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DaveG, Not quite true Dave! Yes, it is still necessary to click an arrow twice to change direction from moving backwards to moving forwards - but to change direction from moving forwards to moving backwards only one click is needed (As Alice said: "Curiouser and curiouser!") regards, Peter

Alan, Could you please create a small (3-4 slide) test sequence that works on your PC and then upload it as a "Create backup in Zip"? Your experience is different to everybody else's; which leads me to wonder whether it is something that is dependent upon other Project Options settings. If I could see your project file and compare to mine I might get a lead on this aspect of the problem. regards, Peter

Den, Please bear in mind that: - the Moderators are all volunteers - they are individually active on the forum to varying degrees - they have their own lives to live and so may not be online all the time - there is a "Report!" button at the foot of each post that is the correct way to alert the Moderator team to an inappropriate thread or post I know that this week alone, Hawk, Ken Cox and I have all cleaned up spam. We cannot guarantee to keep spam off the forum but, when we find it ourselves or are alerted to it via a Report, we do our best to get rid of both the spam and the perpetrator's userid. regards, Peter

I think this behaviour (requiring a double press of the arrow keys to change direction) may be a bug. PTE v5.52 required only one such click. I'll send Igor an e-mail to draw his attention to this thread. regards, Peter

Hi Lin, Sorry I'm a little late coming to this thread. On my 60Hz refresh-rate LCD monitor the moving disc does seem to have blurred edges. But this seemed perfectly natural to me as I watched it the first time. It was only after reading Tom's post and re-running the file with some pauses that I realised how sharp the disc object was. But surely what we are seeing here is what we would actually see in reality. If that disc was a real disc, set up so that it performed the same motion in the air in front of our faces, I think we would see its edges as being slightly soft. After all, why did we introduce some blur into our still photographs in order to suggest motion? Because that was how our brain, through the datastream of our Mk.1 eyeballs "saw" the real motion. regards, Peter

Jason, Aspect ratio is simply the ratio between the width and the height. So, if your TV is 48" wide and 30" high its aspect ratio is 16:10. For a widescreen TV the likely aspect ratios are 16:9 or 16:10. The Specifications page of the User Manual might give you the answer and should certainly give you the native resolution (in pixels by pixels). It is these numbers (the pixel counts) that you really want to know, because these are the values you should use to re-size your images so they fill your TV screen. regards, Peter

Jason, As I understand it, no matter what size TV you have, if you convert your PTE sequence to a DVD Video and then play it back through a DVD player attached to your TV you get only the usual NTSC or PAL/SECAM resolution (depending on where in the world you live) which is down in the region of 700x500 pixels. I believe your large TV is wasted trying to get good quality images from a DVD-Video file. I suspect you would be better off connecting the TV directly to your PC via DVI or HDMI interfaces (if your graphics card supports either of these). Others more qualified than I will no doubt correct me if I wrong and will set you on the right path. Re "stalling the program" - PTE can handle any size of image you care to give it. If your PC is stalling it isn't PTE's fault, it's your PC's way of telling you that it has insufficient resource to do what you've asked it to. Have you investigated the Video-Builder component of PTE to do the DVD video burn? It is much simpler than using an external burner program. regards, Peter

You possibly have two or more versions of PTE installed on your system and your Windows File Associations are associating the .pte extension with an older version rather than with the latest version? regards, Peter

Mike, You cannot import the image file directly like you can a JPEG or PNG file but you could set up a button and give it the action: "Run application or open file" to launch Photoshop and open the image file. Or even Run Photoshop from a specific slide via Customise Slide options regards, Peter Edited to give Customise Slide option

OK guys, mea culpa! Now that I have re-read Cedric's post and noted that he said a "non-zero" transition time, I can generate the same condition as you. I agree - it's a bug! regards, Peter

Cedric, There are four "magnetic" positions in each slide's timeline: its origin point, the end of the in-bound transition, the end of the slide's duration and the end of its out-bound transition. Any keyframe inserted at one of these points is "magnetically bound" to that event. If you change the in-bound transition duration, the keyframe bound to its end will move with the end. If you change the slides duration, the keyframe associated with that point will remain bound to the event. And if you change the transition duration of the following slide, the keyframe will remain bound to that event. The "scaling" action will apply only to the non-bound keyframes. regards, Peter

Xaver, Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Now that I understand what is supposed to happen I have been able to set up a test project and, I'm sorry to say, everything seems to work OK for me! I tried to follow Cedric's instructions as follows: - I created a new project containing just three slides: Black, blue, black (initially all of 4 seconds duration and each with a 1.5 second Fade-in transition) - "For any slide with a non-zero transition time to the subsequent slide..." - I set slide three to have a Quick transition - "...set the "Scale keyframes in objects option..." - I did this for slide 2 - "...In O&A place a keyframe at the beginning of the transition to the next slide so that it snaps to position (+ appears)..." - I did this for slide 2 - "...Close O&A..." - I did this - "...Increase (or decrease) the "Display slide for" time..." - I changed slide 2 to display for 8 seconds - "...Go back to O&A and the keyframe will have jumped to the end of the timeline (end of transition to next slide)... - It didn't do this it stayed attached to the end of slide 2 as I expected it would. Unless I have mis-understood Cedric's instructions, there is no bug that I can see! In order to confirm that scaling was happening I reset slide 2 to four seconds and added a mid-point keyframe (i.e. at offset 2 seconds into slide 2). I then set slide 2 to have 8 seconds duration and checked the keyframes in O&A. The mid-point keyframe was now correctly placed at offset four seconds. I don't think there is any bug. (All tests done using v5.6.2 - I haven't had time to download v5.6.3 yet) regards, Peter

In order that I can offer a considered opinion, could someone tell me where to find this option, please? I have no idea whether I have it turned on or off. regards, Peter

Hi Sarolta, My turn to clarify understanding: - you use Times New Roman in both word processing and in PTE - in word-processing everything works as you want - there are no problems with any of the specially accented characters - in PTE some accented characters are OK but others are not Is that a correct summary of the situation that you have? If so, it does seem to point to a problem with PTE's use of fonts. Please confirm that I have understood correctly. regards, Peter

Hi Sarolta, Presumably, when you work in your word-processing software or your e-mail software you have no problems. Please confirm this is the case. Are the fonts that you use in your word-processor available in the list of fonts in PTE's O&A window? If so, do they behave in PTE the same as they do in your word-processor? regards, Peter

Gary, Your "bottleneck" could be your graphics card. What make and spec? (especially - how much dedicated memory?) regards, Peter

Hi Jean-Cyprien, I hope the PTE Forum members enjoy this sequence as much as I, and everyone else in the audience, did last Saturday at the Diapositiviade at Ponthierry. regards, Peter

Hi Jim, Check out the FAQs under the Tutorials section of the forum. It sounds to me as though you are adding the sound via "Customize Slide". Don't! Add it via the "Add Sound" icon on the upper toolbar of the main PTE window. regards, Peter

Hi Brian, When you downloaded and installed v5.6.3 did you first uninstall the previous version? The install process for PTE does allow versions to co-exist with one another but it also copies some of your preferences and settings from the old version to the new. If you do have a bad setting somewhere you are simply propagating it through each version. I would recommend that you uninstall ALL versions of PTE, clean your Registry with one of the many available Registry Cleaner utilities (e.g. Registry Booster or Advanced System Care) and then install v5.6.3. regards, Peter

Geoff, I dont own one but on a couple of occassions I have been given one of these "Powerpoint" remote control devices to use in conjunction with the host organisation's own equipment. The limited amount of "playing around" I was able to do (under the guise of familiarisation) suggested to me that these devices provide remotely a subset of the mouse activity and keyboard function. The two I was given to use both allowed left and right click and also double click on left. They had also seemed to have buttons offering the function equivalent to Page Up/Page Down. I have no need of one because my Dell projector has an extra cable and can be hooked up so that its own remote control acts as a USB mouse. I don't use this feature very often because I don't show many manually advanced sequences. But when I do, it is very handy to have! regards, Peter

RalphA, If you set your left mouse button to Pause instead of Next slide you can then achieve what you want on the zooming image. Unfortunately this may result in the manual advance on the other slides requiring two clicks. This is because the Pause setting causes the left mouse button to act as a Pause/Go toggle switch (first click = Pause, second click = Resume). An alternative approach would be to use the Navigation Bar. On Project Options...Advanced, tick "Show Navigation Bar" and then click "Customize Navigation Bar". Perhaps you may find a suitable solution here. regards, Peter

Thanks, Jim. I'll take a look at level 8 in context with 6, 10 and 12. regards, Peter

If I recall correctly, I think he said the item was on his To Do list for a future version. I'm not sure he committed to putting it into v5.7 regards, Peter

Re Jim's post (#67)... I see very obvious pixellation in the blue sky in the Level 6 image, a little pixellation in the Level 10 and cannot discern any in the Level 12. A close study of the branches in the Level 6 and Level 12 images seems to suggest, to me, that the pixels are the same. But, in the Level 6 image, the small patches of clear blue sky between the branches show the same degree of pixellation as the large areas of clear blue sky. My conclusion from this useful, but not necessarily scientific, test: if your image contains large areas of uniform colour, you need to check the JPEG image carefully and, if necessary, re-save at a higher compression level in order to eliminate pixellation in the uniform colour area. Personal to Jim: I use Level 8 as my default. Any chance you could prepare and send me a Level 8 version? regards, Peter

Davy, Why ditch Audacity? It's a perfectly good sound editor/mixer and, in my opinion, ideal for AV soundtrack assembly. It is Open Source and so works equally well on Windows PC, Macs and Linux systems. And it costs a whole lot less than Audition - like, nothing! Yachtsman1, I cannot help but feel that your willingness to constantly chop and change your equipment is likely to be counter-productive to achieving consistent results. My recommendation to anyone coming into AV for the first time would be: pick a set of hardware/software and then learn how to get the best out of it. Once they are achieving consistent results then, and only then, should they start making changes to their equipment and/or software in pursuit of even better results. regards, Peter