Barry Beckham

Mario I appreciate the offer, but you have misunderstood my query. I don't have a problem creating a copyright logo, but wish to place a copyright logo in a PTE5 show, but not on the title slides and blanks. The setting appears to be an all on or all off in PTE and I want to be sure that is the case. Barry

I want to put a copyright logo on all slides in a show apart from a selected few. I believe there is no way to do this as it seems to be all or nothing. Any ideas?

I have a new slide show called Mt Teide There are two versions, one for 1280*1024 monitors http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/slideshow/teide.zip and one for 1024*768 monitors http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/slideshow/teide2.zip There also one I made earlier on the Purton Hulks http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/slideshow/purton01.zip Barry

Jeavons I think you are pretty unique there, men are notoriously bad at reading manuals including me Written tutorials have to encourage use and to do that they have to be very well laid out and easy to use. No, Jargon, just the steps that need to be followed. I recall my days of looking at work related statistics. Most are created by technically advanced individuals, but to others the information was not presented in a way it could be understood, and it makes the information almost useless. The trouble is most people will not admit they don't understand something and it takes a stronger more confident individual to put their hand up and say. I don't understand, most will just keep quite and hope no-one notices Written tutorials can be fine, but be aware of your target audience and pitch it for them. We almost always underestimate our knowledge of software like Photoshop, PTE and general computer related topics and that spills over into our tutorials. I have written hundreds and its not easy to do unless you write reams of information, which then has that negative effect. Magazines try this balance to get something worthwhile into 6 or 11 simple steps. Barry

Ron. At a risk of stirring up a hornests nest among protective PTE users, people in general don't want written tutorials. Now I know that will not sit very well with those who have put in hours of work with written tutorials, but it appears to be true. Sure there are some who do prefer a written tutorial to read on the way to work or when they are away from the PC, but unless they are written superbly well, they often fall short. Look at Magazines that provide written tutorials, but no CD containing movies. Their circulation is way way behind those that do. The vast majority of people like video tutorials, because they can see exactly what is being done and get an explanation why it is being done. Even if we then slip into jargon that is not understood, they can still see in the video what has been done. There are some very helpful tutorials provided on this site and I expect many a new user has been grateful for them and I have picked up a few things myself. However, to write such tutorials is a very difficult thing to do and maintain interest. Because we have a great knowledge of PTE we tend to assume others have more knowledge than they actually do. Its not a thing we do deliberately, its because we went past the basics so long ago its hard to turn the clock back and put ourselves back in the role of a beginner again. I have found it to be true many times that the tutorial writer assumes far too much. My own experiences only recently with a move to a dedicated server is a good example. Not to worry the web space provider said, we have tutorials on line to walk you through each process. They were about as much use as a chocolate teapot because they did not follow every step and jargon appeared almost immediately. The end result for me is that I now have no confidence in them whatsoever. They were quite obviously written by the company technical expert with the very best of intentions, but where a waste of time I have noticed that with tutorials I have read from this site. Although the writer may be using the correct names for areas and techniques in the software, it means nothing to the new user and they will quickly lose interest. I read something a few days ago and had to read it a few times myself before the penny dropped, I didn't understand what was being referred to. If an experienced user can be confused by a basic tutorial, the new user will quickly lose interest and grind to a halt. Every written tutorial should be created in stages with plenty of screen grabs. Not screen grabs that have been reduced for web use and are now impossible to see. They should be as easy to view as looking at the original in the software. Each step of the way needs to be as foolproof as possible so that someone with no experience at all can get to a final result. Miss just one small step and the whole tutorial becomes useless. A well written tutorial takes a lot of time and skill to write, but if you get it right, there are a lot of Magazines out there that will bite your arm off for them. The biggest problem bar far is writing at a level that starts off way above the beginner or uses terms and jargon that is not understood. Its not easy to do this no matter how well motivated the writer is. Barry

You can do all the animation you will ever require using PicturesToExe 5. It is very versatile and powerful. You will find plenty of tutorials on thise pages provided by PTE users and many you can download You will also find movie tutorials at the address below http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/digitalav/pte5.htm Barry

This sounds like a format issue. I have a suspicion you are making an animated slide show at perhaps 1024px by 768 that works fine on your monitor at the same resolution. When it is converted for a DVD you can see aspects of the animation outside of the images????? Try going into the Project options > Screen Tab Select Window mode from the screen options and put 1024 by 768 in there. That may cure your problem Barry

Thanks guys Well, being able to hold those points and take out an image and insert another is quite a vital one for me, I do that all the time. Perhaps that box is too important to be tucked away down there. The default setting is nice to know, as I am farely likely to want that. I can't see a great deal of point in carefully adding images nicely in time with the music and then moving the timing points all to the right, defeats the object of the excersize a bit. However, thanks for that it is very usefull. Barry

To the bottom right of the main PTE5 screen is a tick box called Hold Time Points. To save me endless tests, has anyone discovered what it does. Hold the time points where ? Barry

Ken Thanks for that, but it doesn't seem to help. Even with the minimum width set, once you add more letters to the button as Lin says, the button gets bigger. I would like to use the new buttons, but in the same way as PTE4. At present I do use PTE4 for that purpose. Barry

I would like to be able to see which images have animation applied while I am working within the time line. That way I can make allowance in the timing for the animation. Perhaps a change of colour to the blue flag Could the slide list be made to scroll while the timeline is on screen. I don't mean automatically, but being able to slide it along to see what images are coming up without having to close the time line would be useful. I doubt its practical to add a tiny thumbnail to the timeline in place of the blue flag that would do the same thing. Sometimes when going between the image editor, sound editor and PTE5, slides get applied to the time line even though the option to automatically add slides is turned off. They appear right at the far end of the time line which is very confusing until you tumble whats happening. Why does repeat music after playing always appear ticked by default. Isn't it better to do this the other way round. In objects and animation would not Cover screen, Fit to Screen and Original be a better label than fit to slide and cover slide? I would like to be able to easily create buttons of exactly the same size as each other despite what text I apply to them. At present, unless I am missing the solution the button grows if I add more letters than the previous. For the sake of newer users of PTE why not call the Time Line the same inside the dialogue as well as on the button rather than Customisze Synchronisation All for now Barry Beckham

I don't know why they linked to my web site either. It wasn't planned or asked for and in fact they have linked to the wrong place anyway. It just goes to show how thorough a test can be if they get such basic stuff wrong. With regards to precision transitions I don't think they could have looked very far. That is the very thing that makes PTE stand out from the crowd, but it still came out top of the pops Barry Beckham

Igor The magazines can weld a lot of power in a test like this, but I cannot see for the life of me why they think PTE cannot precisely control transitions times. Its this control where I think PTE is strongest, but whoever did the test did not find the time line or the ability to drag out transition times to match music perfectly I don't really see how they can become expert in 4-5 different programs in the time they have to put something like this together. I did send you a PDF of the article, so it seems you have two copies now Keep up the good work Barry

PTE Deluxe v5.00 is a Winner in a comparison test of slide show programs in the July issue of Photography Monthly. Incuded in the test were: PTE Deluxe v5.00 £30 Magix Photos £40 Ulead Movie Factory 6 plus £50 ProShow Producer 3.0 £250 Boinx FotoMagico £250 Igor I will try and get a scan of the pages for you. Barry

Igor You may be better linking to either http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/digitalav/pte5.htm Or www.beckhamdigital.co.uk Many thanks Barry

Peter You may have heard the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none" I have quite a strong belief in this statement. I would much rather my slide show software delivered superb image quality and didn't worry too much about automatic sound and fades and all the other add on's Those software packages that are so feature rich are often a little lacking in the ability for us to be more creative and they have other issues too, like those you have already picked up. Is there anything more important than image quality in a slide show software? Not in my book and I will take PTE any day of the week and twice on Sundays. The of course we have PTE5 that just gets better and better. Barry www.beckhamdigital.co.uk

ADP I can't say I agree with you for this reason. We are not in competition here and slide shows are put up for enjoyment. I don't particularly want someone who I don't know making a judgement on my work. (what qualifies them to do so?) I am quite happy for you to reach for the escape key, if you feel a slide show I have made is boring. I do it all the time with shows I download, but reaching for a set of standard rules to define comments on a slide show doesn't seem right to me. I think comments like that are OK if requested by the author or in a competitive situation, but not otherwise. I also believe that the judging of slide shows can restrict creativity, because we tend to get hearded into the acceptable mould for a slide show. For example, I have had people say to me after showing some sequences. Superb work, but the AV group would never accept a slide show where all the images have thin lines around them? Oh dear, how unfortunate for them......... Am I bovered, NO, because I produced the slide show for me, not the AV group. I have heard this too, The AV group would never accept borders or animation in a slide show, its not the done thing. Well, why the hell not? Unless a structured view is requested I would stay well clear of them. "PTE Mastery" makes me uncomfortable too. From what I have seen the energy put into this area needs to be redirected into image content and quality. The real beauty of AV/slide shows/PTE is that is can be all things to all people, well near enough. People get pleasure out of putting a few dozen holiday snaps to a bit of music with an auto setting and I think that is great. Others want to try and create something a little more hands on and thats great too. Then there is the enthusiast who get fun and pleasure from spending hours putting together some really special. They all get fun and enjoyment from PTE. Why not set up a competition and allow those who want to take part to do so, then comments such as you suggest are more relavant Other than that, just use the escape.

I use a screen resolution of 1280*1024 on the main PC's in the home and only use 1024*768 when I do a lecture or demonstration via a PC projector. The article Ken refers to is interesting as it shows 43% of users have 1024*768 set on their PC and 22% are set to 1280*1024. However, I suspect that the poll is a general one and if it were conducted with just people like us the result may be different. If only photographic and AV enthusiasts were polled I suspect the number using 1280*1024 may be somewhat higher. I must admit I am surprised to see that 11% are still using 800*600 Barry

Well, to be honest I havn't looked lately and quoted from memory. The point is, if there is a problem with another web browser then there is precious little I can do about it anyway. Wouldn't know where to start and the site seems to work for others which tends to suggest any isolated problems are on an individual machine and not the web site they are trying to access. Do I detect a little rising to the defence of Firefox here

Heres a thought I have a very simple web site, nothing difficult or complicated about it, but with the wrong settings or perhaps another obscure reason it does not display perfectly for all viewers. It does give you a little sympathy for software writers like Microsoft doesn't it? I cannot see how they can possible get a product right without people using it and reporting back, just like we have been doing with PTE5. How can you make Vista run perfectly for all, be able to run all other software including quite old programs on machines of all shapes, sizes and types. B

Peter The site has been running for almost 3 years and this is the first I have heard of it. Firefox users make up only a tiny proportion of visitors, so I will probably allow things to float along as they have been. You can always go direct to the forum on the link However, thanks for telling me about the problem BB

Peter I believe you were trying to access our shop and not the forum, but I also think you are aware of that now from the other posts. The forum does have a domain of www.beckhamforum.co.uk and it is listed in the menus to the left of every page on the site. In addition if you click the logo from the top right of our main page it will link you directly to our forum and if you click the Beckham Digital logo top left it will link you directly to the PTE forum. I created those links for my own convenience mostly, but they might be useful to visitors. Larry. You offer some great advice about Vista, but I have a problem in purchasing right now and probably not for the reasons some may think. All our PC's are now a bit old and I could do with replacing all three of them to something more powerful and up to date. (not that these machines are completely past it yet) However, we are planning to move permanently to Australia in about 12 months time so it makes no sence to spend that sort of money and set up three new machines only to have to pay to ship them out to Australia and lose them for up to 3 months while they take the low road (ship) and we take the high road (Aircraft). As soon as we get a base in Australia we will get three new PC's all running vista, hence my reasons for the query in the first place. Now last time I told anyone of our plans, some jerk went away and wrote an article saying we were closing our Beckham Digital site and retiring to Australia. That is not the case the web site and all it does will continue if and when we get there. Ken If you knew just what I have done in the UK for PTE I don't think you would be so upset at my request for info regarding Vista. How much free advertising do I want? Well any business wants all it can get doesn't it, including wnsoft. Well I think I have played quite a large part in the advertising of PTE myself with two or is it three articles singing the praises of PTE in the UK national Photo Magazines. In addition I have sold almost 700 copies and helped to set up another magazine article only yesterday and today. A UK magazine is doing a test of 5 slide show software programs and the test is to take a batch of holiday pictures and output them to DVD. With Igors help providing product keys that test will now go ahead with PTE5 and not PTE4 via Ulead, which would be a disaster really. Most people apart from us enthusiasts find creating a DVD a nightmare via Ulead and I constanty get calls and emails asking for help. PTE5 solves all that and the quality issues too, so it was vital that PTE5 was included in this test. Given the magazine lead times and with a fair wind, the artcle may appear just when PTE5 is launched and either way PTE will get a good slice of free advertising, because is should trounce the opposition particularly PSG. In addition I hold full day seminars on PTE, visit clubs and societies and PTE is always demonstarated and slide shows played. In addition to that I often spend time on the phone asisting people to get out of trouble with PTE and only this morning I have spent 30 minutes on the phone to someone who has re-installed PTE4 and got into all sorts of difficulties with the product key. He is now up and running. In addition to that I refer 100's yes 100's of people to the forum for topics I can't deal with. So, don't worry, I think I am doing more good than harm