Barry Beckham

Snapcam There is a difference and most music is actually royalty free as the copyright always remains with the author or musician playing it. For AV enthisiasts use, the two terms more or less amount to the same thing, but I have never heard any truly copyright free music I would be likely to use. Generally it seems to lack that something that makes music stand out. Most music we can buy to use in our slide shows has some parameters of use and that is a indicator that your actually buying royalty free. The Music for Photographers albums we sell are actually Royalty free and the license is for low level use. That means it's OK for anything we are likely to do, but if you wanted to use this music on TV or in a run of 250,000 CD copies the license doesn't cover that and you would need to re-negotiate. The whole concept of our music is for people like us and wedding photographers would be typical I suppose. I contacted MGMusic some years ago and explained the dilema AV enthusiasts have with music and must have caught them at a good time and Music for Photographers was born. We now have some 36 albums inclucing a sound effects one

But, Dave, the people who need that advice are not likely to be forum members.

Begging your pardon Dave, but your stating the obvious and I am not laying the blame anywhere. Having sold around 800 copies of PTE I do attract those who have a problem even those who never purchased PTE from me and I always try to assist them. While I agree that they should have taken more care, life isn't that simple is it. Some people just don't forsee a computer failure until it happens. Wnsoft do respond and resend the product key for those who have mislaid it and the word has got around around that they do. Anyway its good customer relations to respond timely even if that response is to say, sorry we cannot help.

Almark Yes, that just about sums up my view, but Davy had a valid point originally that there is such hipocrasy with these issues and I would love to scan the PC's of those who shout the loudest. Nearly every time I do a PTE demo there will be someone who wants to make a big issue about music copyright and often their thunder is crushed when they learn the music used is royalty free. Lets be honest this forum and most others are made of a hardcore of regular members and sometimes the stating of the obvious does get a bit tedious. The vast majority of people do still have a conscience and perhaps we should leave these issues to them.

I regularly get asked for help by those who have lost their PTE product key and cannot get any response from wnsoft. I have had two in the past week, but one reported back that evenually it was resolved and a replacement key sent to him. This is the one received today Got my new tutorial disk and have spent a few happy evenings reminding myself how good they are. Unfortunately I cannot get on with any useful work in P2E as my program needs a key and, guess what, there it was, gone!!! It's v5 I have installed. I've e-mailed Winsoft on four occasions now and had absolutely no reply. Are their old e-mail addresses still valid? I'm willing to buy the program all over again but as a canny Scot I'd hate my money and credit card number to be skulling about in limbo for evermore and me left with nowt in the end. I know this is not what Beckham Digital is really for but if you could throw any light at all on this lack of communication for me I'd be gratefull indeed. There needs to be a quicker response to this issue I think and it happens too often for it to be caused by the spam protection

Almark and Others I am not agreeing or disagreeing because I can't quite make up my mind where I stand, but as a discussion point should we not consider that the Internet has changed the world as we know it. (the law aside just for a minute) All of us who post our images and/or slide shows onto the internet do so knowing just how easy it is for that work to be used by others elsewhere if they have the inclination to do so. If we were that worried about that we would not put up any of our images and slide shows where others can get to them. In saying that I am not condoning it, but we are all street wise enough to know it could happen. I am certain my tutorial disks have been copied and shared in camera clubs and once some did turn up on E bay. Generally, there is nothing much we can do about that except where the use is obvious and blatant or we could spend the rest of our lives searching the internet to see if someone else has stolen our work. We have to assume that the majority of people still do have a conscious and mostly they do in my view. We can't allow the few to cause us to see threats under each rock. There is a wider debate regarding copyright that I read in a book recently that dealt with most of the great inventions of the past 4-500 years. Many of those inventions provided drugs that saved millions of lives. Practically all were ideas by one person, picked up by another and modified in the light of new evidence and then by another and so on. This writer was making a point that under the strict copyright laws of the 21st century, this would not happen now and therefore we deny ourselves a repeat of some of the greatest inventions we have seen in the past. That is a bit off the track I suppose, but it does make you think a little more deeply about was is right and wrong with using another persons idea. Personally I am not a fan of using other peoples images in my slide shows, but I can't say I have never used a graphic from the Internet. For work I put on a commercial CD I will use copyright free music or in the past have purchased a piece for use. (As in the Dvorak New World Symphony) I recall it cost $35US. Not a fortune, but probably out of reach of most amateur AV enthusiasts. I think it is probably quite rare for images and slide shows to be stolen and then someone else makes a fortune from them. The one thing about forums is that we do often lecture each other and state the obvious at times, but that is the nature of the beast. Ignore that and take away the good bits and before anyone says this. What if I found someone using my pictures on the internet. I did once and just politely pointed out that the images on the CD they came from wasn't copyright free and they were removed. I will worry about what I will do if I find someone selling my images on line when I discover them . I would probably ask what their secret was because I can't seem to sell any myself. Wish I could

Quite right too, I have lost track of how many of my PC's have suddenly burst into flames and threatend not only my life but that of others.too. I have a better Idea, lets allow any computer into any property or hall, but test the owners, some of those need to have a label attached, certainly certified ! Something like Jumped up Peter Perfect Smart Arse would fit the bill

Well that livened up the forum, what can we do next

Nobeestu I owe you an appology because I read your original post, but to be honest never gave it much thought. I was annoyed that I could not create my demos without huge file sizes and didn't want to do anything at that point that was different to what I did before. Having read your second post more carefully and after giving it a try I have to say thank you for a great solution and I regret not paying more attention to your first post. My first demo was 18.4 MB, but using your idea it came down to 3.9 MB which is far more like it. What made you think of that?

Davy Best post I have seen on here in ages. Peter Perfects, I love that phrase and I am going to wantonly steal it and use it (Copyright Free) in my lectures. If anyone wants to prosecute me I live at No 4 Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Here is some feedback from a Lecture on Disk I provided on the subject of PTE and for maximumm fun value read it with the funny voice used in many m Monty Python sketches There was no mention of copyright as applying to the music used in preparing an A/V presentation, although the credits did state that the music used in the example slideshow was “royalty free”, I feel the subject should be mentioned to prevent possible prosecution should copyright be infringed. You can imagine the puffed out chest of Peter Perfect as he spouts these words of wisdom to enlighten us all. Anyone who does not know about copyright must have been in a coma for the last 50 years or they are just too stupid to be allowed anywhere near AV anyway:lol: PS. Isn't that latest Tom Jones album just the greatest. I think its one of the best things he has done and he is around 70 I think.

It may be converting all tracks into the exe file, but it does not remove the parts of the tracks not used. I proved that yesterday by making a demo with Audacity and it was the difference between a 7MB file and an 18MB file. You can see for a 8 image demo that is too large.

Thanks, but I want something quick that produces the demo as I am recording the video or the time taken to make the demo starts to become too much

One issue with the sound editing within PTE is that the whole sound file is stored in the exe file no matter how little you have used of it. Well, at least I think that is happening. I made a demo using two tracks of 8 and 9 minutes plus a sound effect and was suprised that the demo size was 17MB Thinking about it, I assume that both these long tracks are embedded into my slide show even though only a couple of minutes of them was used. That is a pain for me as it prevents me from including a short demo with my downloadable videos, the file sizes get too big. So, if I am right, perhaps there is a way when the exe file is created for the music to be treated like it is in Audacity. Anything you cut off is disgarded and the file size becomes smaller. I also thought a logical next step is to allow us to record commentary within PTE too.

There is probably little Igor can do. I have experienced the same sort of problems where some people say they never got the link for my download videos. Assuming it didn't go into their spam folder, it must have gone somewhere. Perhaps it is stripped out of the email by the provider, they do that sometimes. We still experience this from time to time while all other customers receive the link OK. Given that the on line shop software is automatic, all we can do is react quickly and send a manual link.

I am putting together a batch of camera club competition images and wish to put a recorded comment with every image. I have no problem applying the commentary for each slide in the normal way and I have no reason to want to hear it at that point. Once all the sound comments have been added along with intro titles and blanks I want to start the mini player and add each slide while listening to the sound comment. Untill the sound comment of slide 1 ends I cannot know where to add the next, but while working on the fly in the time line you cannot do this. When you hit New Transition, the slide will appear, but the sound will not play until you stop, back up and play the slide again. Working on the fly is the best way to work in my view as you see and hear what your doing, but not with sound comments and this makes a simple job tedious.

Gary One of my strengths is I am never embarrassed to say I don't understand and I don't understand this thread at all. Where is the benefit of moving a group of slides to match the beat of music? Surely only one slide can match the beat of the music, so why do you need to move them all. Can you explain please

Perhaps its me, but I don't have a clue what your talking about All I want when I click the New Transition is for the image to start to appear and any sound comment is played

I originally used PTE to create menus for my tutorial disks, but always had the issues of format and resolution on the computer the exe file was played on. The menus would vary and be seen differently by different resolutions, which was OK when everyone was using either 1024*768 or 1280*1024. Then when PTE changed to another version (5 I think), the buttons changed too and that gave me additional problems I could not overcome. I turned to a program called Multi Media Builder (MMB) and I did create a video tutoral on how to use the program to make user activated CD's and DVD's, but looking back I can see it was some time ago now, but that hasn't changed anything and the software works fine and the tutorial is still valid http://www.beckhamdi...1&idproduct=772 You will find this software available here http://mmb.mediachance.com/index.html The trouble is that MMB has reached the end of its life and is no longer being kept up to date. However, at this address you can still download the last version created. I used this for some years on Windows XP, later Windows Vista, but found it does not work with my latest PC. I am unable to tell if that is a Windows 7 issue or the fact this PC is 64 bit. There are alternatives and one I found is called AutoRun Pro Enterprise II These programs just need a little time to get your head around, but if you have the need to author CD's DVD's or even downloads as I do then they are pretty neat. They will fire up anything you want from a PTE show, video, exe file of any type, web pages, etc etc

Nobeefstu Phew. thanks I thought I was alone there for a minute

I am not sure how popular my views may be, but as much as I think PTE is great at what it does, I long since moved away from the buttons and menu making side of the software because there are other programs that....gulp do it a lot better. There I have said the un thinkable and expect the wrath of the faithful Ducks for cover I suppose one of the dangers of any software is that while trying to meet everyones needs it becomes a "Jack of all Trades but Master of None" That is an English saying that I hope most will understand. Now I don't think PTE is guilty of this, apart from the menu system. You either have slide show software or a multi media builder software perhaps. I have found that the multimedia builder software packages are much better at presenting multiple slide shows, videos, links to the web and more.

Now that we have sound editing in PTE I am using sound comments a lot more. (adding commentary to an individual slide) However, when you do this on the fly using the time line you cannot hear the sound comment as you add the slide. After clicking to add a new transition you have to stop the time line, move the pointer back before the image you have just placed and then start it again to be able to hear the commentary. It is time consuming and a little frustrating if you have a lot of images to place comments on. Is it possible to have the commentary start as we hit the new transition button so we can hear it as we create the slide show. It would be very helpful and speed up the process. Is there any plans to add the recording of commentary when a mike is attached. That seems a logical next step to me. I also find it hit and miss to end a show that has used 2 or more pieces of music. To do that easy you need to know where to trim the last track, but with more than one track and crossfades it isn't always that easy. The time line may say the slide show needs to end at 5 minutes 30 seconds, but trinmming the last track to achieve that is not so straight forward. I would like to see this made a bit easier if possible too.

David You will find it in the Objects and Animation screen under the Common Tab You can create/select a button image/frame and apply a go to a page command when clicked. Go to the button just below Action on mouse click and you will find the options

Jan I assume when you say The height of the slides is oke but the width not. It's to small on the projector? that the images via the projector look like the attached example ?? That is not a great problem is it to see black bars either side? You cannot make one format fit another no matter what you do. If you do what DG suggests the images will fill the screen, but you will then enlarge the height of your images and lose a bit top and bottom. That may or may not be acceptable and will depend on your views and the images. On a projector it isn't a great problem to see the show not quite stretching edge to edge with black bars either side as they are not hemmed in as they are with the plastic edge of the monitor. Presumably you will be in a darkened room and the show should look fine. You could make a backup to zip of your 16:10 format slide show and then use that second version to make a 16:9 version. Unzip the copy and crop the images to 16:9, but that will depend again on your personal view and the content of the images.

This does not sound logical in my ears. If (many?) people go to some places, make pictures, open the camera and throw these images into PTE, add some music, and finally think that they have produced AV: Isn't that fine? Yes of course it is fine and am not saying anything about that at all and you have misunderstood me, perhaps something is being lost in translation. What got me reaching for the keyboard was the suggestion from an Audio Visual forum that music and transitions can be left out because they are not important. Sorry, I have no wish to offend, but that is a crackpot suggestion. If that is the case why are we all using PicturesToExe. We certainly don't need PTE to show a few pictures especially if we don't need music and we don't need transitions. If members of this forum are quite HAPPY to just look at pictures you may as well go to any old web gallery or any browser will do. What about trying to raise the bar just a little and produce an Audio Visual that is not just a few pictures thrown together. Surely we have the potential to create at least one show like that. A show that does need to be seen in it's entirety and not stopped every few seconds by the viewer. Audio Visual is a way to present images and the charm of this technique is the smooth flow of image to image, enhanced with music and/or sound. The transitions and speed of the AV is vital to it's success along with the right choice of images that follow each other perfectly. To take an authors work like this and want to first discard the music and then play it one image at a time. Well, words fail me

Ken I would love to have a face to face discussion with you, so I could call you a fruit cake and you would know I said it with a big grin. An Audio Visual is not an art gallery ( it could be) but in its truest form it captures a mood and can generate an emotion in the viewer. The very LAST thing that should happen to that show is for the viewer to stop and start it and destroy the flow of the Audio Visual. In a book style show it can be either way, authors choice. Yes, of course in the past I suggested people temporarily changed their resolutions to view a slide show, but not just mine. It is absolute nonsense to create images at one resolution and have them played back at another that destroys the quality. So, far you have dispensed with the A in AV and back then some of you were dispensing with the V too. Absolutely crazy. I even had one member pushing pins in a dummy of me when I stupidly suggested that resolution and format of an AV is important. Fortunately we don't have to adjust resolution any more because the PTE program has moved on, but I am really surprised that you of all people are unaware of of the need to do that at the time. I wasn't asking people to cut off a finger, or poke their eye out with a sharp stick, just temporarily change the resolution so they saw the slide show as the author intended. How daft of me to want to see a good quality image when I could watch it broken up with artifacts. I didn't criticise Ron's book show at all, where did you get that from? Perhaps you are confused and mean Trailertrash, but I didn't criticise that either. I suggested a change of the settings because you you either have a manual show or an automatic one. If you leave the settings so it is neither one or the other the result is exactly what happened. The viewer changes the slides manually before the author intended (why would he have made it automatic) and the sound is then out of synch. Part of me hopes that your just poking fun at me and I have stupidly risen and taken your bait, but something tells me that isn't the case. Xaver If your right, I think I will give up AV and take up knitting, I am already halfway there having thrown away the A already. I have just posted my latest V here and the good news is they can be knocked out at 4-5 shows a day http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/newv.zip