Preview stopped working.

[mwilken]

I am new to this forum and hope someone can help me. I have used PTE for about a year now and have just recently started having a problem with the preview button on my laptop. I get the show all ready to preview and click the button and the screen goes black. The mouse still moves but I cannot click or escape out of the preview. I have to shut down the computer to get out of it. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program but it still happens. Is there a compatability issue with any software? That's the only thing I can figure. I have also wiped my hard drive and reinstalled everything, but it still happens. It doesn't happen on my desktop PC. I have not problem on it, but I need to make the shows on the laptop. I have just upgraded to 4.20. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Melanie

[Ken Cox]

Welcome to the forum Melanie.

First

Try running the show with no music

ken

[mwilken]

Thanks Ken, it seems to work without the music. So that means something is wrong with my music, right? I have read some of the other postings talking about using mp3's that seem to work best. The music I'm using here is a "wma". I've just never had this problem before and I've used this same music many, many times. I don't understand. So now what should I do? Can I change the music I have to a different type?

Melanie

[Ken Cox]

Mel

make the show again with a mp3 that works -take the wma out and insert the mp3 - unsynced and save as /create as under a different name

report your findings

wma files cause problems -=- something may have changed on your laptop

ken

[mwilken]

Ken,

Ok, I'll try that ... but where do I get mp3's? I have just been copying cd's into my computer.

Thanks,

Mel

[dagrace]

There are many programs that will convert CDs to mp3s. There are also many sites from which you can download mp3s, some of them free, some of them legal (remember all the Napster troubles? Those were mp3s )

Audacity is a great free program that converts many formats to many other formats, but I don't know if you can read a CD with it. There are numerous references to it in this forum. Here's the web site:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about.php

A program that converts a CD to mp3 or wav is called a "ripper". Here is one that's also free and mentioned elsewhere on this forum:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm

So that's a pretty long answer. Sorry!

The short answer is: you make them yourself for the most part.

[Conflow]

Hi Melanie,

There is a wonderful German Program (In English) for making Mp3 from CD's and for importing

Mp3's from the Web. It also has a built in Player for Pre and Post Review of your Sounds.

It comes with and excellent Help Manual that explains all - oh,I nearly forgot, you will need

an Mp3 Encoder for it to operate - They also offer a Web.Link to download that Encoder.

"TIP" Dont try to copy the entire CD to Mp3 (its illegal) just select the Track(s) you want and

go ahead, you are entitled to do that for personal purposes, you did pay for the CD.

Program Title:- "Audio Crusher"

Web Address:- www.sysdeck.de

Brian Kelly.Conflow

[dagrace]

Conflow, I couldn't find it, but I did find

http://www.sysdesk.de/

Hope that's the right place. I found one site that said it only supported 95 and 98, but others seem to think it's fully compatible with XP et al.

To be honest, I wasn't really enamored with dbpoweramp so I may give this a try.

Thanks!

[mwilken]

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions. I have downloaded the different software and will now give them a try. I'll report my findings.

Thanks again!

Mel