PTE should be combined with other apps

[RodB]

Hi

l drop by here on and off and have seem many posts over the time asking about PTE supporting video , animation, flash etc , people wanting to have an intro to there slideshow and the like .

After you have seen a few slideshows , they become very boring , the same ol music and revolving slides with some transitions , much more can be built into your presentations , that entertain your audience because they dont know whats coming next , your show is alive !

2 essential programs that are sub $50 (amazing for what they do ) and they mesh so seamless with PTE that the viewer would think it was all built in a high end multimedia app like "Director" .

The apps im talking about are Multimedia Builder and Swish .

With these you can have all the interaction you can imagine from buttons to rollovers to timed actions to full autorun , you can play fullscreen video as an intro , you can have flash content as your intro or a combination of video and flash rolled into one , you can play any sounds or music , have web links , create playlists etc etc , there is really no limit to what you can do here , and both will run another exe (PTE) seamless .

eg

cd is inserted into drive .

Autorun .

Fullscreen video expodes onto the screen setting the scene for your slideshow .

Video has finished and a flash text animation with all the bells and whistles that Flash is capable of plays in a smooth play on from the video , here you could have a menu where you could select any one of any amount of PTE shows to play , you click a button and play a PTE show , that when finished it closes and you are back at the menu to select another one , or if you like you can run the whole lot automaticly by using MMBs script timers that run from your system clock , and believe me its easy to set this up .

The power of this is only limited by your design imagination , and general skills in image editing , video and flash animation design , the sky really is the limit here ,anything is possible !

PTE is a very good at what it is designed to do , slideshows , for entertaining a generall audience , on there own , become soooooo boring quickly !

To create something special with so much more impact you need to combine PTE with other more capable apps instead of the same ol fade next slide .

Just a thought

Regards Rod

[boxig]

Hi Rod,

I agree with your thought but we have to make things clear. PTE is a very simple to use program and you don't need any knowledg in order to make a beautiful presentations. As I see things, PTE is intended for two kinds of users: The professional, people like photographers, home designers, architects and so on, and the simple family man. The first kind need a quick and easy tool to create a presentation for their work, and the second kind want just to make a family album. These two kinds have same characteristic: They are not interested in the show but in the content of the show.

On the other hand, if a photographer or a designer will order a presentation from webmaster, then the webmaster is not interested in the content of the show but in the show.

This big difference have to be clear before going on and using other programs. Why ?

Because using Swish or MMB is time consuming. If you are a wedding photographer or an architect, you spend your time on preparing the content of your show and then you make a presentation in few minutes. Your customer, is interested in the content and not in art. Yes, it can be very helpful if your presentation will look more professional, but you can't sit all day on making the presentation, or sometimes a week.

So people from these groups can use services of webmasters who can make their presentation look better for a price.

The other group of people who use PTE is people who do not use it for their profession and have plenty of time to play with.

Members should know that in order to make a professional nice looking project using these two programs they will have to spend a lot of time.

I agree with all your sayings about TPE and I think the best solution is if Igor will add some extra features in "advanced" section. This can include animation, abitily to show HTML page inside the program window (then we can add Java Script, Java, and Flash).

I will end with some words about those two programs for members who are interested: Swish is the easier one to use, and if you are not looking for hard work or don't want to be frustrated, use Swish. You can make small professional welcomes in few hours to show them befor the PTE show.

As for MMB, well... their web page promise you can make many things with no programing knowledge in few minutes. You can believe it if you like, but don't be disappointed when you discover you can't write scripts, you don't know to use plugins and so on.

Both programs are very good and can bring excellent results, but you will have to spend a lot of time, especially with MMB.

What I recommend ?

Take Swish version 1.5 and not version 2. The old version is easy to use and costs half price. As for MMB, only if you are ready to learn scripting and have a lot of spare time.

And here is my advice:

If you want to know what is in front of you, go to the forums of these programs and read members questions and answers. This way you will see what are the problems you may have and decide if you want to deal with it.

I hope this will help PTE members to make up their mind before they spend money and time.

[ronwil]

Boxig

Your "kinds of users" omits what I believe to be the prime users in the UK and that is the Audio Visual enthusiast. Most of us have used previously slide projection systems with fades and transitions by pulsed audio tapes. We are members of Camera Clubs and AV Groups. We have access to National and International Festivals and Championships, regional AV Days, Weekends and Competitions. There are two publications AV News, restricted to members of the Royal Photographic Society, and AV World, an independent publication by leading UK enthusiasts with a web site www.avworld.org

Ron [uK]

[Lloegyr]

Slides shows become so boring after a few shows!!!

Any presentation in what ever format can become boring after a few showings. If it is a good presentation then it will stand up to repeated viewing. Without wishing to boast my own work, 'Fields of Fire', this is a show that I have been showing in its original format and now in PTE for 22 years, not once in all that time have I ever become bored, or even more importantly have those viwers that have kept coming back to view it time and time again. Igor and PTE have now given me the possibility to have the show viewed by a lot more people.

Lots of flash razmataz does not necessarily make a better show.

Mike

[RodB]

Hi

Boxig you have raised some very true facts about the different needs of PTE users , and yes its simplicity is a very attractive feature and you are right in much of what you say , but l must disagree on 2 points , one in choosing Swish 1.5 over version 2 , there are huge improvements in the latest version , and version 3 is just around the corner and from reports it will rock , Swish is a great program , you can build very impressive flash content without touching scripting , as its point and click object based stuff with a great load of presets , Swish is a very easy program to get into to produce excellant results , and the other point l carnt agree with is that MMB is a hard program to use , for what you can do with it compared to the likes of Director its dead easy , just give it a little more time than a brush over .

With MMB is easy to get good results straight from the go of , the most used actions are presets that you just select and the scripts are generated by the program , you really dont need to write a single script to do most of the most used actions , and like Swish , MMB has heaps of presets .

Now the good news is that you can make good intros very easily and quickly with either program , from within a day or two of starting for the first time , once you start to get the idea you will see that the learning curve for both apps is very short , you will be flying in no time .

Now the great news is that once you start to see that scripting is really only copy and paste and you start to have a play with a few of the many plugins and addons out there , then you will begin to see the power these apps have built in, MMB is sooooo powerfull once you get into it , for less that $50 a piece they are two of the best multimedia apps in the world , for multimedia presentations , there really is not much you cannot do with them .

Most of my work is building presentations for place,s like Holiday Resorts and small business , they need to have a more lasting appeal and hold much more varied content that a slideshow alone can convey , so l guess this is where l am coming from , l get a real kick out combining the output of many different apps to make a presentations that to the viewer looks like it was made in one and all seamless .

But anyway if you like to create full blown presentations or just a 10 second intro for your PTE shows for friends or business or just your own plain enjoyment , give them a try , they are both worth ten times what they will cost you .

Regard Rod

[Guest guru]

I will return to this subject. Here I wish only to say I completely disagree with all those who say slide shows become boring soon. I refer not only to "classical" slide shows with projection systems synchronized with audio tapes, but also to PTE shows.

If these are boring, the cause is only the lack of fancy and creativity. Sure family and beautiful landscapes can become boring, like whichever photo album. But PicturesToExe, in the hands of an artist, is a powerful medium to create true works of art. It is not easy, and demands time and perseverance, but it is possible.

[anthrodoc]

I like the fact that the focus has at least initially settled on a combination of these three pieces of software (MMB, PTE, and Swish)... I like it particularly because I've seen the combination come together in several places-- and it works so nicely. My only hestitation in jumping into Swish is due to my reading of *that* forum (several problems have cropped up apparently as the new version has been put into place, and these aren't ironed out yet, it seems).

...at the same time, I hestiate to comment on whether slideshows in themselves become boring. I hestiate at least because I tend to think of slideshows "in context); the same slideshow that I find excites and energizes a class I teach, might seem dull and strange to my family (or vice versa).... it depends, for me, on the context.

Just some thoughts.....

[fgnoel]

I have to disagree with boxig on one point. I am a "simple family man" but I am interested making a fun and entertaining show for the family. I am 60 years of age and at the end of each year my wife and I prepare a slide show for my children and grandchildren, of all the years activities. I don't want to simply document what happened the previous year. I want a somewhat entertaining show ( considering my limited talents.)

I always have music, fancy animated titles, composited photos of all the grandkids as heroes or athletes of some kind, (photoshop) and at the beginning of the show a video of my wife and I welcoming them to "This years annual. . . " The video is edited in Pinnacle or Adobe.

With PTE I must use a button to go to the video portion and then when it is finished hit another button to begin the slide show. It would be great to have the ability to autorun a full screen video and then seamlessly go the the slide show. (I use a scan converter to simply route what is on my PC screen to the TV. I think a read another post where Boxig is working on such a utility. And I am going to check out MMB and Swish. ButI do love PTE for what it does. I wish it were a little more versitile.

Frank

[RodB]

Hi

Its nice to have different opinions without any flaming , I should change my boring slideshow statement to , after seeing as many as l have , slideshows in general have become boring to me , and as Anthrodoc has said its really a matter of in context .

l didnt mean a particular slideshow after a few showings , l ment in general , as the market is full of slideshow programs that apart from one being better to work with than the other , they spit out the same thing , transition pic transition .

Mike , you are right , but you are referring to one slideshow , l am talking about slideshows and the concept in general , to put your excellant slideshow into a appropriate well designed container , can only make it better , and this my point .

Anthrodoc , l beleve the problems with Swish are related mainly to security as they have changed some key routines to stop piracy , the app its self is ok apart from that and has been in version 2 for a year now , version 3 is in beta testing at the moment .

Frank , if you have any problems with MMB feel free to mail me , l will gladly get you going , with it you can run fullscreen video and any number of PTE shows totally automatic , all you need to do is know the times your shows run for and set actions that execute at set times by your system clock .

Have a nice day guys

Rod

[anthrodoc]

Rod,

Thanks for your ongoing discussion here. Swish has been quite inviting, as a nice addition to my own PTE/MMB use (I started not long ago with MMB, when looking for a CD menu builder.... quickly found PTE (and love it!)... then saw some Swish possibilities to work together with the other two. ) In fact, some of the utilities on Beechbrook are MMB created (by one of our creative friends here on this forum)... I am having much fun discovering what I can do--- slideshows with PTE one minute, MMB the next, and can hardly wait to use some of the resulting presentations etc. in my classes.

(and yes! No flaming in the process! A great plus!)

[LumenLux]

Its nice to have different opinions without any flaming  

You are so right Rod. Where else can we have it this good. Not only different opinions but different info. There are indeed a lot of people having a lot of fun and success with PTE. And though I may not use all that is available, I really appreciate seeing what other users do and hearing from you and others of what all is available.

[RudiRe]

RodB,

I think, it's NOT a matter of what software you use, but which content, artistery, design and "pictorial grammer" you wrap up with it.

If you don't have anything so say with a presentation, it doesn't matter, whether you bore your audience with Swish, MMB or PTE.

Dull content without imagination will stay dull in all software applications.

On the other hand, PTE can do MUCH more than just adding slides with transitions and having a music run underneath it. Most PTE users just don't have the need to go beyond the mere slideshow function.

I agree with you, that the whole concept of slideshows is somehow "out of time", feels oldfashioned and overcome, but there still is the possibility, to make good and interesting ones.

The most often made mistakes I've encounterd (not only in PTE, but also in RL slideshows) are:

1.) The author has no feeling for timing and keeps individual slides standing there for much too long. That's why most slideshows come in one of the three sizes

Too Long

Much Too Long

and

Very Much Too Long

He/she overvalues his/her images regarding aesthetic value and reception time. In most cases, less would have been more. Rather make your audience want to see your presentation twice, instead of boring them to death at the first run. Reception time and subtext are the real heartbeep of a presentation, but certainly NOT the rhythm of some kind of music, that has NOT been composed for ones slideshow.

2.) Many slideshow makers make themselves to slaves of the music length. So they stretch the duration of the images to fit the music.

My experience as a film editor: Make it first work visually - WITHOUT MUSIC. If it works visually, it will work with music as well, but not necessarily vice versa.

Remember, it's called slideshow and not musicshow with slides.

Imagery always should have the priority in your artistic thinking while working on a presentation. If needed, shorten the music. Doing it this way, most presentations would be much shorter (and better).

3.) Don't put all your available pictures in a presentation, but make a selection of the best and bring them either in a logic or visual order, in order to achieve a psychological foreward-movement. Screensize-progression (either IN or OUT) is extremely important. If mixed up, it creates a feeling of either chaos or arbitrarity.

These rules I teach my students at various film schools in the first semester, besides some technical stuff. It is often a painful struggle to say farewell to a students favorite shot, which doesn't mean anything to an audience. One has to overcome the so called private semantics and must be able to become a hypothetical audience. It's a schizophrenic switch of mind-trick every film editor must make a couple of hundred times every day. Call me Schizo!

There are tons of pictorial/visual rules.

Best thing to do is to forget them .......... after you've learned and internalized them.

[Guest guru]

"Holy words" could say an Italian (in Italian)...

Actually I agree with all your talk, Rudi, even I think some remarks should be done in addition.

[RudiRe]

Additions like what?

[boxig]

Remember, it's called slideshow and not musicshow with slides.

That's why most slideshows come in one of the three sizes

Too Long

Much Too Long

and

Very Much Too Long

Totally agree with you.

Swish and MMB are good tools but PTE is still only a Slideshow maker.

Nevertheless, if Igor will really want PTE to interact better with these two, he should add:

"Run application" + "Go to page number...".

Another very useful function will be:

"Show Help" + "Go to page number...".

As for very long shows, this is a problem and you can see it if you check how many downloads were to big shows. Since I can't download big ones, and I'm sure there are other like me all over the world, we miss all these shows which often are very recommended here (I think I go out of topic, sorry). As said above, this is sometimes due to big MP3 files or many extra pictures added just to fill the show to go with the long music. Many shows can be divided to 2-3 shows and when first one ends it close and opens the second. but you can't do this if you want to "slideshow" music and not "slidshow" pictures.

As for the above, Igor must add "Exit when show finish and run application", as today we have the opposite, "Run application and exit". This should be automatic with no need to click.

Since more and more members are using the above two programs, this must teach us something. If PTE will stay as it is and will be developed on same way (music oriented), it will soon loose its attraction to people who what a slideshow maker to make pure slideshows. But if there will be more possibilities to interact with other programs, like Swish and MMB, it will be totally different.

I fully understand what was behind the word "boring". And the way I understand it I agree with it. Slide show MUST BE boring. Why ? because all those who say they are not boring, are not talking about slideshows. Dont Jump ! Try to understand what I mean.

So first we have to know what is PTE. It is a Multimedia program or a slideshow program. I think it is suffering from schyzophrenia. That's why the doctor (Igor) must cure it. This slideshow born is trying to be a multimedia program. So make it one. Add the neccessary funcions.