Barry Beckham

Isabel It still looks to me like the problem I first mentioned. Look at my first screen grab called "end" The green line is within the transition of my last slide and any music playing at that point would come to an abrupt stop. By clicking and dragging that line to the end of the fade and music "End 2" all is resolved Thank you for recommending my tutorials, but perhaos I have a bit of work to do on ending a show

Isabel Have a look at your time line and see if the green line that says "End of the last slide" comes before the end of the music. If it does, click and drag it to the right Hope that helps

I don't think it matters how it is done, but something needs to be considered in my view. Generally speaking we on this forum have the best interests of PTE at heart and we strive for quality all round. What makes modern software difficult to learn is for every box we must tick, there are 20 other nice to have options that just confuse the hell out of us. I don't have all the answers, but I just think it is a shame that a slide show is posted and the image quality is compromised because the author is not aware of one little tick box. lets leave it to Igor, he is the programming expert and will decide what is best.

xaver You would have to select a resolution for your show in the options > screen tab and the size of the slide. But perhaps your right, there may be technical issues against this that I am over looking, it was a suggestion for Igor. However, it still doesn't change the fact that a new user of PTE will not know about this problem and may not do so some time and all the while their shows will be seen by others in poor quality because of it.

Xaver I don't quite understand sorry. If I make a show at 1920*1200 with animation it obviously looks good played back on a 1920*1200 screen, but when it is played on a smaller monitor that are no issues with animation that I have found at all. All the animation is retained within the format of the show. Zooms pans are all fine. I have a balloon AV made at 1920*1200 and it has some animation in it, download it and see how it looks to you on your monitor, if you have a smaller res monitor of course. On my demo PC the slide show runs perfectly OK and I even demonstrate this show via the PC projector too. That is a 1024*768 projector, but it all works fine. Link below if you want to try it Its called Forever Floating to be Free http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw4.htm

Ken we have this discussion many times when you recommend we change the screen resolution to what you want - as it is your shows generally do not fill my screen because i refuse to change my res to suit you. Well, firstly the request was as much to suit you ( and others) as well as me. I assumed that as a PTE enthusiast you (and others) would want to see top quality images, it seems some don't seem to care or appreciate what they are looking at. How many times do we say there are but two parts of AV and they both need to be spot on. Anyway, you don't have to change your resolution any more. Now that PTE has put right that annoying problem of a show made at one resolution looking awful on another, you don't have to worry. I am with DaveG on this, that probably the best course of action these days is to create your show at 1920*1200 or 1920*1080 no matter what screen you are using. Why? 1. Because when and if you ever move up to a larger screen, your slide show will look superb and not small in the middle of that large screen. (not the be all and end all, but worth considering) 2. The slide show will play fine on a 1024*768/1280*1024 monitors too, the only issue is a thin black band top and bottom and a thin line around the images tends to make that less obtrusive anyway. I appreciate that if you have issues with site, you need a biger icon, but the trend is towards larger screens. All this doesn't alter the fact the a new user of PTE puts a show together that looks great on their monitor (1024*768) and looks awful on mine and many others. If you don't want to reach a larger audience it doesn't matter a hoot, but if that show is put up here or beachbrook, the author obviously does want to reach a wider audience or they wouldn't have posted it.

Maureen, nothing has come in just yet, you can always use tech@beckhamdigital.co.uk

DaveG Sorry, I misunderstood, but it still doesn't help as what newcomer is going to think about creating a slide show at 1920*1200/1920*1080 if their monitor runs at 1024*768 People at their Camera Club, if they are members, will all be saying create the show at 1024*768. Even throwing 1024*680 into the pot to retain format is enough for many to lose it.

I don't think that life is that easy. Consider the situation of a simple Ken Burns show. All images should have a size of 1500x1000. Each image should have individual animation parameters (slight, screen filling pans and zooms, maybe also rotations). Which screen resolution should PTE choose, if it were asked to do this automatically on a screen of size 1600x1200? I don't see why not, any animation still needs to be kept inside the overall resolution for the slide show, whatever that is. I don't see how any animation impacts on what I am saying at all. DaveG Your idea is no good either, when I suggested a monitor be changed in resolution to see a slide show at its best, I recall reedback from this very forum that was very hostile. You would think I had asked people to have a limb amputated. Forgive me for saying this, but your missing the point. You know the solution to this and so do I, but experts are not the purpose of this post. It shouldn't be almost a secret handshake that is needed to have a show play perfectly. Perhaps we are some of the cause of a reluctance to change resolutions, particulalry when making shows. There was a time when it was daft to create anything bigger than 1024*768 as the poower to run the show was often not there. We drummed into people they must make their showe at or within these resolutions and some I feel have got that cemented in their brain. We have moved on so far that those sizes are no longer the case. Like you I make shows large because one the most positive things about PTE is that it plays the shows on a smaller res monitors great, so I have the best of all worlds. Ken I havn't a clue what you mean about high res hiding sins, please can you explain? How does a low res protect your eyes. Eyes are amuscle like any in the body and when they get tired they tell you when to stop. If you mean to be able to see icons because of poor site, then that is different. However, you can use a 1024*768 screen to produce any size show you want, as you know. Howard You have it in one, thank you for understanding what I am talking about.

Ken The music has to feel right, but perhaps we could use some Chinese or Japanese music, maybe something from India or Tibet to a Lakeland Slide show. Wouldn't work would it?

Xaver Yes, fixing size of slide will do the job, but that isn't the point. You know that and I know that, but the vast majority of people do not and as I said earlier, many of those people are on this forum and would consider themselves way above a basic user of PTE, but they are unaware of this issue and fall into the trap. Why should you have to tick a box (that is by no means self explanitory) to get your slide show to display as you made it? It makes no sense unless there are some programming technical issues that I am not aware of. PTE's reputation comes to some degree from the image quality, it should not be via some secret setting that is known only by a chosen few enthusiasts. All I am saying is that from where I sit, the default is round the wrong way.

Igor Do you think this issue needs addressing at some stage. I can't quite understand why the default playback of a sequence has to expand the images to fit the monitor the show is being played on. Surely if a person makes a show at 1024*680 the images should display at that size on any monitor it is being played on as a default. I see lots of slide shows, many from this forum, where the author is unaware that those running a higher resolution monitor are seeing their images enlarged to the degree that image quality is not good. Shouldn't the default be the other way round, always display the show at the resolution of the images unless the author ticks a box to say different. i.e "expand show to fit monitor".

Reading this thread has prompted me to add something to it. I find myself agreeing with Jeb and his assessment of Maureens show. The images are great and the whole show with it's current music works pretty well and I enjoyed viewing it as have many others. However, I think it could work a whole lot better with a different choice of music. I was also transported to other parts of the world rather than Cumbria in the UK while watching it, but perhaps it doesn't help that I know The Lakes pretty well myself. Jeb made another point that there are only two aspects of AV, audio and visual and perhaps we do need to give the sound side more attention. Jeb is right that we mostly all come from a photography background and the quality of our images should be accepted. No matter how stunning the images are, the wrong music will kill the appeal of the show without a doubt. Once we have one show made and all the hard work is done, it isn't so hard to try a couple of different types or styles of music with the same images. We don't have to programe the whole show to get a flavour of how the new music will work, but worth a try. When more than one person gets the same feel from the show there is a chance that many others will too. The one thing I find over and over again is that to find the right peice of music you often need a lot of music to choose from. I try and listen to potential music for a show as I am getting the images prepared and that often helps. However, I have 36 copyright free albums at my disposal and there are times when I am struggling to find something that I think is perfect for the images and the mood.

What I meant was the resolution of the images 1024*768 ????

Maureen Can I ask what resolution you made your slide show please?

dadou Thank you, I wish I could see it on a Mac for myself. Igor should be pretty pleased with his work I expect.

You all need to remember that PTE is a commercial product and needs to keep developing so it stays ahead of the competition. As popular as the forum is, we don't put wages into the pockets of Igor and his team, new sales to new users do that. There are two choices I guess. 1. You keep a product different from the competition and play on that uniqueness ( I hope uniqueness is a valid word and not something I have jusdt invented ) 2. You develop the product and gradually make it better. The more basic slide show software users DO WANT SOUND EDITING in their software. That only needs to be basic like PSG, but it is inevitable that it should be included at some stage. Now, I say all this not needing it myself at all, but as I have said, we are not your average user. Yaughtsman, so you eat your eggs raw do you? I like mine fried, whereas my wife likes hers scambled. My son doesn't like eggs and my daughter likes them poached. See the problem, you can please all of the people etc etc etc

I was looking over the shoulder of a new user of PTE the other day who was becoming confused that the images chosen in the slide list where all still in the file list and my thoughts came back to this post !!

I think there are a number of interesting issues here and I would remind everyone of two things 1. You can please all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. 2. Jack of all trades equal a master at none. (ie for most of us on this forum, sound editing in PTE would have to equal the capacity of Audacity for most of us to be happy with it) The majority of people who contribute to this forum are not typical PTE users, you are in the main PTE enthusiasts, so your needs are miles away from the average user. Some of you can often get very defensive of PTE, which can sometimes get in the way of a balanced debate . As enthusiasts don't we need to take a step back and think about how sound editing would impact into PTE for the average user, not us. Most of you don't need sound editing in PTE to do what you need to do, but then we are not typical users either. However, I do a lot of demos and I meet a lot of amateur photographers and there is not a shadow of a doubt that PSG is popular to some degree because is does allow basic sound editing. In time PTE has to adopt some form of sound editior, that will reduce music to the length of the show and fade it out over the number of seconds the author chooses. I would expect that would meet the needs of the PTE bulk users. If PTE was able to offer sound editing to the level Audacity does perhaps it should be via an add-on like Video Builder. That way the screen controlling the sound would be available to enthusiasts, but not clutter up the normal windows making it harder for newer users to learn PTE. One of the issues people have with practically all software these days is knowing what three essential buttons they need to press to get the job done from the other 999 other options that they just don't need, either for now or forever. The more that is put into PTE, the more complex it makes the software to learn and some will be driven away by that. You cannot use your own experences as a judge here, because you are not typical users, you have to stand back. Finally, to contradict my own waffling here, where is it written that we always have to follow the crowd anyway. Someone has to forge their own path and be different from the competition.

I have a 20" Imac with Apple and Vista (bootcamp) 2,6 GHz dual core 4GB mem. and 256 mB ATI video card. The specification you have quoted doesn't mean much to me never being a Mac user, but I am glad the shows run well on your Mac and thanks for the feedback.

Peter I just plugged in that drive that hasn't been running now for 3-4 weeks and its still working Barry

I tried it for 30 mins and that didn't work so I left it overnight and then plugged it straight in and it worked

I have put up on my web site a few slide shows that I have created in the past few months, but I have included the Mac version created with the PTE 5.7.3. Not being a Mac owner myself or access to one it would be interesting to hear any feedback on the technical aspect of the new Mac output. They can be found here http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/freestuffdigslidesw4.htm P.S Forever Floating is a show that many of you felt I made too small when it was first made for PC, it is now at 1920*1200 as are all the others on this page

close down, reboot and try again