PGA

Roel, I suspect that this will be because Igor has not yet commissioned the server infrastructure to support automatic delivery of updates. regards, Peter

Barry, What I do isn't going to help you while you're on the road at present, but it might be a tool to add to your collection. I keep a record of the duration of each of my sequences in the attached spreadsheet. It should be largely self-explanatory. When I get a booking, I use the menu column to build up an evening of the required duration, setting aside time for some introductory chat for each item and a few minutes for questions. Then I save the file under a name that connects it to the audience it is intended for. As I complete each PTE project it takes only a couple more seconds to note the duration in the PTE project file and insert a new line in the correct place for the new show. AV Show Durations.zip

Thanks for your comments Lin. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the Hunton family would seem to have been from the Yorkshire Dales region, possibly from near Richmond in Swaledale. regards, Peter

Sorry, I do not know what went wrong there. I, too, could not open the link. I have refreshed the link (there was no change to the URL text when I did so) and now I can open it. Perhaps there was some sort of glitch at the Dropbox end of things. I checked the YouTube link and that is OK. Peter

I have just refreshed the brower cache (Ctrl+F5) and I still see no link.

As at the time of this posting I see no link in post #15 above.

I do not use IE, I use Firefox. Yesterday I didn't see any Vimeo link. Today, after an overnight power-down/power-up cycle I do see the link. It isn't an "IE thing". But it might have been a "cache thing". Peter

I don't think it is inconsistent behaviour. You open the Slide Options window. You make no changes. Nothing gets changed. You open the Slide Options window. You change one or more values (in your case just the one, to the image to be used as the background) and the values present on the two tabs in the Slide Options window get applied - ALL of them! The behaviour is consistent - but it isn't the behaviour that you would like. And I don't think I would like it either, but so far I haven't fallen into this trap! Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Tom, If you set the Project options to have all images pre-zoomed to, say, 110% would that guard against the image shrinking too small when a down-zoom was combined with a pan?

PTE stores, in the project file (the .pte), the full path of each image file. When you port the entire collection to a different system it is highly likely that the drive and folder will be different. If you port, make a change, save the project, close PTE and then re-start PTE, I think (not 100% certain) that the bold will come back. It will then be lost again next time you port, until after you have done a change and a save. Be aware that PTE emboldens only the main image. Any images used as objects (e.g. as pictures within pictures) will not have their file names emboldened. regards, Peter

As I recall, WAV files usually are around 10MB per minute. MP3 files are significantly smaller. How much smaller depends upon your choice of bit rate. At 128Kbps an MP3 usually comes in at about 1MB per minute - but the sound quality is much poorer than the WAV. The higher bitrates will give better quality sound but also give larger files - but always smaller than the WAV. Peter

PTE is not a sound file editor. If you want to cut your sound file into smaller pieces before you use them in PTE then you need to use an external sound file editor such as Audacity, Adobe Audition or similar. regards, Peter

Yes, if you then use Google Translate Tak, jeśli następnie użyć Google Translate

Eric, Why not turn your "waiting music" into another sequence triggered off the menu? When you "Esc" out of that, you will be returned to your menu (just like any other sequence) and you are there, ready to launch the first "real" sequence of your evening. That's my way of working: the entire evening is run from the menu. Peter

Eric, It is always going to stall in your scenario. Even though your Menu sits in the same folder as the other sequences, the shortcut that you launch it with is on the desktop. As far as Windows is concerned you have launched off the desktop - but the other sequences aren't on the desktop. You can prove this by copying one of the sequences out onto the desktop. Everything has to be in one place and you must launch from inside that place. This isn't a PTE thing; it's a Windows thing. Peter

Within the Menu or Starter sequence, refer to each of the other sequences by just its name (e.g. abc.exe, xyz.exe - no drive or path info). Publish your "Menu" or "Starter" sequence into a folder (any folder). Publish all the other sequences into the same folder. Then simply copy that folder on to your USB thumb drive. Launch your Menu or Starter sequence from that folder and all the links will then work - without having to be rebuilt. regards, Peter

Dave, You might find that all you need to do is step left or right to the adjacent slide in the Slide List - and then back again. Last time I did a Ctrl+W to make a minor change to an image, that was what I had to do to get the thumbnail refreshed. regards, Peter

Click on the little star or dot icon to the left of the topic name in the hit list produced by doing View New Content. Peter

Thanks for all the advice. It really is appreciated! Based on your various suggestions my plan now, in order of attack, is: wait and see what Windows 7 offers, if anythingcheck whether the burner CD (if there is one) has anything free on ittry Imgburnregards, Peter

Thanks to all who have offered their thoughts. I appreciate them! I have instructed the PC builder to install only Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, essentail device drivers - and nothing else. I will be insisting on seeing the PC powered up and running - and doing a little bit of exploration of it prior to paying the balance and bringing it home. Yes, there may be CDs or DVDs that came with the devices. If there are, I will investigate any software on those - but I will be wary of getting a "trial" which then requires me to take out an expensive licence. @Barry, It wasn't me who steered you towards Power2Go (I hadn't heard of it until you mentioned it) regards, Peter

I think it would be wrong to modify how the 16x9-ers build their sequences if the only reason is that there are some "dinosaurs" in the club who persist in clinging on to long outdated aspect ratios. How many new TVs for sale do you see with a physical aspect ratio other than 16:9? How many new computer screens (I exclude all forms of tablet and notebooks) do you see for sale with a physical aspect ratio other than 16:9? The aspect ratio 4:3 is the past; 16:9 is the present and the immediate future. Change the projector to a 16:9 one and let the 4:3's fill the middle vertical stripe of the screen. Then you'll see those 16:9 sequences as they were really meant to be seen - high, wide and handsome! regards, Peter

As part of my preparation for my new desktop PC system I am asking myself whether I really need Roxio. On fairly regular occasions I need to burn an audio CD or a data CD, on rare occasions I need to burn a data DVD. Do I really need the complexity of Roxio? My feeling is - no! I would welcome thoughts from you folks out there on other solutions. Does Windows 7 come with burning software? If so, I will try that to begin with. Are there some really good OpenSource or Freeware products out there? Which can you recommend? Which should I avoid at all costs? regards, Peter

Dave, Switch to Thunderbird! All my e-mail is on my J: drive (external HDD) regards, Peter

Lin, PTE is probably the one software product that doesn't get confused by movng everything around. I can take my backup drive (K: - a clone of my main data drive J:) remove it from the system, unplug it, take it to my laptop, plug it in there (where it becomes drive F:) and then launch PTE on the laptop and navigate the File>Open dialogue into drive F:, to any PTE Project folder, and double-click the .pte file. Hey presto! The project opens up fine. It is just like it would have been had I opened it on the desktop system from the main data drive (J:). OK, I'm talking about Windows 7 rather than XP. Maybe you need to catch up with reality and pension off those XP systems regards, Peter

Dave, I had the File Tree closed in v8 when I ran my tests. I opened it only when PTE failed to show the correct images in the File List, in order to find out where it had positioned itself. When I follow your instructions in post 24 above, i.e. launch PTE, get the last used project opened, then do File/Open of a recently modified project, everything works as I would expect - and as you would like it to, i.e. it positions the tree and the file list correctly, and continues to do so if I do more File/Opens of recent projects. I do not see any of the problems that you and Gary see. Either you guys have got something lurking on your systems that I do not have on mine, or I have something beneficial on my system that neither of you have on yours. As to what that might be ??????? Peter