jt49

This is not a specific problem of this PTE version; older versions show the same effect. A blur function without soft edges has been asked for (long time ago) but has not been provided so far. In cases where I use a dynamic blur for the background, I put a copy blurred in Photoshop behind it. It is a workaround, not a solution. As far as I know, PTE does not blur the whole image (if larger than the screen) but only what is shown on the screen.

I would not regard Powerpoint as suitable for professional multivision. Professional photographers/adventurers/travel journalists etc. often use Wings , but there are others as well (not using Powerpoint). I am in the lead of an AV club in Munich. My observation is that there is a tendency to go from short synchronized AV productions to live presentations on travels and other stuff. And for this kind of productions you need speaker support. My first priority still is classical AV, but I have just started to produce live presentations, as well. So I highly recommend to support this tendency, in particular if it can be done without too much effort. I really do not understand that people in this forum oppose suggestions that do not spoil their interests, and which would contribute to enlarge PTE's scope. In the next issue of our German Magazine "AV-Dialog" there will be an article on speaker support in PTE (written by myself); and it describes how to do it using external software in addition to PTE. It would would very fine if could write a sequel reporting on progress at a later point of time.

Bruno, I'm sorry to say that this construction is not of much use for supporting live presentations. I do not want to loop the whole soundtrack. I want to see asynchronous audio (somewhere in the middle of the show) that hands over to some other audio that follows at a particular timeline position (not at a fixed time!). The audio that follows could either be synchronous or asynchronous. The overall requirement can be described as follows: PTE should support the construct of an asynchronous audio clip that starts at a predefined cursor position on the timeline. It should run even when the show comes to a stop (e.g. Wait for key press to start next slide). If needed, it should loop. And when the cursor reaches a second predefined position on the timeline, the clip should start to fade out. It is a kind of dynamic fade out of asynchronous audio. Having this feature would require to have the coexistence of synchronous and asynchronous audio in one show. I had a private discussion with Igor on this subject some time ago. It seems that WnSoft does not like to spend the effort. A strong reason may be that the coexistence of two types of audio would make the user interface more complicated. The feature I am asking in this topic does not go that far, but it would give us an easy method (rather a workaround) to implement the desired feature described above. The idea is to split the overall show into concatenated pieces (separate shows), each of which can either have only synchronous or only asynchronous audio. But for this method I would need smooth audio transitions from one piece (show) to the next one. It is a pity that all people (I know) who work with live presentations either use Wings or m.objects.

Jill, thanks for your remarks. Let's have a look at your "problems": 1. Music clip is too short: The standard solution offered by m.objects is looping the clip, and I do the same in my workaround using foobar2000. But of course I can avoid this problem. The easiest way is to choose a rather long piece of music. But if it is rather short, I open the clip in Audacity and make it much longer by producing a few repetitions in the middle part of the music. With a minimum of musicality this should not be a real problem to take care for melody and beat. All in all not really a problem. 2. Pieces may not blend harmoniously: This problem naturally may occur when blending an asynchronous clip into another one (synchronous or asynchronous), because you cannot plan the precise position of the crossfade in advance. But even a bad crossfade is better than working with an abrupt stop of the first clip (the only solution offered by PTE). We also have to take into account that a speaker's background music runs at a rather low volume. By playing with blending times and the length of the overlap you can avoid extremely awful transitions. In my practical cases everything worked well (when using my workaround with outsourced asynchronous audio). 3. Manual audio transitions You are right that with PTE you have to perform a manual fade down (to avoid the abrupt stop), followed by a manual fade up. So, in a full length presentation, the speaker has to hurry several times to the mixing console to do so. This is far from being a professional solution, and a trap for making mistakes. I would not recommend this method. The audio transition should work without manual interaction. Summary: For shows with asynchronous audio, in particular for live presentations with background music additional features are needed.

You can open your post and edit it

To me, this sounds a bit derogative. But we should keep in mind that a full length presentation with live commentary (e.g. "Famous Gardens in England") typically is much more successful regarding public interest than an (often motley) collection of short synchronized sequences (e.g. "The best AV-Shows from Challenge 321"). I am sorry to say, but it really is a pity that the audio part in PTE does not support live presentations in an appropriate way. My suggestion would be helpful to overcome this deficiency. Let me outline my idea with a very, very simple example. I consider a show with 20 slides, and I want to speak live during the presentation. The show has to run with manual control, in order to give the speaker the freedom he needs. Of course, I want to run background music during my speech. As the music should play continuously, the soundtrack must not be synchronized to the slides. In this situation the points of time when the transitions between the slides take place are obviously unpredictable (in advance), they change from one performance to the next one. Parallel to the transition from slide 10 to 11 I want to change the music to a second music clip, and I would like to have the audio transition as a crossfade. I don't see any way to manage this simple task in PTE. I can only cut the show into two pieces (two separate shows), and concatenate them (Run slideshow on exit). In this case I can have the change of music at the correct position. But: The problem is that the first music clip will not fade out but will stop abruptly. There will not be a smooth transition (crossfade) in the audio part. If PTE would offer the feature I am asking for, it would be so easy. It would be possible to realize a similar speaker support as we find it in m.objects. Presently I work with a single PTE presentation (also in much more complicated situations), and I outsource all asynchronous audio. This audio runs using a portable version of foobar2000 that I control via PTE using batch scripts. It works, and if you do it in an appropriate manner, it even runs without noticeable latency. When working with two programs, there are other problems to be solved, but in the end it works. All in all it is not a solution that I could recommend for everyone, and it would be much better if I could do everything within PTE (and not with m.objects ). JT (from Munich)

I do not agree. Recommendation: Look at the manual of a well-known German competitor an search for "Speaker Support"

Working with PTE's soundtrack is not always easy. Example: When playing a show with unsynchronized audio, the soundtrack typically stops abruptly when the show reaches its end. It would be fine if in all cases (synchronous and asynchronous) we had an option for the soundtrack not to stop at the show's end but to go on playing for a couple of seconds while fading out. This should also work in cases of concatenated shows (Run slideshow at exit). It would give us the opportunity to concatenate shows with crossfades of their soundtracks. It would be a great feature for people working with live presentations, which often are manually controlled, and where they would like to have smooth transitions in the soundtrack.

Sorry, but I cannot agree. I have always disliked the business of gluing and separating (and I avoided it by working with nested frames). I really prefer the tick boxes for keyframes. So, whenever I insert a new keyframe, I can define for which kinds of animations it should have an effect. The speed modifier itself is not that fine, and I would prefer a graphical interface (but not with the simple linear accelerations as in the old version, but one where we could draw curves with the appropriate acceleration effects).

I did not miss that point. But JBB seems to have the same problem with various external devices. So he may plug a (short) USB 3 extension cable into the back permanently in order to use it for a card reader, external HDD, thumb drive ... Perhaps not a very elegant solution, but quite a universal one

Did you try a short USB extension cable?

Text objects are not well suited for having child objects. The position of a child object (with fixed coordinates) depends on the aspect ratio of its parent. The aspect ratio of a text object typically changes if you change the text, or the font, or the line spacing. I think that this is the reason why PTE does not allow child objects of text objects. My recommendation: Build up a hierarchy of transparent frames and add texts object at appropriate positions.

The frame "Second part" has a size of 100%, while the size of the frame "Border" is 103%. This is the reason why the two axes do not coincide.

I have extracted part of your construction. Your problem is that the image part and the corresponding border part do not turn around the same Y-axis (see attached project). vbl2007-project-modified.zip

I would like to see a PTE project (1 slide, 1 Image) where this happens.

As I told you before: Use a mask container instead of the frame (see also Igor's post from above).

Styles are a very good concept, but the way to apply them is (to some extent) misleading. As we see here, it happens quite often that users build up their slides (including several animated images), and then they try to apply a particular style to these slides, wondering that the effect does not meet their expectations. What we have to keep in mind: A style is a kind of a generic slide (or a series of slides), and it requires just as input a set of images (or videos), but not a set of (preconstructed) slides. IMO the user interface for styles should take this into account. I would not regard the slide list as the appropriate input medium for styles. It works, but ....

Regarding Blur, it seems that presently we have "nested blur" automatically, and it would fine if we could switch it on or off. In the future version, there might be 3 buttons (or tick boxes) for switching on/off the common effects for opacity, blur, and color correction.

That's fine

Question on the alpha channels: Will there be a common alpha channel for all child objects (as in the case when working with a mask container), or will there be a single alpha channel for each child object (would be equivalent to changing the opacity of each child object separately)?

I know this quite well. But sometime I prefer to start the local preview without showing the transition. Normally I do not use the mouse for the pause. But presently I am working on a live presentation. The pity is that PTE does not offer speaker support as m.objects does. So, for adding asynchronous audio, I have to make use of an external audio player that is controlled from PTE using batch scripts; and for certain reasons these scripts sometimes must do automatic mouse clicks into PTE's screen window. The whole thing would be much easier for me if PTE would offer the coexistence of synchronous and asynchronous audio in an appropriate way.

I think that it is a leftover from the former "buy page", when there was only one installation file around (for Windows). The page ought to be updated.

Long time ago, there was a discussion, if the "Toast" (Preview from current position) should be a standard button or not. It isn't, but you can activate it in the toolbar settings. It has been said that we should rather use the Arrow Button at the mini player. Now, does the Arrow Button really replace the Toast? No, it doesn't. In the standard project settings, a left mouse click does not pause the show when it has been started with the Preview or the Toast; but the show pauses on mouse click if it has been started with the Arrow Button.

What you buy is a license key, which you obtain via e-mail. See: https://www.wnsoft.com/en/pte-av-studio/buy/ Indeed, the description on this page could be better