Barry Beckham

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 It was withdrawn a few years ago, but I still get emails about it and where to find it.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

Yaughtsman I think you have misunderstood me. I wasn't referring to the quality of the music in the sense of how a piece would sound through a good quality stereo or a cheap PC speaker system. I was referring to the charm of the music, that ingredient that makes us sit up and listen, the part that inspires us. It is the music itself, the arrangement, how the intruments are used and how they are put together. Much of the music you can download from the Internet cheaply lacks the exact ingredient that we AV workers are looking for. It stands to reason when you think it through. If it had that something extra,it would command more money, be more popular and unlikely ever to be released as copyright free. Of course there are always going to be some exceptions I am sure.

I have now configured the Copyright Free Music tracks in our on line shop so that individual tracks can be selected across any of our 31 albums and a maximum of 50% discount on 10 of those tracks is applied. Just select the tracks you want and place them in the shopping cart, our software will work out the discount for you on exit. This will make it better to select just the tracks you want.

Yaughtsman But the music lacks that richness you get with the right orchestra playing it. I had to buy New World Symphony as copyright free for my Black Country AV. The music is good, but not in the same class at the one I have played by a top orchestra. Its all about choice and what you want?

Yaughtsman I have been to that music site before and downloaded a lot of tracks. Now there must be some good stuff on there somewhere, but I could not find anything with the charm I was looking for. Not all of MGMusic is going to be suitable for an AV, it depends what sort of show your making, but there are some beautifully inspiring pieces that have grabbed me. Try Heartsong or Sungrass from the album below to name a couple http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/music/wedding/wedding.htm When I contacted MGMusic about releasing copyright free music, the price of a CD was less than I paid for one track on one copyright free site I visited. I thought what they did to release there music so cheaply was pretty good.

Adda I just ried the three track samples you mentioned and they all downloaded fine for me. Barry

JEB I agree, if you are creating slide shows not for gain a license is great, but if you do want to add the AV to a disk, or there is some gain, then your license doesn't cover you does it? Horses for courses

RON Mp3 format

Yaughtsman Its not compulsory to buy! Iys just another recourse if you want it. You can actually get discounts on tracks, up tp 40% on selections from an album. If you only want 4-6 tracks that is a great way to get them. The way I have the music configured we can not currently offer those discounts on tracks across albums. I would have a lot of work to do to enable that, but given time I may do so. The overall price is not of my making as the music is copyright to MGMusic, but if you can get copyright free music for 65p and it is what you want, who can argue with that. Personally I have found much of the copyright free music I have heard lacking in the charm and appeal necessary for a great AV, there must there must be exceptions to that I am sure. Its not likely that every track on an album will ever be usable and if you expect that then perhaps that is a little unrealistic. What I Like is a lot of music to be able to choose from as it is sometime hard to find something that works really well. The more you have to choose from the better the AV. (generally) For the future I am trying to get agreement to sell a batch of CD's even cheaper so enthusiasts could build up a stock of music that for their projects now and into the future. Perhaps a 20 CD batch. Given the massive discounts I thought I would remind potential users of it and the fact that it just got a lot cheaper.

Many of you already are aware of the 31 albums of copyright free music that are available on our web site at www.beckhamdigital.co.uk Well, that music has just become a whole lot cheaper and it was already very good value to begin with. Music for Photographers was designed for AV enthusiasts like us, once we purchase the music we are free to use it for our slide shows without any licenses or fear of breaching copyright laws. Our web site shop on line has now been configured for Australian dollars following our move to Australia. However, you can check out of our shop in either US dollars, British pounds or Australian dollars and see the price of your purchases and your discount before committing to that purchase. Many of you may already see some reduction in music prices due to exchange rates, but we have also priced the music very competitively as you will see. But the greater savings are in the discounts we can now offer on multiple purchases. We have managed to persuade MGMusic to offer the same great discounts on their music that we already offer on our movie tutorial CD's and DVD's. For Example:- You can get up to 24% discount when you buy 6 or more copyright free albums or more on CD. You can get up to 30% discount if you buy 6 or more albums as downloads You can also get up to 40% discount if you buy 6 or more 6 tracks from any one Album. The discount builds up from 2 purchases to 6 or more, to the maximums shown above. You can find the music at the link below http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/royaltyfreemusic_new.htm

18,000 images on a hard drive and no backup at all off the computer? Surely not?

A confession Many years ago I made a serious blunder that I hope I have made up for now. Like Igor I was fascinated by slides and my very first visit to a Camera Club was an Ausio Visual show. This would have been around 1975 and the hardware would have been a bit crude, but it worked because it captured me. I went home and told the wife about it and that we would have to have a go at that. Well, in time we did and found ourselves visiting loads of Camera Clubs in the South East of the UK for many years with our Visual Impressions AV's. Our Kodak carousel projectors and a Kodak dissolve unit cost us a fortune, then we needed a 4 track tape, amplifier, speakers, magazines that were £7-10 each, but we managed and it filled a large part of our photography in the early years. When digital photography came along I was introduced to a very early version of PTE, but here is the confession. I took one look at the file size of the download that was very small and said to myself. This can't be a very good program at 1.4mg and I ignored it. BIG MISTAKE Just goes to show you can't judge a book by its cover, or file size in this case. In my defense, I was used to the huge file sizes of programs like Photoshop and I wrongly assumed file size equals quality. I hope I have made up for my blunder over the years and have never made the same mistake again with PTE or other software. So, with a new year close, I raise a glass and say Cheers to you Igor and everyone else of course. Incidently what is Cheers or the equivolent in Russian? Well the internet tells me it's АПЛОДИСМЕНТЫ So АПЛОДИСМЕНТЫ to you Igor and I just hope the translation is right and I am not saying something rude to you instead. Happy New Year

It sounds like you could be using images far larger than they need be and as the show plays it overwhelms your operating system and drops some of the effects. I have heard this same thing before and that was the cause. If you are using images directly from your Digicam, then take a look at reducing image size closer to the resolution of your screen.

Well, lets be honest. Who has seen a slide show with randon generated images or music and said. Wow that really captures a mood ? Might be OK for ProShow Gold, but not the Rolls Royce of AV software. Well, not for me anyway Might as welll send me camera out on it's own too

All we need is someone to organise something in Adelade and we can think about coming. A full days lecture or even a two day event is possible. All we need is our expenses and ticket sales should cover that.

Audio Visual has two main ingredients that give it the charm and interest and that wow value. Are we sure we really want to hand over 50% of what makes a great show to a random setting?

It sure is, in the UK this would be equivolent to August. All the children are off school for their summer hols and Christmas and they go back at the end of Jan It seems odd to us at the moment, but I guess we will get used to it.

Well Ian. Are we going to get to see the full Monty before the Christmas holidays are over.

Well Ken, as you may imagine, no sign of snow here. Its 8:45 in the morning and just climbing above 25c. As soon as my PC's arrive my first PTE slide show will be our new life in Australia and we will include a tour of the house, but still I doubt I can conjour up snow. Unless it's Photoshop snow

It was the same in the UK although I am not sure there was a name for them. In the UK some people go to the south of france and spain during the winter. Its like summer all year round here I am told with the temp rarely getting as cold as 10c in winter time.

If you go to te Objects and Animation screen you can create buttons and assign those buttons to carry out a task. Click the button lop left of the Objects and Animation screen marked OK. With the button selected (you will see a green line around the edge) go to the common tab on the right hand side of the Objects and Animation screen and you will see "Action on mouse click" There are loads of options, but one of them is go to a slide number of your choice. You can change the name and shape of the button too. Hope that helps

It still rains here Tom and when it does you generally know it, but at least its warm rain and soon over.

Lin Thanks for the heads up, but right now I don't really want to start installing anying on this laptop. I have not long arrived in Australia and this laptop it is my only way of keeping in touch with my web site and family. I have no other PC's and no software to effect any repairs. I know the risk is slight, but leave well enough alone is my motto under these circumstances.The rest of our PC's are on a ship on their way and then I can get back to normal operation. I will have to live without seeing the slide show unless the author publishes a link to to full exe file.

I do get lots of questions about PTE accepting video clips, so there is little doubt that the inclusion of video would raise the acceptance of the software as Xaver says. I have been one of those who have not looked favourably on this idea as the inclusion of video would not be the same great quality as the stills, but things are changing now. Perhaps we are moving into an era when the quality of the video will be indistinguishable from the stills.

Ken Yes, I appreciate what you say about bringing the shows to a wider audience, it is a very valid point and one I fully support. However, the fact that I could not click the link and see the show as it was intended rather destroys that idea. Yes, I suppose I could have found a way around the fact the slide show wouldn't play for me, but I didn't. Rightly or wrongly I couldn't be bothered at that time. I would suggest that most casual observers who would be the target of these streaming shows won't either. This is the PTE site and I for one would rather see the executable version, with perhaps a second streaming link that might reach that wider audience.