fairly quickly. They have indicated a willingness to consider buying one of these "black boxes" that accepts SD and CF storage cards and/or USB sticks with video files on and connecting that to the TV. I have no real previous experience of 16:9 aspect ratio, full HD 1920x1080 resolution or of video streams from PTE. But I'm learning fast! I don't want anyone to think that I am abandoning EXE files in favour of video files; or that I am suggesting that the quality on a HD video file is as good as that in an EXE file. I know what I will be continuing my own work in; but I have to learn about this new technology - without any means of checking any of the results properly myself. And finally, a point that seems to be getting overlooked: if I use YouTube I stay compliant with my copyright clearance licences. If I share via any other online route I will be out of compliance. regards, Peter

Eric, But did you raise the playback quality from the 360p default to the full 1080p HD level? If you did then it is probably down to the combination of your system and whatever software you used to do the playback after you had downloaded it. I find it hard to believe it will be your hardware since you've just spent money on a purpose-built system. I use VideoLan Media Player to playback the videofiles that PTE creates. It is freeware that was recommended on this forum some years ago by Lin Evans. There are four 1-second transitions (slides 4, 9, 14 and 18). Of the rest, all are longer than 3.5 seconds with the exception of slides 19 and 20, which have 2-second long transitions. regards Peter

Eric, I'm like Barry on this point. I don't understand exactly what you are trying to convey. Of course the transitions don't have consistant times; I didn't want them all to be the same. I wanted a varied pace for the sequence. regards, Peter

Bill, Mick and Gayland, Thanks for your feedback. Bill, I think YouTube can be another way of making sequences available to the Mac users - provided that, as you did, appropriate allowances are made for the inevitable slight loss of quality compared to a native executable. Mick, Within the constraints of a video stream (as opposed to a native executable) I feel that the sequence, if played back at the full HD resolution (1080p), is very close indeed to the original executable. It will never have the crispness of images or smoothness of transitions that the executable will have, but I have to say that I am very impressed with the overall quality of YouTube's HD streaming video. Gayland, Just a tip for you: instead of using the "Reply" button, why not just scroll down a little further and key your reply directly into the "Fast Reply" area? I reserve "Reply" for when I want to quote a previous post either in part or in its entirety - which is rarely. As for Rubik's Cube: it took about 120 man hours and three false starts and several blind alleys before I got it all mastered. But I learned such a vast amount about PTE's animation features by doing it - and that was the real reason that I did it: to learn.. regards, Peter

I think that would be clearer for new users. regards, Peter

One very small, cosmetic point: In the Waveform and Envelope window, after pressing the button to "Show properties of this audio clip", the button's ToolTip does not change. It should, perhaps, change to "Hide properties of this audio clip". regards, Peter

This sounds very similar to what happened when Symantec introduced their SONAR technology in Norton Internet Security 2010. Lot's of false detections because of code that was attempting to second-guess what might be a virus rather than identifying what definitely was a virus. regards, Peter

During the autumn of last year, when PTE v6.0 was going through its beta programme, a challenge was thrown down on this forum to animate Rubik's Cube using PTE v6. As some of you will recall, I accepted that challenge and, at the time, posted a couple of "work in progress" exe files of the sequence. Today, as part of my investigation into the use of YouTube, and especially testing its ability to handle PTE animations, I have uploaded the finished form of that sequence. It is available here (once again it is HD 1920x1080): Although the video frame rate does not handle the zooming cube very well, after that I was rather pleasantly surprised at how well the video rendering has coped with all the motion that I was throwing at it. Not as smooth as the exe file, admittedly, but quite an impressive showing nonetheless. regards, Peter

Any discussion about music, in association with images, is, in my opinion, entirely valid. Getting suitable music to go with images is the secret of success for this kind of simple AV sequence. regards, Peter

Barry, Each to his own. I agree that the EXE form will always have a higher picture quality compared to a video stream of the same images. But, in my opinion, HD from YouTube comes pretty damn close! To all readers, For those who want to experience the sequence in full HD, full screen mode, proceed as follows: - Right click on the YouTube screen image in post #1 - Select "Watch in YouTube" - Pause the playback - Reset the viewing mode from 360p to 1020p - Drag the play slide back to the left - If you are on a slow Internet connection, wait until the red bar has completed its journey across the screen - Start play again and go into full screen mode (the button with four arrows pointing to the four corners) - Enjoy it as it was meant to be seen regards, Peter

Kieron, Thanks for those kind words. Ken, I agree that, if played at 360p, the transitions are jittery and pixellated; but when played at 480p or higher on my system they are much smoother. To all readers, The sequence was built with the expectation that it would be either digitally projected or viewed on a PC monitor. It has not been built with YouTube in mind. I don't even know whether I should do anything different when building something that might end up on YouTube. I'm not used to being at this end of the learning curve!!! regards, Peter

I have recently realised that my copyright clearance scheme licences permit me to share my work via YouTube. So, today, I created a YouTube account and uploaded one of my AV sequences via PTE. So far everything seems to have worked OK. But now comes the acid test: making it available to the forum users and getting feedback. Here goes: The sequence is in full HD (1920x1080) regards, Peter

This a new one on me. Unless someone else has any suggestions, I think we'll just have to wait for Igor and his team of wizards to pick this one up and offer an explanation. regards, Peter

One point for you to check... have you inadvertently set a keyframe that is way beyond the end of the slide duration? Use the keyframe arrow buttons to explore this possibility. regards, Peter