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John, I make that kind of comment only to folks that I know! regards, Peter

Dan, Download the latest version (v6.0.2) from WnSoft website then uninstall the existing v6 and re-install the new download. All your PTE licence keys should work (unless your VideoBuilder licence is more than two years old). I would suggest that you keep your existing v5 installation until after you have solved this problem with v6. Then you can make a decision as to whether to keep v5 or not. regards, Peter

Hi betsy, If you have added the music to specific slides using either Add Sound off the toolbar or Customize Slide...Music tab then, no, you have to find each slide and remove the music from it. If you have added the music as files via Project Options...Music then simply removing the relevant items from that list will do what you want. regards, Peter

John, IOBit's Advanced System Care includes Spyware detection, elimination and immunisation plus cache/temporary/recycle file deletion and registry cleanup. It also offers suggestions as to which programs started as part of Windows boot-up/start-up might be unwanted - and a tool to turn them off. I was put onto this software by Brian (Conflow) two or three years ago. I have not regretted getting it. It comes in two versions: ASC Personal (free) and ASC Pro (which costs). Being a Yorkshireman I elected to "buy" the free one. As a Scotsman you would naturally do the same! regards, Peter.

In an attempt to prevent Brian Kelly (Conflow) having another apoplectic fit I'll try and summarise the situation re PC protection. If I get anything technically wrong I know Brian will step in and correct me. Any PC that is connected to the Internet should (= must for the user's peace of mind) be protected against the intrusion of any software or the intrusion of a user with malicious or just mischeivous intent). There are two basic requirements: - to prevent the "malware" getting into your PC in the first place (in-bound traffic protection) - to prevent it making contact with the outside world if it does get in (out-bound traffic protection) There is a third requirement: to get rid of an infection if it does happen. But, as with all things, prevention is far better than the cure. So let's concentrate on prevention. The key element in prevention is the firewall. This word is used because a computer firewall serves exactly the same purpose as a firewall in a building: it helps to prevent the spread of something nasty (fire in the building, malicious code or a malicious user on the PC). The PC's firewall needs to prevent instrusion by unwanted users/software and also to prevent any intruders who do get in from reporting back to their home base. The best solution, and one that is becoming increasingly common thanks to the increasing use of domestic Wi-Fi networks, is to use a combination of a hardware firewall and a software firewall. The Wi-Fi router includes a hardware firewall which, in most installations, will be set to allow in-bound traffic only from sites that have already been contacted via out-bound traffic. Put simply: if you haven't spoken to them, they are not allowed to speak to you. But the router does not usually play a serious part in controlling the out-bound traffic. Typically, the hardware firewall in the router will let all out-bound traffic through. So, you also need a software firewall in your PC to control the out-bound traffic. All the major players in the PC security arena (Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky, AVG and others) include firewall software in their product portfolios. But bear in mind that you must not run two software firewalls at the same time. They will conflict with each other and cause problems for you. I can speak only for the Norton product but this turns off the Windows Firewall on the PC and installs its own firewall. From past problems reported on this forum there are software firewalls out there that try and co-exist with the Windows firewall. Beware! But putting the firewalls in place is just part of the protection. You need to put in place a layered set of software protection. For example: you also need to protect against the malware spreading or doing its thing if it does get past the firewall. That means detecting it as it comes in and either deleting it or at the very least putting it in quarantine, out of harm's way. Your primary defence here is your anti-virus software. But the various anti-virus products that exist all cover different aspects. So, you must do some homework and compare their features and then decide which one is right for you. The algorithms used by the anti-virus software differ from company to company and have different levels of effectiveness. So it can make sense to have another line of anti-malware defence behind the anti-virus software. My own protection consists of: - a Wi-Fi router providing the hardware firewall (active all the time) - Norton Internet Security providing the software firewall and anti-malware detection (active all the time and updated automatically) - IoBit's Advanced System Care run manually once per week after Norton has done the full-system scan (which is automated to run overnight so it doesn't interfere with PC performance when I'm using the PC). Advanced System Care prompts me if there is a new software release or a new database of detection routines (I download and install everything it tells me about). The final layer of protection is YOU! If you do not practise "safe surfing" and "safe e-mailing" then no amount of protection will keep your PC clean. - NEVER open attachments on e-mails from strangers. That's equivalent to telling your kids: don't accept sweets from strangers. - NEVER follow links to foreign websites (sorry to all our non-UK members; but I distrust all links to websites that have a country code other than .uk unless I have a really good reason to risk making the connection). That's equivalent to telling your kids: don't accept lifts from strangers. I firmly believe that you need a layered defence system; but each layer adds additional resource usage. The challenge is to put enough protection in place without consuming unnecessary resource. It's a balancing act: and the safer your usage practises are, the less protection you can get away with. I feel that my "three-layers plus me" is the right protection for the way I use my systems and the Internet. regards, Peter

Pierre, You have raised a very valid point here. There is no clear statement of the PTE Terms and Conditions in either the download zip file or on the WnSoft website. I think there should be. I have sent a private e-mail to Igor Kokarev (the owner of WnSoft) asking him to let me know what the current situation is. Once I have his reply I will post it here (if he doesn't post it here himself). I will also then create a new FAQ and add it to the Frequently Asked Questions part of the forum. regards, Peter

Andrew, Tips on dissection.... First: study the layer order on the three slides to see how the coloured rectangles change their position in the layer order. Second: note the use of the Quick transition. This is abolutely essential to maintain the smooth flow of the animation from one slide to the next. Third: note how the settings for each object in the Animation tab for its end keyframe are the same values as those in the start keyframe of that object in the next slide. By the way, there is a potentially simpler technique if you are happy to have just two images on screen at any one time: use the "Swap 3D" transition. But I got the impression that you want to have all three on screen together. regards, Peter

Jose, Can I first clarify that I have understood what you currently do? You build all your PTE sequences using main images with no background and the images are sized to 1280x1024. Is this correct? Or if you use a background image and then super-impose your images on that, then the background images are 1280x1024. Correct? And you have the options on the Project Options...Screen tab set to "Fullscreen" and 1280x1024. Is this also correct? If that is indeed what you do, and you then do as DaveG has suggested and set the resolution on your new computer to be the native resolution of the new monitor that you buy, then there should be no distortion. When you run your PTE exe files on your new system, PTE will expand the image equally along both axes until it has filled one of them. Let's say that the new monitor is 1920x1200. PTE will expand the images until there are 1200 vertically. There will, at this stage, still be fewer than 1920 pixels across the horizontal and so there should then be black bars at each side of the image. However, you might still want to re-build your sequences because when PTE expands the image to fit the screen it is having to add in pixels that never existed (this is called interpolation) and there will almost certainly be some visible degradation of the image quality. I know English is not your first language, so if you need me to explain things differently to help you understand please ask again. regards, Peter

Andrew, Is this the sort of effect you were wanting? Test4Andrew.zip regards, Peter

Andrew and Lin, I have no idea whether it would work but does Pan along the Z Axis under the 3D parameters offer a solution? regards, Peter

"Help and advice" is what we're here for! regards, Peter

The trial version of PTE is not time-limited. The "limits" of the trial version are that any sequence can use only 10 slides and that any use of the Video-Builder feature will have a scrolling banner across the image stating that the video was produced by a trial version (or words to that effect). The trial version is, in all other respects, fully functional - nothing has been turned off. So... Enjoy!!!!! regards, Peter

Andrew, Neither Jeff nor I are saying that you have to keep the colours together. What we are saying is that, in our opinion, it might be better to keep the colours together. regards, Peter

I, too, received my copy of "Film & Video maker" today and was equally intrigued by "Band in a Box". Just to clarify one point mentioned above... The product does indeed import midi files but the output is, I believe, a full toned WAV file. See here for more details: http://www.band-in-a-box.com/ regards, Peter

Andrew, Just to give the contrary opinion, I liked the idea of the background changing to a colour that complemented the colour palette of each image. However, I felt that, having decided to do that, it might have worked even better if you had grouped the images by their background colour so that the number of changes of background was reduced. For me, it was the frequency with which it changed that was distracting. regards, Peter

Andrew, The most useful use of Frames that I have found is when doing animation where I want both rotation and either pan or zoom at the same time. I set the object that I want to animate as the child of a nest of frames (something like this): Rotate Frame ..|_Pan Frame ....|_Zoom Frame ......|_Object I then program the keyframes for the rotation on the Rotate Frame, for the Pan on the Pan Frame, etc. and no keyframes get added to the object itself. (Ignore the full stops in that little diagram above. I couldn't get it to keep the alignment without using them). In this way I find that I can keep the animation events separate from one another and clear in my mind. regards, Peter

Andrew, I've never used this feature because I prefer to make my own backgrounds with Photoshop Elements but having tried it, I see what you mean. It doesn't remember your previous settings, does it? This strikes me as a weakness in PTE. regards, Peter

Andrew, In post #5 I've explained how to set a sequence to be manually controlled. You, yourself, seem to have worked out how to trigger the launch of a sequence from an object. You have all the pieces of the jigsaw; all you have to do is assemble them. What is it that you still do not understand? regards, Peter

Andrew, Having re-read your two posts above, I think that you need to break your sequence into two separate ones. A manually controlled sequence that has just the one slide of text and no music and the automated one with music. You launch the second one by clicking the Text object in the first one. regards, Peter

Andrew, Go into Project Options...Main and ensure that "Wait for a key press or mouse click to show next slide" is ticked. This will make your sequence a manual sequence rather than an automated one. You will also probably want to go to Project Options...Advanced and change the "Hide cursor..." or "Auto-hide cursor..." to be "Always show cursor..." so that you can see which object your mouse is pointing at when you click the mouse. regards, Peter

Joanne, Add image2 and image3 to Slide1 as objects and then program the opacity changes and durations that you want as if it was animation. regards, Peter

Eric, Do your menus have D3D on or off? regards, Peter

Eric, Brush up on your Latin. He did! "E pluribus unum" = " First among equals" loosely translated. regards Peter

I noticed this behaviour this morning for the first time. I'm still pondering on why it happens and what further tests I might need to do. My current hypothesis is that behaviour is consistent if you show only "all D3D Off" sequences or only "all D3D On" sequences but becomes inconsistent as soon as you change from D3D On to D3D Off and back again, or vice versa. If this is a consistent pattern of behaviour then it suggests to me that the "D3D On"/"D3D Off" conditions are not being properly initiated and/or terminated; thus resulting in something being left set that shouldn't be set or something being not set that should be set. But all this needs more thought and more, carefully planned, testing. For the moment I've had enough of menus to last me a few days. I'll probably come back to it later on this weekend or early next week. regards, Peter

Jim, "Taskbar off" denotes that the option "Keep taskbar on top of other windows" has been disabled in the Taskbar Properties (accessed via a right click on the Taskbar and then select Properties) I would expect Windows7 to behave similarly to Vista because it is my understanding that it uses the same or very similar "Aero" interface for the monitor display. regards, Peter