David Porter

All you said, Barry, was that you didn't like it. Not much of a helpful comment.

What makes a good photographer? Technical ability and artistic brilliance and you Mark have both in abundance (It is the artistic brilliance of which I am most envious). Add to that your ability in PTE and WOW! - what a show. What a great start to Sunday morning, first Maureen's show and now yours.

Hi Maureen, I wanted to see your show a few times before commenting. Fantastic scenery and amazing villages all brilliantly photographed as only you can. Interesting to see the pans and zooms in this show which is not your normal style. I think they may have been slightly overdone as some shots were stand alone shots and the pans did not add much to those shots. Also the longer dwell time for the pans and zooms emphasised what I thought was the lack of dwell time on some of the mountain shots. I get the impression that you are embarrassed by how good your mountain photography is and you want to cut us off from it before we have taken it in. Or maybe you just want us to come back for more! Yes please!

Hi Colin, This one is much better and the inset images made it more concise. I meant to mention before that I thought the animal portraits were great.

Hi Colin, A very enjoyable show and something I would love to do but fear that time may have passed me by. Just a couple of points:- 1) Why not keep the attention from wondering by putting in a few short (and "smooth") zooms and pans with longer transitions. Make them go in the direction that the animals were moving, 2) A lot of the horizons cut the screen exactly in half, keep the "rule of thirds" in mind when shooting but don't be a slave to it. Just my view but hope it helps.

Thanks for your continued interest but having wasted about 20 dvds doing various tests, I am now just going to accept what I have. In fact the last one I did with nine shows worked okay. I have a feeling (but not proved) that if I use another program when the burn starts, it actually jerks the burn into action. Why that should be I have no idea and it may just be coincidence. Now I have put all my shows on DVD, I shall not need to do any for a little while and when I do I'll save the iso file at the same time and use this if it fails to burn. Maybe I'll replace the DVD writer or get a new computer! I would like to thank everyone for their input which has all added to the knowledge base.

Oh Crickey! I only get about five replies to my posts and two of them are mine - never mind, I'll keep plodding on. Reading down these posts I was going to suggest Jose might like to try posting on Twitter where a maximum of 160 characters are allowed - and then two posts that fit this ceiling. Well done Jose.

Here is the screenshot for a new DVD I am doing now involving nine shows. I'll let you know if it works. You will note the reduced burning speed in case that helps it to burn but also the iso file as I don't think it will. I have tried burning without the iso file being loaded and it has not worked.

Yes Jose but we were playing Birmingham!!!

Thanks David, It is only DVD's with copy protection ie Films and not all DVD's. I have tried following the Help on this but as I am not interested in watching films on the computer, I will pass on this as I will on trying to burn from Video Builder.

Hi Brian, Just to be clear - The DVD writer worked okay from PTE Video Builder a couple of months ago. It still works okay as a writer using Imgburn and other burning and copying software. It is only with Video Builder that it does not work plus it will not play DVD films (but not worried about that). I have un-installed the driver from The DVD drive using Device Manager, closed down and re-booted but it installs the same driver (windows 32/ASAPIW2K.sys). I am doing quite a large DVD of several of my shows and will try again but I am not spending any more time on it and will use Imgburn in future, but thank you for all your efforts and I trust that some of the knowledge you have passed on will stick.

Very nice photos Paul, but the sail boats reflecting in the still waters were excellent.

Thanks Guys for your continued help. However, I do not think the problem is with the hard drive. I do use registry cleaners and disc cleaners as well as doing my own housekeeping transferring oldish data to my external drive and deleting downloaded files and temps. I have just done a search on .tmp and .chk and there is a total of 8 taking 64kb and I am only 28% of the drives 230gb capacity. I am interested in Brian's comments about Window changing the DVD drive drivers. I re-installed the drivers and noted that the driver name did not mention Sony. I have to go now to watch The Arsenal on TV but will do a search and see if Sony have a driver download. Failing this, I will stick to burning the iso files.

Yes Eric, I have 178GB free out of 230GB. I have an external hard drive to transfer all my stuff onto. I have popped out to get my work laptop to try it on but it must be terribly slow as it is going to take nearly SIX HOURS to process the files - so that option is out of the window. Brian. Sorry, most of that is over my head but I will try doing the Date disc as you suggest. I think the problem with playing Film DVD's was something to do with permissions and something was missing. Tried following the help and download what was missing but it did not work. I did not follow it up as I don't watch film on the computer. It plays other DVD's okay. Dave. As I have said, I have lots of space on the C drive but I do have a nearly unused D drive as well as the external. I'll take your suggestion on board. I have burnt the iso file to disc and that worked okay although it took a couple of minutes for my TV DVD player to load it in before the menu came up. So I have that option but it would be nice to know what is going on.

Hi George, I really liked this. Lots of you own work especially with the rotating cube but also the rotating open pages etc. and everything was so precise. The fantasy was kept going throughout.

Thanks Brian for the very explicit instructions to create more virtual memory. Regrettably this has not solved the problem and I do have 1000mb of RAM but even a 4 minute show does not work. I am wondering if I have a problem with the DVD writer although it works fine when burning from the iso file (thanks Dave for your input) but I do sometimes have a problem when playing DVD films from it. I am attaching the screen printout after I get the runtime error. You will note the "failed connection to Burn.exe". The Burn.exe file is in place although if I double click it to instigate the execution, it does nothing (maybe it is not supposed to). I thought I might get some input from Wnsoft but I have the option of burning the iso file and I will bring my works laptop home and give it a try on that which may indicate if it is a hardware or software problem. Thanks for your help to date.

Hi George, I am not a great lover of this type of template especially when it covers the whole of the show. Some are okay as an introduction but even then I prefer them to be all my own work even if I pinch the idea from elsewhere. Of the two, I think I preferred the first one as I could put up with the flashes but did not like the black screen between images. I did not mind the repeated aerial shot of Vegas, I think it helped with the tempo of the piece. And did you lose a bit of quality in downsizing or maybe it's my imagination. PS I hope the weather has improved.

I have been trying for some time to burn a DVD-Video using "Create/DVD Video Disc" on PTE 6.5.7.. I have not had a problem before but it is a few months since I did one. The process continues and starts the burn process which last for a couple of seconds and then "hangs" with a "runtime error"" coming up after a couple of minutes followed by an error window suggesting lower speed of burning or burning an iso file from different software. The reducing speed does not work but using Imgburn to burn the iso file does. However I am not sure that the iso file is as good a quality. Further, if I am at the computer when the system hangs and click on some folders -say Start/Documents before the runtime error comes up, then this seem to jerk the system into action and it completes the burn satisfactorily. As the discs I eventually want to burn will take some time going through the process, I don't want to have to be at the computer all the time to catch it at the right moment. I have tried all the obvious things - resetting, re-installing, drivers, etc, etc so has anyone any ideas or if you would confirm the iso are as good a quality, then I will stick with that. Thanks

Yet another thing I have learnt how to do by logging into this site. Thanks everyone.

At last, here is my A/V of Venice using my Sister-in-law's photos taken with her point and shot Coolpix. I have kept to the 4x3 format. Venice is not the easiest place to take photos but (with a little help from PS) I think these a quite good. Please let me know what you think of the syncing to the music, the transitions and the pans/zooms. I think of working with other peoples photos as a challenge Here is the link 1st one on the list

Hi Roger, Good to hear from you and thanks for spending time to input. I do take your point about distracting backgrounds but in this case, as it was a show about a parade through the streets, I am not particularly concerned about the backgrounds, in fact they are part of the show really. Having said that, I have reviewed the show and do find that some of the early shots were taken against really ugly backgrounds and I will have a go at improving them. Actually, I am not too bad at Photoshop and do use it quite a lot for individual photos that I want to print out or put on my or others websites. When it comes to slideshows, I may well get too involved with these technicalities and overlook photo quality.

Thanks Hubert for the advice and working on the photo. I do like how you have subdued the background which brings out the subjects although not sure about the skin tones - I actually like the pink blush. As you say, not easy photographing a parade especially running along the route getting between people to grab a shot. I just put the camera on Auto as I don't think a wide aperture would have been appropriate for all shots and I think I would have missed many shots had I kept adjusting aperture/speed etc. I will have a go in PS on some of the better shots to see if I can improve them but it will take me a little time and I wanted to get the show out in reasonable proximity to the event. Thanks for your input which will go into my knowledge back for future use.

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Thanks Ken, I will try that for future reference. My current show is in four sections which I got nicely sync'd to four pieces of music and then decided to move one section. I've done it know but this should be useful for the future.

Thanks Eric, it all comes back to me now. I was looking for something that would move a section of slides together with the associated piece of music to a different place in the show rather than having to customize the music in Project Options and Audio Clip Properties. It sounded as if "Synchronize Music and Slides" may have done that - but sadly no. If anyone knows a way, please let me know. Thanks again.