fh1805

Mike, 1500x1040 is a very odd size. It isn't any of the normal "standard" aspect ratios. The nearest fit would be a 15:10 aspect ratio (but even that is out by 40 pixels on the height). If you don't already know why they want the change making I would go back and seek clarification. But Yachtsman1 is quite correct when he states that you would be best served by going back to your original image files (the ex-camera ones) and re-working them to the new size. There is a free image editor called IrfanView which has a batch re-sizing feature. Lin Evans recommended this software several years ago here on the forum. I got myself a copy on the strength of Lin's recommendation and have used it fairly frequently for batch re-sizing and batch re-naming. It's very straightforward to use. regards, Peter

Thanks, Igor. I look forward to trying out beta 6. regards, Peter

Andrew, What exactly do you mean by a "background image"?: - one that has been added via Project Options|Screen...Background...Tiled image - an image that you have added and which appears as an object of that slide and on which you have then superimposed a second image regards, Peter

This post documents my very recent experience (today) with Norton 2010’s SONAR feature. I use two Windows Vista-based PC systems on a regular basis: my desktop system on which I do all my work and a laptop system which I use only in conjunction with my digital projector when I take slideshows “on the road” to audiences. When at home, both systems have internet access via a wi-fi router. From that they then connect through the broadband modem into my cable service provider (Virgin Media). The laptop can also connect to the internet when away from home via a mobile broadband USB modem using Virgin Mobile service. Both systems were, until this morning, protected by Norton Internet Security 2009 with which I have been very happy. (Note that the Windows Firewall is disabled on both systems in favour of the Norton firewall program). For several weeks now my Norton software, on both systems, has been nagging me to upgrade to Norton 2010: and because of the problems that had been reported here on the forum I had been telling it “No!” Having given the matter a lot of thought I decided that I had little to lose by allowing the laptop to update to Norton 2010. After all, the data on it is all copied over from the desktop system. Whatever might happen I wasn’t going to lose anything vital. So this morning when the laptop nagged I said “OK, go ahead”. The Norton install wizard duly removed Norton 2009, rebooted the PC and installed Norton 2010. I then waited until it had done a LiveUpdate run so that it had a chance to download and install all the latest definition files and then asked it to do a full scan of both the C: and D: drives on the laptop. The scan ran to completion and found no security risks so I then launched a PTE sequence that had been created with PTE v5. Norton SONAR refused to let it launch, claiming that it was behaving suspiciously. The “suspicious” activity was that there were “Very Few Users” and it was “Very New”. I was given two options: Remove the file (Recommended) or Allow the program to continue. I chose the latter! The sequence then ran normally. I tried a sequence that had been created using PTE v4.42 and this ran OK with no intervention by SONAR. I chose another sequence, this time created using PTE v6. SONAR stepped in again and blocked the attempt to run it. I again said “Allow”. I then re-launched the sequence that had been the first one blocked – and it ran without any further SONAR intervention. Does this mean that SONAR is operating in a heuristic manner, I wonder. I have tried a sample of my sequences and have found that those created with PTE v4.4x seem to run free of any intervention by SONAR whilst those created with PTE v5.0 or later all get SONAR intervention. What I needed to do next was find out whether the SONAR status was remembered across a power-off/power-on and also whether it got cleared down or retained across a “clean up” sweep by Advanced System Care. After doing the power-off/power on I found that the sequences that had been SONAR blocked and cleared all ran without SONAr intervention. So it does appear to be a heuristic system. Also, running Advanced System Care v3.60 (Free version) had no effect on the SONAR status of those sequences. When I tried to execute a v6.5 beta sequence off the Windows desktop, SONAR refused to let it run and quarantined it (19.7MB). I was able to recover this file from the quaratine and tell Norton to ignore it in all future scans. So the bottom line appears to be that Norton SONAR really is a pain in the **** because it steps in on every first launch of a PTE v5 or v6 sequence; but it is willing to listen to and learn from my voice of experience when I tell it that things are actually OK. If anything else crawls out of this particular woodwork I'll be back with more news. regards, Peter

Simon, Firstly you will need to record the voice-over. PTE does not support direct recording of sound. You will have to use some other technology to do that. Once you have your "sound bites" as separate files you can then add them to the relevant slides using the "Add sound" icon (top right on upper toolbar). The current published release of PTE (v6.04) does not support sound mixing so you will have no control over the level of sound of your voice-over compared to that of any background music that you are using. The version of PTE that is currently in its beta programme (v6.5 available via this forum) does support soundmixing. However, speaking purely personally, I would recommend that you download Audacity sound editor software (its totally free and available here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net) and assemble your soundtrack outside of PTE and then simply add the soundtrack file via Project Options|Music. regards, Peter

Hi Argonaut, Which specific fonts are causing problems? And what release of PTE are you using? regards, Peter

Dan, I am not at all familiar with the Sony range of laptops, so I'll have to let someone else comment on the suitability of that particular model and its configuration. The only comment that I would make is that 2GB of RAM for Vista is only just enough. Vista is notoriously "memory hungry" and will operate at its best if you give it all the memory that it can use. If you were to upgrade the RAM to 3GB or even 4GB you would see a world of difference in the performance of this laptop. When checking the device drivers, the two key ones are the graphics card and the sound card drivers. regards, Peter

Glad to know that you've had a happy outcome! regards, Peter

Dan, Some additional information about the Vista laptop would be useful: - has Vista been kept up-to-date with all recommended software fixes? - have the device drivers been kept up-to-date? - what other software is permanently running in the background? - what graphics and sound cards (or chipsets) does it have? - how much memory on the graphics card? - how much RAM? - what CPU processor? regards, Peter

Jean-Cyprien, That's an amazing effect. I'll have to spend some time studying your project file in order to understand how you have done it. many thanks, Peter

Steph, The only thing that matters is how many pixels wide and how many pixels high. The resolution values, usually expressed as "dots per inch" or "pixels per inch" are relevant only to the printing process. For an image that is displayed on a PC monitor or that is projected through a digital projector the resolution (in terms of dpi or ppi) is totally irrelevant. Go to the "Frequently asked questions" part of the forum and you will find much useful advice, including this item on image size: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10515 regards, Peter

Jean-Cyprien, Thanks for that suggestion. I hadn't thought of using masks to achieve the same effect. regards, Peter

Andrew, Provided you have the video file type properly connected via File Association with media player software you should be able to simply "Run application..." off a button. Basically, if you can launch via double-click from within Windows Explorer then you can launch from within PTE. regards, Peter

Greg, You have hit upon one weakness of PTE's O&A capability. It does not provide an option that allows the opacity value of a parent to be inherited by a child. If you want to fade in several objects you have to program keyframes on every one of them. Over the last couple of years I have built two sequences that consisted solely of animation. In one case I had an object assembly of 56 separate items that I would have liked to fade in. Whilst I would have been prepared to code the keyframes on the one assembly, the design required twelve of the object assemblies to appear one after the other. I wasn't prepared to program 1344 keyframes. In the second case, the object assembly consisted of 108 visible objects. Again I would have liked to have faded this in but wasn't prepared to code the 216 keyframes required. In both cases, had there been an option to have opacity inherited, I would have needed to add only two keyframes per object assembly. regards, Peter

The PTE waveform in the Timeline view displays only sound that has been added via "Project Options|Music" tab. If you added the sound via "Add Sound" or "Customize Slide|Music" options then it will not be displayed in the waveform. This capability is on Igor's "To Do" list for PTE. regards, Peter

Cindy, The "Synchronize slideshow to music" box simply ensures that, if you do a "Preview from selected slide", the music track is properly positioned to start playing at the appropriate offset into the piece of music. The feature that you seem to be looking for is "Autospread slides along music" but that didn't come into PTE until a much later version. Your best hope with v4 of PTE is to do the math: 4m22s = 262 seconds, divided by 83 slides = 3s 156ms per slide. Set this value as the slide duration and it should give you a very close fit. regards, Peter

Umberto, I seem to recall that I saw a post from Igor during v6.0 beta programme that confirmed that transparent pixels (as in a PNG image) add no processor load to the graphics rendering. Obviously they might (will?) add bytes to the memory but the implication seemed to be that there presence would be a static load rather than a dynamic load. It might be worth a quick experiment to try out Dom's suggestion. regards, Peter

This is absolutely essential if we are to have precise control over animation that occurs during the slide transition. regards, Peter

Hi Umberto, Very impressive! And now I understand what you have done with your layers. But if you now place the entire assemblage onto a new transparent frame and then zoom that frame, does this not give the effect you want? regards, Peter

Umberto, Firstly I must admit that I don't fully understand what you have achieved with your "layers" nor do I understand exactly what your problem is but permit me to make the following observation: would your problem be resolved if you placed all your "layers" as children of a transparent frame and then applied the zoom to the frame? would not the chldren then inherit their parent's attributes? regards, Peter

Igor, Further to my previous post (#95). The problem with "Run Slideshow with Return..." seems to be a fundamental one rather than restricted to just the two sequences that I reported it on. I have just tried to modify a different menu sequence and one of the target sequences on that and got the same error message. On debugging a little deeper the problem happens only when the target sequence is a PTE project file from a earlier release of PTE that I have simply opened into beta4 and then done Create...Create As... to give me a new exe file. If I build both the menu and the target sequence with beta4 there is no problem. The problem appears only if I use an existing project file that was built by a PTE release earlier than v6.5. regards, Peter

Igor, Thanks for sorting out the tree collapse/expand function in beta4. It all works fine now! The "Run Slideshow with return..." problem is still present after doing a Create of the two sequences using beta4 - but I think this is what you expected since Dmitry only got all the debug data earlier that same day. regards, Peter

David, I'm not sure that the answers about compression actually answered your question. I think you were asking: "Is there something better than JPEG compression that will eliminate the JPEG compression artefacts?" You could try saving the images as PNG format files and see if this helps reduce or eliminate the artefacts. regards, Peter

I would also recommend downloading and reading the user guides and also taking a look at Lin Evans's tutorials, a list of which can be found here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7901 regards, Peter

Greg, Use the Objects & Animations window to do "Add Image" and then use the Pan and Zoom controls on the Animation tab to re-size and re-position the images. regards, Peter