Barry Beckham

Peter If you are that worried, take Windows off your PC and use something else.

If it ain't broke don't fix it. Thats great advice and one I would sign up to. (when it suits me). We all break it when we want to. How many of you are still using Photohop 3,4,5 or 6. There was nothing wrong with that software, it wasn't broke? I guess your all driving 1960's cars too, with a bit of maintenance they would still be servicable. No, we generally keep up to date, some quicker than others because we want to take account of new technology. Its the same with cars to kitchens and everything in between. I have no issues with being careful, but I believe there is an unhealthy hysteria around this issue and Microsoft Vista and this upgrade. Oops sorry I should say Bill (Boogey Man) Gates. Any company that has built a solid reputation providing products and services in a competitive environment to major corporations cannot afford to get any bad publicity. Trust them and their offerings until you have reason to change your mind. Except Bill Gates it seems !!

Gary There is a key at the top left of your keyboard that will put an end to your 2 hour ordeal. Its called the Escape key I yield too

What do I think? Microsoft cannot produce a product that will work on millions of PC's with millions of different componants and millions of bits of software and have it work faultlessly for everyone. Anyone who thinks that are living in gar gar land. Much of that software installed on PC's has come by via dubious means anyway and that could be the cause of some problems. There are always bound to be some issues and no matter what you do in life and no matter how careful you are to plan, someone will have problems. MSN upgrades are designed to make a product better and I don't believe for a second that they don't have every intention to do the best they can for their customers and their product, but they are just people and with the best will in the world you cannot foresee everything. Take PTE, we often hear of people who have all sorts or problems with crashes and installation problems, but is that all Igors fault? Of course not. It is a quirk of that particular PC, the componants or the software installed. Or simple human error. I have never had any issues with Microsoft and their products and I probably spend as much time as any using it. My view is that if a major upgrade is available then accept it, it's not put out there for fun or to cause havoc. If an upgrade was to all goes pear shaped, so what? We can always re-install the software, they are only programs, not the end of life as we know it. To listen to some you would think the end of the world was upon us. If anyone loses work due to a software upgrade, then more fool them for allowing their work to be vulnerable. All it takes is a little common sense. Come on lets be honest, many people just don't like Microsft or any other large company because they make all those wicked profits.

Gary I will need a bit of time to consider the comparison between a 2 hour film and a 4 minute sequence. It could take some time

Gary What you need for that is a Browser, you don't need to complexities of PTE to look at pictures. You can study the pictures to your hearts content and play your own music or not as the case may be. It ain't AV as I know it and I am fairly confident that the majority among those PTE enthusiasts I come into contact with would agree with me. Perhaps my next AV could consist of just a folder of images only

some people would like to study the photos and are not really interested in the sound In the words of a famous tennis player, you cannot be serious Ken. There are millions of galleries for people to study images.

I know some don't want a viewer to have any controls but I think it is a big mistake. I would prefer to have the Navigation Bar appear when I move the mouse to be able to Pause, go Back or Forward. Maybe it is just me but that is what I hope more PTE users would put in their shows when the post them on Beechbrook, etc. Thanks... Gary Gary, well ask yourself why they don't. Maybe it is because it destroys the flow of the show which the author has worked hard to achieve. That is the point of Audio Visual unless we are creating a presentation that demands user control.

Well, I am terribly disappointed with Service pack 3. I fully expected the world to end when I installed it for the first time However, after trying it on two separate desktop PC's and a Laptop without incident I feel rather let down that I can't join the doom and gloom anti Microsoft debate. I will just have to continue as a loner I suppose

No, I meant the pause button, Pause a show? hit the pause button. It seems logical to me, but then I don't do technical very well.

That looks pretty good and appears to mask different sized images very well. That will be popular I am sure.

Goddi Just hit the pause button to pause a show and again to start it.

Download a copy of Audactity a free sound editor and add 10 seconds of silence to the beginning of the track. Make sure you also download a file called lame at the same time you download Audacity, which will be essential to enable you to export an Mp3 file from the software. Get Audacity here http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Get Lame from here http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s...p;item=lame-mp3 Install Audacity and when you export your first Mp3 file you will be asked for the lame_enc.dll file. locate it once and it will be installed for you.

David I enjoyed this slide show as it is a fascinating subject and one that I would like to photograph one day. We are moving to Australia soon, so perhaps a trip like yours will be possible into the Southern Ocean. I have no idea if that is feasible, but I will find out when we get there. I didn't find the music very inspiring in your AV and feel there are many more choices that would enhance your show greatly. The images carried it more for me than the music, which was OK, but not special. You also seem to have joined the music a number of times and I could hear an interruption in that sound, which doesn't help the flow of your show. I think this sequence is great, but feel you could elevate it significantly with better music. Please remember this is just one persons views and you can't please all of the people all of the time. Others will have a different view I am sure. If you could let us know a little more about a trip like that, I for one would be interested.

If you create a text layer in the Objects and Animation screen and then do a Ctrl+C from that text layer, but use what is in the objects list, I can then skip to another image and hit Ctrl+V and the text drops in at the same size, colour and parameters. I don't suppose it would drop in the same place with a vertical, but all else copies fine, or am I missiing the point

An idea I have been toying with for a while is a talking book. I realise how many people like to listen away from the PC, maybe on iPods and in other ways. Here I have a 50mg zipped file that consitutes the first few chapters of what I have in mind. It will run for around an hour, but there are 7 sections. Any comments would be greatfully received. I am thinking more about the popularity of something like this and if it would be something that others would like. Many people like to listen on the way to work and this may be a way to do that. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/audiovisual/audiovisual.zip

Well, you must understand that not everyones prime output is a projector. Mine is my PC screen first, despite the fact that I show probably more on my shows via a projector than most. On my PC screen I get to see PTE shows at their absolute best. So, I create them to fill my 1280*1024 PC screen, well, within reason of course. I am not a great lover of making my images almost square and like to retain format. Whatever I create, I can show them on my 1024*768 projector. It doesn't take any extra work to create my show and as you know you can scale down a sequence much easier than scaling up.

Anthony yes I am turning into Victor Meldrew

If you are preparing your sequences with the intent that they will be projected via a digital projector then their size need be no larger than the native resolution of the projector. Peter, that's not right, I have done this loads of times as I have said before. I regularly play shows created for 1280*1024 monitors on a 1024*768 projector. Just change the resolution of the playing PC, I do it at practically every demo to be able to run the shows I have only made at larger resolutions than 1024*768. Its not a problem

Yes, I have installed SP3 and the world as I know it is all still there, the PC works and so does all the software. Bit of a disappointment really after all I have read. I had got myself syched up for a right old battle and................nothing

You could do your screen grabs from the same resolution you will use for your PTE tutorial, probably 1024*768. Or if you are using a higher res monitor you can always reduce the window size of Photoshop to do your screen grabs smaller than the resolution you will use and then crop off what you don't need around the edge. That way the grab will be within the resolution you intend to use, but................... PTE will always try to expand your images to fit the monitor they are being played on, so it's not the best medium for what you want to do. To make sure it doesn't expland the images you will need to disable the scaling of the main images in the projects options > Screen tab. Then you should be OK.

Connie If your problem is file size, perhaps these pages will help http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/audiovisual/audiovisual.htm Check out the image size section

I have to say that I have difficulty dealing with theory and I would love to test the idea in the real world by diving into a project using the proposed method. Is that a possibility a beta or test bed version?

I must be a bit slow Igor, but I am struggling a bit with what you propose. Correct me if I am wrong, but if I create a 1024*768 slide show and choose 1024*768 in pixels as you suggest, then it will display correctly at 1024*768 on higher resolution monitors but will have a black areas around the outside edge. The image will not automatically be expanded to play on a larger resolution monitor as it can do now. That edge or gap is what I often fill with a png frame. If I have this right, what conrol will we have on that black area? You wouldn't want a wedding slide show produced on a black background for example or even the slide show I have just posted. (The Art of Cornwall) Place those types of shows on black and you lose 50% or more of the appeal. Will we be able to control the colour of that border is or even add textures as we did in PTE4?

I have put up a new slide show for 1280*1024 and 1024*768 monitors at the address below. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw3.htm The filter effect worked rather well I think and it didn't take long either. I used a set of Alien skin filters called Snap Art, coloured pencil, but you need an image editor to temper the effect a little.