Barry Beckham

I think the experienced person asking the question may not be quite so experenced as they believe and the problem is fairly obvious. The music posted does not run for 2:48 as it has a period of silence at the end of it, so in fact the music was playing longer than 2:48, although what it was playing was silence from 2:48 onwards. See screen grab taken from the end of the music file using Audacity. Try this edited piece which runs 2:48 exactly

I have made hundreds of AV's and what we have described is generally the cause and the screen grab explains what I was talking about. and it could easily go on for another 10 seconds or much longer, but to move on perhaps a bit more detail is required. When it is played showing the wave form it cuts of at 2mins 48secs but the waveform goes on another 10secs. Is the waveform a straight line, indicating 10 seconds of silence and does the final image fade out to 2:48 Played without the waveform showing it plays out to 2mins 58secs. I can't get my head around why these two ways to view is going to change anything and I still keep coming back to my original thoughts. However, I once made some music samples via Audacity and when I compressed them for web use, some odd things happened with the length of the music. I just switched to Adobe Audition and never really got involved in searching for a solution, but its the only thing I can think of to look at. Failing that post a backup in zip here so we can find the solution for your friend.

This is a issue that I havet generally dealt with by making sure I have my hand near the volume control of my speaker system. It seems that it doesn't matter how you try and balance everything up with regard sound volume, different halls will screw that up. Go into one of those large hollow sounding halls and Eric is right, the low volume parts of the music can hardly be heard and then the build up to the loud parts, melts the deaf aids of all those in the front row. I havn't found a perfect solution to it and I just gradually adjust the volume while the show is playing and as long as you do it gradually, you can apply sound balance no matter what hall your in or how many people are there deadening the sound. Thats why I hate demos where sound is laid on, it is never as good as I can provide myself

Well, I was going to add, although thought better of it, that I find it better for the last slide to end a few seconds after the music ends.I feel that if not, the end of the show, the fade down and then a flash back to wherever the show was launched from is often a bit too abrupt. A fade down to black and a 3 second pause on that blank before the show exits is just right in my view I appreciate that this is a very small point, but small points tend to add up and attention to detail is vital in AV However, you can use the set end of the last slide to end of music and just drag the green marker line a little to the right.

Well, you have taken my idea and improved on it no end. The commentary is very well done and what it did for me was to add an anticipation to the sequence. Listening to the cottage being described was just perfect and in the end I was willing the pices to be completed, but not from boredom, but because the mental picture had been built and the visual one was to follow. That was a great voice and accent for that commentary. If it's your voice, then congratuations you nailed it perfectly. If it's someone else's it's still congratulations because you picked the right one. A great blend of a great old cottage, superb commentary and perfect music. Nice size too.

Snapcam Are you sure that it is the waveform/music that continues. Check the last slide in your sequence. Highlight the image and look into Customized Slide > Main Tab. I suspect that the box labelled Timing > Display slide for (sec.) is set higher than the slide is actually needed on screen. Look at the timeline, see how long the last slide is actually on screen and change the seconds in this box to reflect that actual time. I think your show will now end at 2:48 What happens is the music ends but the software believes we want that last slide to continue. I use the Cut Transition option quite a lot when I make a slide show, which causes this and in extremes that last slide has often shown a time on screen in my shows of 300-700 seconds, which is clearly wrong. I almost always have to adjust that Customized Slide > Main Tab to get the show to end as I would like.

The logical place for this would be the Objects and Animation screen > Properties Tab > Add Image and Border. It would be nice if that panel had an "Add to this slide" + "Add to all Slides" We could then just remove it from blanks or any image where it is not required.

Yep Smooth my end Ken

There is probably less reaction to this because most users are not so demanding and any fade for some will be good enough.

That logo work around is a really good shortcut, but it has one failing, you cannot remove it from just one image or blank. You either have it on the lot, or none at all. I did ask for the option to add a Png file to either the image you have selected or all images in the show some time ago, but sometimes our wants are probably not as easy to achieve as we think :-)

Now why can't we see more work like this on the premire PTE forum ?

Ron Add the blank slide with a simple right click. Right click again and select Customise and you can have any colour your heart desires, or a gradient, or a tiled background There are many projects where you need to use a lot of blanks between sections and I have found the right click method, quick, simple and easy.

Sigh How much easier is it to purchase an on-line product, copy the key and the software to a CD and place the CD on a shelf. The shelf, will not crash, will not get lost and will be there just when you need it

Eric Your right of course, I have a mate who is waiting for the development of the car to settle before he moves on from his horse and cart The good news is he has great roses

Yachtsman What are you talking about. Adding a Blank slide was part of 6.5 that is on general release to the public. You make it sound as if there is some risk to using it. Get on board for goodness sake DG, good point I like anything that speeds up workflow

I think most PTE users did the same, but that isn't necessary now. A right click from the slide list and you can create a blank in seconds within PTE

Snapcam You can only add a blank slide while in the slide list (the images showing as thumbnails across the bottom) If your in the timeline the option appears but is greyed out There are many purposes where a slide show may need to fade to black (or any other colour) Most use a blank at the start and end of their slide shows so they have a blank to start from and blank to fade down to

Ron AVCHD - Is that the All Vehicle Chain Drive option

Sometimes it may be useful to identify a utility to do this sort of thing. I use a piece of software I have used for years called HypersnapDX, I was surprised and pleased that it worked fine on my new W7 64 bit machine. Its just so simple to hit Ctrl+W to grab a window or palette from any program - Ctrl+R to select any region and Ctrl+F to grab the entire screen. Save the grab to where you want quickly and easily

Yes, your probably right

No, it was before I stated to add Quicktime movies to the disks and they was PC only. His beef was that I had the audacity not to make a dedicated disk for Mac users. Unless he has come back since then and purchased on line he bought nothing, we was just a Mac Moaner. I have had this a few times

Tom By the time that all happens I would be pushing up daisies I think Crossfade Exactly, but I had one guy email me who took his time to tell me what a crook he felt I was. My crime was not providing my video disks in Mac format. Apparently it was my sworn duty to do so (it says it in the Apple Mac Bible I am told) and if he had his way I would have been flogged for not doing so. Since then I have lost my usual patience with Mac users who have that attitude, but I have the perfect reply these days. Lets see your superiour pictures:P That usually does the trick. Personally, I would love to try a Mac, but not a 5 minute fiddle in a store, but a real 2 week use doing what I do now with my images. Without that real life test its almost impossible to pick the tool that works as you say. Most people will end up with the computer they use, because that is what their mate uses so they go with that.

You need to read the earlier posts or I will have to repeat the same thing I wrote above. See my post for the 1st November replying to Geoffrey Its just that some folk get too wrapped up in the tools they are using to such a ridiculous degree. Show me a computer that will make my images better, have more impact, become sharper, stand out from the crowd and I will throw away my PC and take up with the new wonder machine. PC/Mac ? just tools to do a job and neither will make a better slide show or a better image. Lets concentrate on the end result and not how we get there.

Well, Mac users have been buying my disks for the past 2 years since I started to include a copy of all videos in Quicktime format and slide shows in Mac format where I can. However, it is just not the same as I can produce for PC's, yet Mac users seem happy to purchase them. So, they are used to them and if autorun isn't a feature of Macs then Mac users are used to searching a disk for what they want. I guess !!! I know what you thought, you thought I was having a pop at Mac users didn't you ? I bet you were limbering up there to defend Mac users No, I only have a pop at Mac users when they whinge about the lack of this and the lack of that, but that would never happen here.

I think the last few posts just about sum up this issue. It would take considerable effort and cost to reach a tiny proportion of the computer market that I can reach anyway if I stay with what I do now. Albeit with a less than slick product for Mac users, but then so what, Mac users are used to that