PGA

Ok, here's a little more info... I have found an old sequence that was built using v7.0. It opens correctly into v7.0 and v7.5 but not into v8. However, a different project file, also created in v7.0 fails to open correctly in all three versions of PTE. N.B. By "correctly" I mean with the File List/Tree Structure correctly positioned. Sorry, but I think I have just muddied the waters for everyone. regards, Peter

I hesitate just a little to add my comments to this topic because the three of you have a dialogue going that is being driven in a controlled manner by Igor. I am running v8.0.4 and have 10 projects in the "recent projects" list. Nine of these are stored under the path: J:\My Data\My Digital Studio\<various sub-folders>. One is stored under the path: J:\My Data\My AV Sequences\Llanddudno. The only one that does not correctly position the File List/Tree Structure is that last one. It has never been saved in version 8. It was last saved using v6.5. Also, it is the only one whose folder has been moved from one location to another. When it was built, it was built under J:\My Data\My Digital Studio\AV Sequences\Llanddudno. Once it was complete, the entire sub-folder Llanddudno was moved to its new location. Are there any fresh clues in there? regards, Peter

Jeff, Please bear in mind that I misunderstood the exact nature of what was being discussed. I had interpreted the topic and first few posts as talking about backing up of data drives. My solution, described in my first post into this topic, described how I operated the backups of my data drive. To bring my story up-to-date: since I made that post I have had two external USB drives crash on me. Thankfully, in one sense, they were my backup drives and not my prime drive. But I was left for 72 hours with no backup of my data - and a lot of worry! The failed drives were so-called "portable HDD" drives that draw their power via their USB connection. I originally bought four of these three years ago - three have now crashed. I have two mains-powered HDDs: one is 8 years old, the other is five years old. Draw your own conclusions! I am now in active dialogue with my local PC shop, discussing a new tower system that will have two SSD, RAID 1 mirroring each other and two normal HDD, RAID 1 mirroring each other. I will redeploy my two mains-powered external HDDs as the targets of a weekely backup of the SSD and the HDD. If the new devices are truly RAID 1 then, if one side fails, the other should switch in automatically and assume full capability. It should then be possible to unplug and replace the failed device and tell the RAID controller to re-establish the mirror. That's the theory, as I understand it. Could be a couple of weeks yet before I commit to this solution. I need to be sure that I have copies of all the software that I will need to re-install (or that I know exactly which website I need to visit to download it from. I have one more major decision to make on the software: do I reinstall Photoshop Elements and Lightroom from CD/DVD or do I switch to Creative Cloud? Watch this space (well, probably a new topic on the forum so that this one doesn't get totally hi-jacked) for updates on this. regards, Peter

Hi Jeff, If you find out how to remove a pre-installed application from a Samsung Android platform, I'd welcome learning from you. Mine came with a whole raft of applications that I don't want and will never use, but I cannot find a way to delete any of them. To save this topic being hijacked, would you, and any others who reply to this post, please send me a PM with the answer or idea for an answer. regards, Peter

I have had a deeper look at the special files on my system. There are 86 such files. Is such a high number normal? Some files have only one PTE project file listed, some have 2, some have 3 and at least one of them has 4 different PTE project files listed in it. Is this normal? Oh yes, and two files have nothing in them at all. Is this normal? One more thing, although there are 86 files in the folder, the highest number assigned is 124, so there are lots of gaps in the number sequence. Is this normal? Perhaps there may be some further clues in there for Igor and his team as they diagnose this problem. regards, Peter

Barry, Sounds like you are about to go on a fascinating "digital adventure". I know you will share your findings with us here on the forum and via your monthly newsletter. Good luck on the trip and have some fun playing with your new toy! regards, Peter

Hi Gary, It doesn't! Let me amplify that statement. When you posted I had not yet installed v8.0.4. I was therefore able to do some pre-install and post-install checks. Using v8.0.3, I opened each of the last three projects that I had worked on. I did this by navigating to each of the folders in Windows Explorer and double-clicking on the PTE project file (.pte). All three opened up in PTE with the correct Images sub-folder selected in the Tree structure, and the contents of that sub-folder showing in the File List panel. I made no changes to these projects and did not save the project files again; simply opened, looked, closed. I then closed down PTE and installed v8.0.4. I made no changes to any of the options offered me by the Install Wizard. When I clicked on Finish at the end of the install, the Launch PTE box was pre-selected, so PTE was launched for me. It opened into the last of the three projects that I had checked prior to the install. The Tree Structure was positioned to the correct Images folder and the File List panel was showing the contents of that Images folder. Everything was as it should be. I then used the "Open an existing project" icon on the PTE toolbar to open each of the other two sequences that I had previously checked. Everything worked exactly as I expected and exactly as you want it to. I went on to open a couple of projects from further down the list of recent projects, ones that I had not checked prior to the install. These, too, were OK. It works on my system but not on yours. That suggests to me that the root cause of your problem probably lies outside PTE rather than with PTE itself. regards, Peter

Hi Brian, The attached image shows the kind of thing I was trying to describe for the set up. As for the settings on the H4n, if you are using Audacity to post-process the recordings, I would leave all the values on the H4n at factory defaults. I would, however, suggest you run some tests with the different settings for the Record Level. Make copious notes of which recording had what settings applied. regards, Peter P.S. I'm sending you a Personal Message (PM) as well.

Hi Harbrimar, I have the predecessor to the H4n (the H4) and find it works admirably for all recording work. You asked about placement. Imagine that you are standing, looking at a large clock face (perhaps 18 inches in diameter) immediately in front of you, and 12 inches away from your nose. Set the Zoom up so that its microphones are at 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock on that clock face, and so that its long axis is pointing directly towards your mouth. Now, whilst facing directly towards the centre of the clock face, deliver your voice-over. You are trying to achieve "talking past the micropohone", rather than talking into the microphone. I do not know what settings the H4n allows. I always have my H4 set to record 44.1KHz WAV files. I have been into the menu system and have activated Auto Gain. The only external control I use is the 3-position "MIC GAIN" switch. I set this to MEDIUM to record voice-overs, HIGH to record bird-song and location ambience, and LOW to record our local brass band at an indoor venue. The quality of the design and features of the H4n mean that it should be capable of delivering everything you want it to. Are you recording in the H4n or simply using it as an audio interface into your computer and recording in the computer? Assuming you are recording in the H4n, how do you get the recordings from the H4n to your computer? On what equipment do you listen to the recordings during playback on your computer? regards, Peter

I use Vice Versa Plus (www.tgrmn.com), and am currently working with v2.4.2. This is not a real-time cloning tool, at least, not in the way I use it. Every night I use Vice Versa to compare the contents of my main data drive (J:) with those of its clone (K:). The software identifies the differences and changes the contents of K: so that it matches those of J: regards, Peter

This old topic describes a similar problem encountered when using FastStone. It was a "colour space" issue. http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/15358-blue-color-cast/ regards, Peter

I understand where you're coming from on this, but it may not always be necessary to mute the audio on the original video clip. Consider the situation where only the audio is being used and the video is never played as a visual item. To my way of looking at it, there comes a point where the user has to accept and take responsibility for their actions (or, as it happened to be in your case, their inaction). Peter

As an alternative to Eric's suggested solution, perhaps the converted file's name could include the date and timestamp? This would guarantee that every converted file had a unique filename and would thus eliminate all "overwriting of previous version" activity. regards, Peter

OK! I have every confidence in the abilities of you and your team. regards, Peter

No! If you run a test following my instructions, as Dave has done, you find that, after deleting the selected slides, the slide highlighted in the Slide List and the slide showing in the mini-player are not the same. If you make the selection in reverse order before deleting the selected slides, (i.e. from right-to-left along the Slide List, as Dave then went on to do), the Slide highlighted in the Slide List and the slide showing in the mini-player are the same. There is a bug in there somewhere! It is only an annoyance, but it should be tracked down and eradicated. regards, Peter

I hadn't realized that, but it explains why I was feeling that sometimes it worked but mostly it didn't.. Obviously, those times it had worked I must have done a reverse selection. Thanks for adding that extra detail to the symptoms. And even bigger thanks for proving it's not just me and my system! regards, Peter

This problem is recreatable on my system (PTE v8.0.3 running on Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit). Open a new project, add some slides (I suggest at least nine to allow some flexibility in your future choices) Now select a continuous run of slides (using Ctrl+click or Shift+click techniques) Delete these using the Delete key on the keyboard Note carefully which slide in the Slide List is now highlighted and which one is actually being displayed in the mini-player. On my system they are not the same. I can get this error deleting runs of 2, 3, 4 or 5 slides (I haven't tried any larger runs) starting from slide 2, 3, 4 and 5 (I haven't tried with a bigger project with more slides in it) Is this problem unique to my system and my way of working; or can others recreate it on their systems? regards, Peter

I do not see a a section called Troubleshooting. Where have you hidden it? Peter

Eric, We're not talking about topic URLs. We're talking about the URL for a specific post within a topic. See the first sentence in Dave's original post. regards, Peter

Dave, I think we are looking at a change in forum behaviour since the previous versions of IPB. In order to accomodate all those who like to waste hours using their "social network" software they seem to have moved the previous left-click menu onto the right click, and provided this new "Share" feature on the left click. I will use the right-click from now on because it gives me the "Copy Link Location" that I was used to seeing and using previously. Yes, I have been able to "drag select" the entire URL from within the "Share" box but I do not find that is a consistent way of selecting all of the URL text. The right click on the post # is, so far, 100% reliable and is the way to go for me. regards, Peter http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17596-forum-issue-with-copy-post-url/?p=117002 If the above link works, then there's your answer! It was drag-selected from the "Share" box.

Right click on post # and then Copy Link Location, followed by paste into Reply works fine for me, using Firefox 28.0 Peter

Barry, My previous post was, like yours, somewhat tongue in cheek in part. I am in total agreement with the sentiments that you express. I have never calibrated any of my equipment. My camera, projector and computer are all set to sRGB. Provided the manufacturers have done their job properly, they should all be "singing off the same hymn sheet". (N.B. I do not print in the photographic sense, hence the absence of the printer from that list of equipment). I firmly believe that this subject of colour calibration is entirely subjective. I regularly show some of my sequences at gatherings of AV workers and have received, for the same show on the same day, the comments: "You need more saturation in your colours. Check your calibration" and "Your colours are too saturated. Check your calibration". regards, Peter

And only with the specific screen that it was projecting onto! What about the human element? Does everybody see a colour, let's say 18% grey, as being exactly the same as it is seen by the next person? How many folks have had their eyes colour calibrated? Peter

Hi Claudio, Yes, I can see what you mean in that screengrab. The "three dot" face is slightly larger than the rest of the cube. That means that one of your objects isn't set to the same, or corresponding) value as some other object. That might be a different zoom value, or a different size of original image file. By size I mean in terms of pixels wide and high. If you are using PTE's own Frame objects to build the cube, I would change that approach. A PTE Frame is, by default, a rectangle.You say you are working with 600x600 pixel objects (using squares to build a cube). If I was building this, I would create a 600x600 pixel mid-grey JPEG image and use that as the object for my frames. Whenever I want to see where exactly any frame is, I can then simply bring its opacity up enough to see it. regards, Peter

Hi Lester, I am slightly concerned that you describe your files as "smallish mb". I am used to seeing my 1920x1080 JPEGs coming out at 500-850KB and my PNGs at perhaps twice that depending upon the size of the non-transparent area. In my experience, a source file in excess of 1MB is the exception rather than the norm, and is usually associated with a deep zoom. 74MB for an output video file is actually quite small in my experience. I'm not sure where you got the idea that we needed a count of actions. You can see exactly how many objects there are on each slide by looking at the information at the bottom of the tree of objects in the O&A window. But as Lin points out, the number of objects is unlikely to be the root cause of your problems. Which output format are you most concerned to have: the EXE or the MP4? And which output format is showing the worst effects right now? regards, Peter