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AVG is now getting very annoying! It is throwing up most of my AV's as infected. A new AV which I finished & published on Friday is now being shown as infected. The exe was fine on Friday, but then my XP desktop pc did a full scheduled scan on Saturday & threw up the exe's created with version 7 as being infected. The previous week, ver 7 exe's were fine but it was saying older exe's (created with ver 6.5 or earlier)were infected. I then tried to publish the exe on my Vista laptop (the PTE file had already been copied across but I hadn't got round to creating the EXE). AVG said the file was infected & I couldn't even publish, it then caused PTE to stop responding & I had to CTRL+ALT+DEL & stop the process. So I downloaded & installed PTE v 7.0.3 as I was previously using 7.0.2. AVG also updated to a new database 2108/4691 (19th Dec 19:34) Ver is 2012.0.1890 I was still getting exe's being shown as infected, but having re-published the AV's with v7.0.3 they are now accepted as clean. This really needs to be sorted out with AVG once & for all as it seems that each time they update the database it is showing different EXE's as being infected. Jill

Igor, This is a very strange error & it took me a while to work out what was happening. I couldn't understand why a Sound comment played on one slide but not on another. But I eventually traced the problem to the Name of the Object. If you have an Object & on the common tab (in O&A) you set the Name to 'Music' then it stops the sound comment from playing. If the Name is 'music' with a lower case 'm' then the sound plays. Also if the object is a child (with upper case 'M') then the sound will play. I have tried this with Text & Image Objects but not had the chance to try any others yet. Using Version 7.0.2 not tried in earlier versions. Perhaps you can look into this. Thanks Jill

I have just tried this and find that if you click on the little page symbol at the end of the comment box, it opens up a 'Text for Current Slide' box. CTRL+V does work in this box but not in the single line comment on the main screen. As Lin & Vicbrasil have found you have to use Shift+Insert to paste into this. Jill

Looks like the 'Show Safe TV zone' - uner the Tools - bottom right next to Customize Slide. It is used when you are making a dvd to play on TV as the TV will not show the full slide area. Jill

I agree with both points. I hadn't realised the two options had been moved to different tabs, as not really looked at that yet. But I feel they should be together. The buttons to switch to Slides/Timeline I now find annoying, I keep hitting Project Options. It is more time consuming to have to keep moving the mouse, OK not much for one image, but the bigger the screen, the farther the distance. Consider how many times it is done when making a sequence, this will add a lot to the overall time. It was so much easier with the one button in the centre where it used to be. Jill

Works the other way around too! Just because you feel you need it then everyone should have it? Jill

Dave, My suggestion was a workaround for now. But what happens if you don't want to reduce the length of the slide. You may want some other objects animation to continue after the video is finished. Fine if you only have video & nothing else on that slide, but the option to trim should be user dependant & not automatic. It is so easy to go into Timeline & adjust the length by watching what happens on screen. Perhaps you are expecting too much in having PTE to try & do everything for you? As stated elsewhere, it is up to the artistic talents of the user to make the finished result as they want it. PTE is extremely powerful & flexible, you just sometimes have to figure out how to make IT do what YOU want & not expect it to KNOW what you want.

Yes we now have a multitrack waveform, BUT the current Timeline only shows the combined waveform. I was basing my new layout on that. (to keep things simple to reprogram for now) I work with a 1024x768 monitor (two actually but that is because I usually have so many things open at once) PTE, Photoshop & Cooledit for my soundtrack. I am constantly switching back & forth between them all when making a sequence. And no I don't have a fast pc it is now about 6 years old. There should be room to display both slides & combined waveform, but would mean that the Preview Window would be a bit smaller. Currently all the 'panes' of the main window are resizable & I often do this while working to get a better view of the part I need. If the Preview window could be made as a separate dockable window, it would enable it to be moved out of the way if required. Also the ability to switch (minimise) slides/Timeline as required to save space would help. Jill

Agreed. Switching on & off as with the 'eye' icon in Photoshop layers. With the ability to quickly 'solo' an object by Holding Alt Jill

Thank you Peter for reminding us of this fact. Igor & his team usually manage to work miracles & have given us an excellent product. Jill

Can I suggest a new layout for the main window, which combines both the Slide & Timeline View. When making a sequence I spend an awful lot of time going back & forth between the Slide List & Timeline. It would be really helpful to see both at once. Also now that the Slide/Timeline Button(s) have been moved over to the right it is not as easy to switch views. The original button in v6.5 & prior was in a convenient place roughly in the centre of the screen. Also it was only one button so you could leave the Mouse over it & just click. Now you have to keep moving. I know you can press F6 & for those of us used to computers that is ok. But for newcomers who can only type with one finger & have to keep letting go of the mouse to use the keyboard it is much more cumbersome. This new layout has the advantage of being able to see everything at once. You can quickly use the Slides to move images or add new ones. And also use the Timeline to adjust durations etc. I would also suggest that the Slide duration (bottom right of each slide) is set to the actual screen time so that it is consistent with the view below. As the images may not line up with the times below, could they be automatically scrolled? Say keeping the current image/time central. And something I forgot to include in the picture above. PLEASE bring back the buttons for Fullscreen view of File List & Slide List Jill

Dave, Copy the following image as an object into the slide you are working on. Reduce the opacity so you can get the alignment you require. Then when happy with it, Reset the Opacity back to 100%, cut from this slide, paste back into the next & delete the original. Jill

Yes Please. Agree with them all. Plus what I mentioned in the the other Thread about O&A window. Jill

I also would welcome the Waveform & the ability to see multiple objects keypoints. Perhaps rather than colour coding & having them all on one line, which could get very complicated, a separate line for each object could be shown. That way it would be easy to see when you need keypoints on several objects to correspond. If possible a scrolling vertical list would be nice. Such as in a Multitrack sound editor like Audacity. The other 'essential' feature/s would be to group keypoints & move them as a block, like we can with slides on the Timeline and to be able to expand the Timeline in the O&A window using CTRL+F11 & CTRL+F12 These features would greatly enhance & speed up production times. Jill

Peter, I agree & this works fine if you are only playing your own sequences & have the time to remake them all & ensure that they all play exactly as they did! However think of the situations such as Competitions or public events where you are playing sequences created by many different people. It is not possible to recreate all of them. I too miss the fade in/out that we used to get in v4. The other option which I use, is that for your Menu, untick the 'use hardware acceleration'. This prevents the abrupt flicker, but is only suitable for a static menu without any animation. The other option I miss, is that with v4 when you had a slide with a Button,as in a Menu, the Mouse Cursor would automatically appear when that slide was shown. Now you have to set the whole project to show Mouse Cursor, which I do not like doing. So if it is possible to make it work the way it used to then please Igor can you do so. Jill

Why not edit the video in an external program to the size you require, then bring that into PTE. This also has the advantage of keeping the file size down. Jill

Yes you can. As long as the computer it is playing back on can handle it. Make sure your slide file sizes are small. 200k-300k is perfectly adequate for a 1024 x 768 slide. Obviously bigger for a larger screen size. I usually have all my 'screen times' to about 1/10th of a sec, that way you can ensure they won't overlap. Best way is to use the Timeline, expand the visible view - using CTRL+F11 so you can see as much as you need. Then click on the slide number & drag it back to the position you want. Or you can extend the transition time by putting the mouse at the end of the grey bar (it changes to a double headed arrow) and then drag the grey bar to the position you want. CTRL+F12 will reduce the visible size of the Timeline again so you can see more slides. Press the Spacebar to play from where you want. Hope this helps. Jill

Perhaps we are all losing sight of what is really important. It doesn't matter at all what the numbers say, or how they are calculated. It is what happens on screen that is the important thing. And that is achieved artistically by human input. A machine can never (well hopefully) replace that. How you get there is up to you, just as long as the machine (program) is consistent in what it does. Jill

Having thought a bit more about the logic of this new timing I think (& no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong! ) Maybe it should have a different name & work in a different way. People keep talking about having 2 transitions linked to a slide, the incoming & the outgoing. So if a slide is set to effect 2 & duration 7 you get 2/7/2 on the timeline. Ok so far. (This should of course read 'Slide View' not 'Timeline' Sorry if that has caused anyone any confusion) If you then change the 2nd transition to be 3 you get 2/8/3 Again ok so far. Now if you move this slide to a new position, perhaps what you really want (& what does actually make some sense) is to keep the durations - plural. So what you want to move is the complete 2/8/3 ie. keeping both the incoming & outgoing transition durations with the slide. So for 3 slides - initial times of 2/7 2/7 2/7 (which is actual screen times of 2/3 2/3 2/5) You amend slide 3 to have 3sec effect so you get 2/7 2/8 3/7 (actual times of 2/3 2/3 3/4 You then move slide 2 to to position 1 So perhaps what you really want is 2/8 3/7 2/7 (actual times of 2/3 3/2 2/5) thus preserving the incoming & outgoing transition times & on screen duration of the original slide 2. Instead what we are getting now is 2/8 2/7 3/7 (actual times of 2/4 2/2 3/4) So the outgoing transition & on screen time are NOT being preserved with a slide when it is moved. Perhaps if it worked in this way & was renamed 'Keep following effect duration' It might make more sense to people. Mind you if you also want to keep the outgoing effct Type as well...... then it really does get complicated! But as it is so easy to just drag the grey bars on the timeline to amend effect duration/screen times I still wonder why we are trying to get it to happen automatically? Jill

I agree with Peter on this one. Watch almost any film & the transitions between shots/scenes are almost always cuts (snap changes). Having two moving images dissolve into each other leads to a mess on the screen. If you need to use a transition, then do it over frames that do not have any intrinsic movement. Keep things simple & only use effects if they add to the overall impression of a show. Do not use them simply because they are there & you want to show how clever you are at being able to use every trick in the book! Jill

PTE can handle WAV or MP3. The reason we use MP3 is to keep the overall file size down. Jill

Xaver, How can simply swapping the position of 2 slides & having the overall time of the show change be a feature? I did not change any durations when moving the slides, I simply moved their position in the list. This should have no effect whatsoever on the overall timings. I am sure that many users move slides around while they are building up a show. Whichever method of timing you choose to use, the overall length of the show should not alter unless you ask it to. Nor should the starting point of slides not moved. Sorry but this is a bug, not a feature. I also agree that the 'keep full slide duration' should be moved from the main screen. It should also be project dependant. So if a project is started with unticked it should remain unticked each time you open that project. At the moment it keeps what ever the last setting was when you closed down PTE. So it appears to be a system parameter, rather than a project parameter. This will cause even more problems if the user is expecting it to work one way & it is actually working the other! Jill

Igor, Thank you for the demo pte. I have amended this to include some animation & sound effects at the start & end of the show. Note the first sound effect starts at 1.5secs exactly when slide 2 starts to appear. The end sound effect is exactly with the last slide (blank). Slide 1 is also a blank (normal procedure in an AV). This starting point pte is made with 'keep full slide..' unticked so follows v6.5 timings. Try moving the 3 middle slides around. All effects remain in their correct place with the slide/video. Slide 2 always starts with the first sound & the last sound is always with the last slide. Keep looking at the Timeline to check. Now reopen this starting pte but tick the 'keep full slide...' box. Timings now work as v7.0.1 First run & all is as it should be. But now try moving the 3 middle slides around. You will see (& hear) that the position of slide 2 moves & so does the end blank slide. The sound effects no longet coincide with the correct point in the show. Check the Timeline to see what has happened. Yes the individual animations on the slides/video still work correctly, but slide2 & the last slide move their physical start points. Note that the duration of slide 1 does not always change when slide 2 changes, following the logic of the new timings it should. Also try adding extra slides in both versions, again you will see that in v7.0.1 the timings do not follow the expected logic. Altering the position of the middle slides within a show should not affect the overall timing or the relationship with the start/end sounds. I hope that this demonstrates that there is still a problem with the new timing system, but the old system works perfectly. Regards Jill Testv7.0.1-StartingPoint.zip

Igor, I can see the effect you describe, but this does NOT happen with the old timings on my pc but DOES happen using the new timings. The old system works perfectly no matter where you move the video/animations. Also you can change the following effect durations without altering the ending of the video or animation. Could you possibly post the PTE file so we can try out the effects ourselves. Using a small video or animation. Thanks Jill

Dave, the whole point of altering the slide effect duration is to give a longer (or shorter) transition. The overall time of the slide is not altered. When timing slides to music the start & end of each slide is crucial. The transition time is set to give the best effect on screen & to flow with the music. Amending the transition (effect) duration should NOT alter the actual physical position of a slide on the Timeline. Jill