Barry Beckham

LumenLux Sorry mate, I let my diplomatic mask slip a bit there didn't I. Its just that these sorts of things do nothing for me and I can't be the only one. I am trying hard not to be a traditionalist and turn away from anything new, but the tradition AV is very hard to improve on and you must know me a bit by now. From what I see there are far more important areas AV enthusiasts need to work on before flickering flames and on this occasion I could not help, but say what I thought. OOooops No offense meant at all.

If this is being used to help learn the capabilities of PTE, then great, but...................... No guys, its tacky and not something that is going to enhance your slide show, in fact it will do the opposite. IMHO of course.

Igor No matter what you do "You cannot please all of the people all of the time" However, I can see what your getting at and perhaps the create slide show button should just create an exe and then a second choice would just say. Other output options.

Rob. Yes it is and most enthusiasts turn to a sound editing program to create the commentary and to mix that with music at the right volume levels and in the right place along the music length. The sofware many turn to is a free download called Audacity. You will find loads of references to it on this forum. You can also add sound, ie commentary to any individual image in PTE so that the commentary plays when you get to that image, but the general concensus is that mixing your own commentary with music in a sound editor is best. A tip is to program your slide show with just your music and then use the time line as a reference point to where the commentary needs to be added. Audacity allows us to work with multiple tracks so adding commentary to music and getting the volume of them both is not that difficult. When we get that right, we can mix all the tracks together, not unlike flattening layers in Photoshop or Elements. You will find tutorials for Audacity on this forum and I also have some video tutorials on my site too

Donald You probably don't need your original key right now, but it was originally sent to you on an email when you purchased PTE4. If you keep your old emails you will find it. If you do, save it off your PC, because at some stage your probably going to need it, but not for this upgrade. If you go to www.wnsoft.com hit the download trial button and download PTE5. Unzip and install the software. PTE5, when installed will not overwrite your earlier version, but will accept the product key. That upgrade will give you PTE5 standard. That is all the changes in the PTE engine room and the new animation screen. What is will not get you is the ability to create a DVD for playing on a TV through a domestic DVD player. For that, you will need the Video Builder key that will effectively give you PTE5 Deluxe. That can also be downloaded from www.wnsoft.com

This is not an easy subject to cover as art is always in the eye of the viewer, but the choice of music fitted the subject perfectly. You do have one image where the frame effect seems to have dropped off, but other than that everything is handled technically well. Its not easy to be creative with the subject and I suppose there will always be debate on whether you should be or not. A thought just went through my mind once or twice that you might have slipped one or two of your own masterpieces into some of those frames on the wall. The image could remain static, but the inserted pictures could change. As Lin says, keep up the good work.

Maureen Just about perfect and in my view. This show sums up for me what AV is all about, the photographic quality and most of all interesting dramatic images too, then matched with the right music. Presented beautifully too. Someone said when the pictures are great, the fancy stuff is unnecessary. When the pictures are NOT great all the fancy stuff in the world doesn't improve the show one bit. Great sequence that you should be proud of.

That is not the information I have picked up from the forum. It would hardly make sence for an improved product to be given a lower product number. Its like Photoshop 6 being a better vertion than Photoshop 9

You would expect the cables supplied by the PC projector manufacturer to be adequate for the job. Its probably one of those weird things we experience when we all do a similar thing (Digital AV) but with literally hundreds of different makes and models of kit. Sometimes for reasons we never fully discover, the equipment we hook up just doesn't go according to plan.

Peter Not very practical advice? The reason will come out in the wash one day when we least expect it

Peter If, your right, what are you suggesting gets changed on a desktop to avoid this problem? B

John I wonder how it would be outside with a half decent directional mic? I hope to be able to record live sounds and get the quality good enough too. Watch this space

Peter I don't think anyone was suggesting the that PTE was the fault was they? In addition the fault for me occurs with a desktop. which has more than adequatre spec for PTE I think it is something to do with the animation and the way Projectors work. You can't have a situation where a PC runs an animated slide show perfectly, but doesn't through a projector and point to the graphics card. If it can handle the monitor it should handle the projector.

Ed. I have not read all the replies to your original post as they have built up rather quickly, but I discovered what you have spoken about a couple of years ago and it does effect what PTE slide shows I project when doing a demo. I use the same desktop PC for both the creation of the slide show and then to demo those shows to camera clubs, Its a long story why I do this, but it suits the way I work and I find laptops inadequate unless you spend your entire whealth on one. The PC I use has respectible enough power to create slide shows and handle my Raw files through Photoshop. It will play any slide show including animated ones perfectly on the monitor I use. However, take that same PC to a demo and hook it up through a Digital Projector (without a monitor, I demo from the projector image) and now some, but not all of the animation can show a jerkyness that just destroys things for me. I always assumed it was the limitaions of projectors and in time they will improve. I can't really understand why a show displays perfectly on the monitor, but not so perfectly through a projector. I suspect the techno boffins will have some ideas, but to be honest I am not interested unless there is something I can do to get a perfect result through my projector. I am fairly experienced in putting together slide shows and what I do is keep my images to a minimum size, so its not anything like that which is causing the problem. I also notice this on both my projectors. One Epson and one Mitsubishi and I consider both these good projectors aside from this issue.

I have finally ordered a Samson H4 recorder and will be writing something on my web site, once I have some experience of it. I think AV workers would be interested if they could read an unbiased review and hear a good variety of recordings from the H4. Should be delivered this week, so I will post a link to any review I do, when I do it.

David There are two ways to add music to a PTE slide show. The one most used is via Project Options > Music tab If your slide show displays the correct music in Project Options > Music tab, but is playing something different, then look to see if any music has been added to an individual image. If that is what you have done, look at the first few slides in your slide show. High-light each one and look up to the top right of the screen. There is an area that will say "add sound" (if there is no sound already added) or it will give the name of the track applied to that image. It could be that you have the correct sound you want selected in Project Options > Music tab, but that is being overuled by music you have applied to an individual slide. Remove that music and you should then be fine

Noel What you request at the start of the thread (which as you now know is possible) is the way I have gone about creating slide shows with PTE for years. I use the project options rather like a global parameter setting and then I make adjustments to individual images as I see fit. It works rather well for me to work this way. Generally a show we are putting together with have either quickish transitions, medium or slow depending on the subject and mood, so setting that speed and transition as a global setting first, is a great way to work in my view.

Lin Yes, I know they are very popular which makes me wonder if I am out of step here, but they just don't do it for me. Always appear unatural like looking through a letter box at a picture. I accept they would have some commercial uses too, I was only really thinking from a photographic enthusiast and the pictorial nature of slide shows. I just wondered if I was alone or others felt the same, but were reluctant to say it. I like panorama prints and I hope to have a huge canvas one done for our new home in Australia, but in that scenario I can see the whole image.

Am I the only person who finds these long panorama/pans monotonous? No disrespect to the authors or the images, but they do nothing for me at all. In fact I don't think I have seen one used in a slide show that I have thought adds anything of value to that show. Panoramas look great on a large print, when panning slowly on and on, not for me I am afraid. Am I alone with this view or are people reluctant to say it. I don't mind a slow pan for a few seconds, but feel there is a limit reached when it doesn't work at all. I did try one in my Week in the Highlands show below, but had to take it out becuase it spoilt the flow of the sequence. IMHO of course http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm

I think the music now works much better with the slide show, but one point has come up because of that new music. If you look at the first two slides they don't match the music. Or I should say the second one could be placed a little better on the time line. This track has a fairly long intro before there is a cascading sound in the music that really gets it going. That cascading sound is a perfect introduction for your first image in the sequence, but that first image comes up too soon and misses the beat so to speak. You can't hold the opening titles on screen any longer than you have, so the only option would be to trim a few seconds off the front of the music and allow it to fade in. Then when that cascade comes your first image should appear with it and hopefully have a touch more impact. I find that it is these small attentions to detail are what makes one show stand out from another and it is one of the reasons why I can never undertand PTE enthusiasts having anything to do with the automatic spreading of images along the time line. Not for a finished sequence anyway. Loved the images and the presentation. Here is a little tip when putting lines around images with the stroke command. If you add the stroke to the outside of the selection you will find that Photoshop rounds off the corners a little, as it has in your sequence. If you add the stroke to the inside of the selection then you get crisp square corners.

Yaughtsman Good sequence and your voice was perfect for the poetry. I have found that I sound a lot different in the morning than I do at night. So, when I record commentary or a tutorial DVD I never leave a recording half done. I like to complete it at one sitting so it all sounds the same. The worst part is when you get a cold halfway through a DVD tutorial

Paul Track sent, hope we can see the remake soon

Paul Well, music is such a personal thing that when I do comment on the choice of music I am always a bit nervous in doing so. I could be telling someone their favorite music is orrid. Inspiration for AV can come from the music first, but my guess is most of us start with the images, because we are photographers first. In order to choose a piece of music you need a lot to choose from. Its the same with images, if you have to choose 40 images for a slide show from 45, you don't have a great deal of choice, but if you have 345 images, that is completely different. Most of us have a music collection ourselves and if we have a suitable (not for gain license) we can use any of that. Now I mention the license here to stop this thread being hijacked by the license police. Over time I have scanned all my music CD's onto my computer, partly for AV, but mostly that it is more convenient through Windows media player to search and play any track or album I want. That does make it much easier to find a piece of music suitable for your slide show as you can skip through many tracks quickly and easily. When the right piece pops up you will know it. Being an agent for 30+ copyright free albums myself I am probably much better placed with regard music than most, but sometimes I still have quite a search to find something that I think works really well with the images I have. So, first port of call is your own CD collection. Then you could always buy a CD or two of more melodic music, they are nice to listen to while working in Photoshop regardless of whether you will use them for AV. The albums on my web site are mostly melodic and you can download all the track samples in one go as a zip file. I did that so the whole album samples can be highlighted and played and you can skip from track to track to find something suitable, then just buy that one track. $5 hardly breaks the bank, thats about £2.50 What I also do while making an AV is this. I may select an album and while doing the preportary work for the show, getting images prepared etc, I would play music in the background. I have my main PC connected up to an old amplifier and speakers so I hear good quality music. Everytime I hear a track that I think might work in my show, I immediately copy that track to the music folder of my AV. By the time I am ready to finally select music I often have 10-15 tracks already waiting that all appeared suitable, now all I have to do is whittle them down from there. I normally get the images in some sort of order, prepare an auto slide show and drop a piece of music into PTE. Now you can press preview and watch a few slides and listen to the music. You will be amazed how easy it is from here to find what you want, the right piece usually makes itself known. Then you can clear the PTE auto slide show settings and make something special. I selected the samples from just one of my own CD's called The Water and two tracks stood out as suitable to me. On Angelic Wings or The Remembering. Alternatively Enya would be a good choice of music for your slide show and she has loads of albums to choose from. A classical piece would also go well, something from The Four Seasons perhaps by Vivaldi. Clannad are another rich sourse of music and their Celtic feel may work well with Lakeland images. Just had a thought.............. If you find any track on my site that you feel works for you, tell me what it is and I will send it to you with my compliments. You will have it then Royalty free. Barry Water Album http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/music/thewater/thewater.htm All Music http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/royaltyfreemusic_new.htm

I think you have injected a lot of charm into those images and I am pretty certain they are more interesting now that they would have been without the treatment. Sometimes the lighting just does not work for us and then this treatment really works well. All comments are a personal thing, but your choice of music leaves me cold I'm afraid. In my view that syle of music is more suited to an urban landscape AV, not the soft dreamy images you have produced. Your images are creating a great deal of charm, but in my view your music takes 70% of that charm away. I am convinced that a different piece of music would make the world of difference.

A few years ago a royalty free album (got it right this time Maureen ) was released called Overdub. It was a series of sound effects that were suited to AV workers and I used a few myself around that time. It was withdrawn a few years ago, but I still get emails about it and where to find it. This prompted me to see if I could get it released again. I have managed to do that and it was added to our list of music yesterday Quick link here, right at the top of the list "Overdub" http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/royaltyfreemusic_new.htm