jkb

If I wish to increase or reduce the duration of a piece of music I will either copy or remove a 'phrase' to get the required length. I will then adjust slide timings to suit. My sequences are always driven by the pace & mood of the music (or sound effects), along with achieving the best transitions possible trying to create third images. Both music & transitions are equal & both are adjusted to suit each other. I never know how long a sequence will be until I finish it! Although I too have used 'Adjust Tempo' in demonstrations I very rarely need to use it in a sequence. But there are times when I have, such as when I needed a ticking clock to speed up & slow down for example. So yes, the stretch facility could be useful if easy to implement, but is not a high priority feature for me. Something that may be more useful is change Pitch, which is needed if two pieces are not in the same key. But then we are getting into Audio editing rather than Audio mixing which is what PTE is. Jill

Peter, I believe that you are referring to the incident that was reported in AV News last year? That particular laptop had no way of assigning the high spec graphics card & it was always set to let the laptop choose. That is why it was returned for a full refund. With most laptops you can assign the graphics card of your choice by right click. I have 2 graphics cards on my laptop & doing some tests I found that if you assign PTE to use the Nvidia card when making a show rather than just when playing an exe show it is better. So I have mine set to always use the Nvidia card for all versions of PTE that I have installed. But in most cases the laptop will play even complex shows with the graphics set to Auto. Jill

You can't select them as a Group (something that would be nice to have) But if you hold down the Shift key & then move the first one that you wish to move, all the clips to the right of that will move by the same amount keeping their timings to each other. If you have any clips following those 12 then you will have to move them back to their original position by also holding Shift. You can also move them by using the 'Offset' parameter in the Customise Tab of the Project Options/Music tab. But Shift is easier. Jill

Why on earth should it? If it is a separate section then you don't have to read it. And it really is in your own interest to keep up to date with the latest version. Otherwise you will have an enormous learning curve when you update to version 8. Peter, I think a separate section would be a good idea. Audio is a complete subject on it's own & keeping questions separate would be better. Jill

Have you tried doing a soft edged wipe instead of a dissolve? In Customise slide/Transition choose something like a Page effect & set the own thickness of smoothing line to a high number. Give it a long transition time. With a slow transition & a high smoothing line the mis alignment will be less noticeable. You may need to play around with the numbers to find what works best. Jill

Seems fine for me in North Wales. Jill

I am finding this new server very very slow to connect & bring up pages. Jill Edit - Is now working faster, so maybe was my connection, but other sites seemed OK.

I agree, this could be a very useful feature. Jill

And mine Jill

I can see what you are saying and it could be very useful. But maybe simpler for Igor to program could be just to allow multiple selection as with slides. CTRL click to select multiple individual keyframes & Click on first then Shift Click on last to select an adjacent group. It is a standard windows function & really would make life so much easier. I have a sequence with some very complicated keyframes, in groups and I need to shorten the overall time. I am dreading trying to do it as it will take forever to move all the individual keyframes on all the objects!! :(/> Being able to select groups & move them as a block is something that is essential in my opinion. Jill

Must have missed that one somehow! I can see what you are saying and it could be very useful. But maybe simpler for Igor to program could be just to allow multiple selection as with slides. CTRL click to select multiple individual keyframes & Click on first then Shift Click on last to select an adjacent group. It is a standard windows function & really would make life so much easier. I have a sequence with some very complicated keyframes, in groups and I need to shorten the overall time. I am dreading trying to do it as it will take forever to move all the individual keyframes on all the objects!! :(/> Being able to select groups & move them as a block is something that is essential in my opinion. Adding this reply to your original post as well as here. Jill

I don't think I have ever used the scale keyframes function, otherwise I think I would have noticed this problem. I have checked back to version 5 which is when keyframes were first introduced & it behaved then as now. The reason I suggest that only the middle keyframes move is that there must be a reason why they lock onto the 3 points - start, end of transition & end of slide. Adjusting transition & duration of the slide & the keyframes still remain locked to these points when scale is not checked. If we could group keframes & move them as a block it would make life so much easier. So maybe a method of selecting the keyframes you want to be scaled would be the best option if this is possible. Jill

An additional problem is that it is also not locking keyframes at the end of the Transition & end of slide. If you place a keyframe at the end of the incoming transition it is locked by the + sign on the keyframe. So when you extend the transition from say 2secs to 3 secs the keyframe moves to the new time of 3secs. This also applies to the end of the slide. So original transition 2secs & slide duration 8secs (KFSD NOT ticked) Place keyframe at start - 0secs, end of transition - 2secs, middle - 4secs & 6 secs, and end - 8secs. Keyframes at 0, 2 & 8 are locked by the + sign. Change Transition to 3secs (scale not checked) keyframe moves to 3secs. Change slide duration to 10secs last keyframe moves to 10secs. But when Scale is checked these two keyframes do not keep their locked positions. Also it does still appear to be using the Full slide duration ie KFSD checked (which I never ever use! :)/> ) I feel that it should only be the keyframes in the middle of the slide ie 4secs & 6sces that should be scaled & it should be using the actual duration of the slide NOT full duration. So if time increased from 8 to 16 secs, then keyframes at 0 & 2 secs should remain. Keyframes at 4 & 6 secs should move to 8 & 12 secs & keyframe originally at 8secs should move to 16secs. Jill

CTRL+Home and CTRL+End are standard windows shortcut keys & still work in V7.5.1 Jill

Full results, a list of the entries & pictures of the winners are now on the AV News website Jill

Hold Shift & then drag. Jill

What we need is to be able to lock audio clips on different tracks together. And also to be able to lock them with a particular group of images. For now double click a clip to go to the Project options window. Select customise & then use the offset to nudge it the required amount. So for 3 tracks you need to do this 3 times, once for each track. Note. It does move all the clips (to the right of the selected clip) in that track but it does work & keeps the relationship between the clips. Much easier & more accurate than trying to move by hand. Jill

We already have this option :rolleyes:/>/> Just use a circular Mask with a hard edge. You can then insert any image, change colour (with a rectangle), zoom, change opacity etc. Also easy to change to an elispe by dragging the edges of the Mask Circle All very easy. Jill RotateMask_Nov25-2012_21-06-24.zip

If you mean the .PTE file then right click it in Windows Explorer & Open With Notepad. This will show you the text contained with the PTE project. Jill

Dave, Everything works as expected. See red replies to your questions below. The thing you have to be careful of when working in Timeline is that you position the red insert bar exactly at the end of the previous slide (video) Otherwise the new slide (video) will be inserted and could alter the times of the previous image. Jill

I have tried to see if I have this problem & I don't. :rolleyes:/> Dragging video into the Timeline it plays as expected. I can edit the length of the video, by dragging the slide edge to shorten it & again plays as expected. I have tried with both avi & mov (both very small low res files as it is all I hav) I don't see any problems with video freezing. Preview returns to the main PTE window at the end of the second video. Win 7 64 bit laptop. Jill

Igor, Please also see recent problems raised in the Archived beta threads for Custom Effect & Changing Slide to Video. Obviously they can all wait until after your holiday, I just want to make sure you are aware of them. Thanks Jill

Dave, It is not something I have noticed in previous versions, but you are correct it does continue to play the sound. However we did not have the Fullscreen Timeline before. Perhaps the bug is that switching from Fullscreen to Normal Timeline or Slide View the sound stops. This is not just at the end but anywhere throughout the sequence. Eg. Start playing in Slide View, switch to Timeline - music keeps playing - switch to fullscreen timeline - music keeps playing. But when you switch back from Fullscreen Timeline the music stops. I can envisage it will be very useful to switch from Fullscreen to normal timeline while building a sequence as you can quickly look at either slides in mini player or see the full sound tracks without having to stop & start the show. It works one way so should? work the other. Jill

Igor, I will add it to AV News website shortly (may be next week now) Also John & I are at an AV Day at Capel Curig in Snowdonia on Sunday where we are having a workshop to help people put together a sound track. We will demonstrate 7.5 to show people how easy it now is with this version. Jill

Xaver, I believe that this version has been as fully tested by the beta testers as any previous version & perhaps more so. It is just that there have been so many new functions & a lot of the program completely rewritten that it has been impossible to test every scenario in the time available. As functions have been added back in over time, I for one have not gone back to test everything which each new beta. It is only now that Igor has released the final version that I have gone back to try & test all of the new features. Unfortunately I and others are finding that some things are not quite working as expected. Igor & the team have worked very hard on this release & given us some great new features, they now deserve a well earned break. I think we can forgive them if some things are not quite yet complete. I am certain they will all be corrected once they have enjoyed a rest. Jill