Slide and Music Synch

[jevans]

I am using PTE Version 4.41 beta #4 and am experiencing the following problem. I have prepared a show with 40 slides. The default duration is 7 secs per slide with a 3 second fade. I have added commentary to some slides using the "sound" dialog box in the preview window. I have clicked "Don't interrupt sound comment when next slide appears" in the "Music" tab. But as there are some adjacent slides with comments, I have extended the indivual slide time to allow the comment to finish.

All this works ok. By adding a blank bit of music, I can determine the total show time (e.g. 5 min 27 Sec) and then edit some background music to exactly this length. (I use Adobe Audition 1.5 by the way).

Now I add the music to the slide show. Initially looking at the timeline, the "Not synchronised" box is checked. However the music and slides are not synchronised in this case for some reason. So I check the "Customise sysnchronisation" box. This does not seem to alter any of the slide time positions on the timeline. However there is some change taking place because where there are adjacent slides with commentary, the first slide commentary is cut off too soon.

I can manually correct this problem in the timeline view by moving slides around. However, as I selected the music to be exactly the correct length for the show, I do not see whwy I should have to do this.

Anyone any ideas.

[jevans]

Further to my post. Although this does not answer my query, I note that when background music is added to a show, the timeline reflects the actual timing of each slide. If subsequently the duration of a slide is changed (customise slide), the timeline display does not change to reflect the change. Is this correct or is there a way of refreshing the timeline display?

[JRR]

Jevans:

I have done at least two shows in the way you describe, voice over on the SOUND LINE of the main page and background music (or a silent track in one case) and it worked well for me.

When you change the DURATION in CUSTOMIZE SLIDE you are not chaging the "slide duration" (time on screen) but you are changing the EFFECT DURATION, the time it takes to transition in the next slide and transition out the old one. So only the grey bar on the TIMELINE will change, not the spacing between slides.

I have never had the NOT SYNCHED box checked "ON" so I am not experienced with it, but I am not sure why changing the NOT SYNCHED box to "off" and the SYNCHED BOX (one of them) to "ON" should move your settings around. I just tried playing with and there was no movement, but maybe I did it in a different sequence than you, or have missed something.

But manually moving the sldies around is the way to resolve the issue.

You might want to confirm the "unsolicited" movement of the slides when ticking the Synch box and let Igor know how/if it does happen.

[jevans]

Jim,

Thanks for your reply. Try this. Start a new PTE project. Set the default slide length to say 5 secs and the effect length to 1 sec. Add two slides. Now add any blank music file in the "Music" tab. Once the music is added you can look at the timeline and will see two slides of duration 5 secs with the gray effect block at 1 sec. Now change the first slide duration to 10 secs by using "Customise Slide" - "Main" - "Use Own Time Preference" and "Display Slide for (secs)" set to 10.

Look at the timeline and you will see that there has been no change to the slide or effect durations.

Now repeat the whole process from the beginning of a new show, except customise the first slide BEFORE you add the music. Now you will see in the timeline that the first slide has a duration fo 10 secs and the same effect time of 1 sec.

So you can conclude that :

a) customising the slide does actually change its duration

you cannot customise a slide duration AFTER you have attached a music file.

None of the above solves my problem but I agree that manual adjustment is a way to solve it. However I think the program has a bug.

Jeff

[JRR]

Jeff:

I agree that it behaves the way you say it does, but I don't think it is a bug. I think you are asking the software to do something we had not thought of asking IGOR to set up.

To my mind, when you set up the default times WITHOUT the music, there is no "active" TIMELINE, the software just advances the images as you dictate, either through default or CUSTOMIZE. Once you add the Music, there is an "active" timeline and the DEFAULT TIMES are no longer in play after initial set up without customization. You have to set the screen time manually on the TIMELINE or let the software spread them out evenly.

Based on my expereince I am happy with the way these aspects work, but with PTE being so flexible there are different ways of setting up shows and you obviously feel there is a need to do it the way you want to. I can see some logic to this when using the SOUNDLINE to add voice-overs - I just never did mine that way.

If there are others in agreement with you, I am sure Igor will sort it out for you.

PS: You may have noticed that the voice-overs added by the SOUNDLINE can NOT be heard when running the images in the TIMELINE, you have to preview in the PREVIEW mode to hear them. I asked Igor to change this. I believe he said he could in the next release.

If you have the SOUNDLINE voice-overs playing when viewing from the TIMELINE, please let me know how !!!

[alrobin]

So you can conclude that :

a) customising the slide does actually change its duration

you cannot customise a slide duration AFTER you have attached a music file.

Jeff,

To reinforce Jim's post, I believe this is the way Igor intended PTE to work - i.e. once you have decided to synchronize the show, the duration time adjustments on the timeline itself take priority over any changes in "Customize slide" or "Project options". Up until one decides to synch to the timeline, however, the other means of adjusting duration are in effect.

I believe this is the way it should work - otherwise, how would the program know which information to use? And, if one is synching to the timeline, it is more accurate to make duration changes there.

However, there is still another option available along the lines you are suggesting, even when synching on the timeline. You can enter actual times at the bottom of the timeline window by clicking on the transition point for image "X", entering a new time, and clicking on "Update". Of course this only changes the occurence time for a single image, "X" - you now need to highlight all transition points to the right of it by using click on the next image, and "shift-click" on the last one and "dragging" them to new times in accordance with the changes you made to image "X". You will find that if you have already clicked "Use own time preference" for certain images, the "customize" times for these images will also be updated in this process. Hope this helps some.

[jevans]

Jim and Al,

Yes I agree with you both. Just had not looked at it that way before. And yes Jim, you cannot hear the commentary attached to a slide unless you use "Preview". Two further comments.

The reason I have been using the technique I described is becaause I have the slides first and then decide what commentary (if any), I am going to add. Having chosen default times for slide and transitions, I add the commentary as required and adjust individual slide lengths to match. Finally I may alter a few transitions and add titles and section titles. Now I need to know how long the whole show is. So I add a short length of blank music and get the total length from the timeline information. Now I edit the music to match and replace the blank music with the actual music track. This is where things started to go wrong. I think this technique is based on my extensive use of Ulead Studio 8 software to produce DVD shows, where you can see the slides, commentary and music all on one screen simulutaneously.

Having digested your comments, I think I may use an alternative approach. Put all the slides in at a default time. Create an AVI file and import this into Adobe Audition. Then you can see each slide and add commentary on separate tracks, leaving a small gap (say 1 sec) between commentary on adjacent slides. Being able to see the slides (althouhj of course you cannot adjust their duration), assists in decidding what commentary is required. Finally add a music track. The various audio tracks are now mixed down to a single track, the avi file is closed and the music track added to PTE. The slide are now manually adjusted to match the audio track in the PTE timeline view which is the composite commentary and music track. Incidently Jim this means that you will hear the commentary when you prese the Play button in the timeline view.

Anyway guys, thatnks for your responses which were very helpful.

Jeff

[JRR]

Jeff:

Good idea importing into Premiere, mixing it there and then bring it back to PTE.

My wife uses Premiere and I must admit that I do drool with the ability to mix the sounds on screen with the images Next time....

Using the Soundline for me has been the compromise compared to trying to do it all outside of PTE in AUDITION and not quite getting the mix right, back to Audition etc etc

I prefer to write the script for the images and record them before starting in PTE. Then if the script, after editting and more editing, is still too long per image, I go and find a second or third image to let the narration roll across. If I can, I like to keep the narration to a minimum and let the images speak for themselves. The theory is one thing, the practice is something else.....

Glad things are working out for you Jeff