Need a bit of help with adding sound

[quiltlady]

Hello all,

I'm a new user of Pictures to Exe, and I've made an educational slideshow. I need to add voice over to the show. Here's my requirements:

I need the slideshow to be controlled by the user. The user needs to advance the show, move to a different section, etc.

I need each slide to have a different voice over track, reading what is on the slide.

I've tried adding the separate voice tracks singly to each slide that they pertain to, but when the track is over it loops and starts playing again. That won't work for my presentation.

If I add the voice over as one single mp3 file to the whole presentation and then syncronize it with the slides, I need to be able to have the right voice section play with the right slide (which I know is possible), but I need the voice track to not get ahead of the slides if the user stops on a certain slide for longer than the associated section of the voice track. Does this make sense?

How is the best way to do this to achieve the results I need?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

Nadine

[Ken Cox]

Nadine

welcome to the forum

p2e version?

first

enable permit control of show

and for simplcity enable show navigation bar -- PROJECT OPTIONS -- USER CAN USE THE PAUSE FWD AND BACK OF NAV BAR TO VIEW SHOW

if you want the user to have control do not sync it

make sure windows media player is not set to repeat tunes - set to shuffle

see what these suggestions do for you and get back to us

note -- these suggestions will not work with v5 beta's

ken

[quiltlady]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the welcome!

I'm using P2E version 4.48, and here's where I am after your suggestions:

I've added the voice over as one long track to the whole show. You said "enable permit control of show" but I can't do that unless I tell it to synchronize first.

So, in Project Options, I have checked "permit control of the show", which you can only select if you first select "synchronize slideshow to music duration." Once I do that, I can select "customize synchronization," and move the slides around to get the right portion of the voice track to be with the right slide, but this means that the slide will change when the voice track says it's time, whether the user is ready to move on or not.

You said to not sync it if I wanted the user to have control, but if I don't sync it then the voice track just keeps playing on, no matter what the user does with the slides.

I do have a navigation bar, but I hadn't put a pause button on it, since the if the user is in complete control of the advance of the slides, it really isn't necessary.

So, this isn't working the way I need it to work. Do I need to add the voice tracks singly to each slide then? And how do I keep it from looping the tracks if I do that?

Thanks for your help!'

Nadine

[Ken Cox]

TRY UNCLICKING SYNC -- THEN IS PERMIT CONTROL OF SHOW GRAYED OUT BUT CHECKED?

a show that i made years ago -- i put sound track on each slide -- and enabled the pause on nav bar -- just ran it and it still pauses slide but voice kept running till it was finished [that particular sound track]

ken

[Limey]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the welcome!

I'm using P2E version 4.48, and here's where I am after your suggestions:

I've added the voice over as one long track to the whole show. You said "enable permit control of show" but I can't do that unless I tell it to synchronize first.

So, in Project Options, I have checked "permit control of the show", which you can only select if you first select "synchronize slideshow to music duration." Once I do that, I can select "customize synchronization," and move the slides around to get the right portion of the voice track to be with the right slide, but this means that the slide will change when the voice track says it's time, whether the user is ready to move on or not.

You said to not sync it if I wanted the user to have control, but if I don't sync it then the voice track just keeps playing on, no matter what the user does with the slides.

I do have a navigation bar, but I hadn't put a pause button on it, since the if the user is in complete control of the advance of the slides, it really isn't necessary.

So, this isn't working the way I need it to work. Do I need to add the voice tracks singly to each slide then? And how do I keep it from looping the tracks if I do that?

Thanks for your help!'

Nadine

Hi Nadine

I don't know if this will help but with similar requirements I do the following:

Synchronise show

User control, Left mouse click=Pause, Rt click = previous slide)

Individual sound track for each slide

(ensure slide time is longer than sound bite because when you hit Pause everything stops).

I use this method because with my shows I only need to Pause or Go Back at audience request but it may work for you too.

Limey.

[Ken Cox]

Nadine

also see

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....=2433&hl=manual

http://www.bishopthorpe-camera-club.com/Re...s/resources.htm

and from my archives

Brian's demo

ken

Manual_Show_Instructions_Zip.zip

[quiltlady]

Hi again all,

I just had a hard drive crash (I'm on my hubby's pc that sit's next to mine at the moment). I tried to reboot because when I was previewing the slideshow, I would get it full screen instead of windowed, and as soon as I moved the mouse, it would end the preview. Obviously something went haywire, though I don't know really what it was, since when I rebooted, I got a blue screen when it tried to run windows, and it said I had an unmountable boot drive error. Now, thanks to HP's completely un-userfriendly repair/recovery console, I've had to do a complete system restore to factory settings, and start afresh.

The only silver lining here is that all my personal documents and data are on a separate hard drive (for exactly this reason!!!), so at least when I get all the programs loaded up again, I'll be up and running.

I'll have to try all your suggestions after I get it back together again. Could be a couple of days, but I will try it all, and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.

Nadine

[Lin Evans]

Hi again all,

I just had a hard drive crash (I'm on my hubby's pc that sit's next to mine at the moment). I tried to reboot because when I was previewing the slideshow, I would get it full screen instead of windowed, and as soon as I moved the mouse, it would end the preview. Obviously something went haywire, though I don't know really what it was, since when I rebooted, I got a blue screen when it tried to run windows, and it said I had an unmountable boot drive error. Now, thanks to HP's completely un-userfriendly repair/recovery console, I've had to do a complete system restore to factory settings, and start afresh.

The only silver lining here is that all my personal documents and data are on a separate hard drive (for exactly this reason!!!), so at least when I get all the programs loaded up again, I'll be up and running.

I'll have to try all your suggestions after I get it back together again. Could be a couple of days, but I will try it all, and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.

Nadine

Hi Nadine,

Sorry about the hard disk crash, that can be devastating. Might I make a suggestion that you buy a program which will prevent disaster when and if that happens again?

Acronis True Image 9.0 will not only do full or incremental backups, but will make a sector image of your entire hard disk and store it on another hard disk. Personally, I use a USB external drive dedicated to this. You make the drive image copy on the USB drive and absolutely "everything" is copied including all of Windows (Registry, settings, etc.) then when and if your system dies, you either purchase a new hard disk or use Acronis to reformat and restore the entire disk just as it was when you did the image backup. No need to re-install anything. When the program finishes you have all application programs complete with installation parameters, software keys, emails, preferences, just absolutely "everything" exactly as it was before the problems. Use this and you will never again have this bad experience.

Acronis costs $49.99 and can be purchased at nearly any major software distributor. There is a similar program by Symantic called Ghost - not as good in my opinion nor in the opinion of reviewers. Here's a link to learn more:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/

Best regards,

Lin

[alrobin]

Nadine,

You don't need to check "Permit control of show" if you are not planning to synchronize the show to music.

It is also possible to add a narration sound file to each slide using the "Sound" line at the bottom right of the main PTE window. This is the preferred way to add narration, as you can also include background music via the "Project Options" or "Customize Slide" menus, and the narrative will not repeat unnecessarily.

Be sure to check "Don't interrupt sound comment when next slide appears" under "Project Options / Music" if you find that the next slide is cutting short some of the longer comments. However, you also have to make sure there is no comment for the "next slide" in these cases.

[quiltlady]

Nadine,

You don't need to check "Permit control of show" if you are not planning to synchronize the show to music.

It is also possible to add a narration sound file to each slide using the "Sound" line at the bottom right of the main PTE window. This is the preferred way to add narration, as you can also include background music via the "Project Options" or "Customize Slide" menus, and the narrative will not repeat unnecessarily.

Be sure to check "Don't interrupt sound comment when next slide appears" under "Project Options / Music" if you find that the next slide is cutting short some of the longer comments. However, you also have to make sure there is no comment for the "next slide" in these cases.

Al, you are THE MAN!!! That's exactly what I needed, and I think I'm on the right track now. I just got hung up on the music part of it, and didn't even SEE that sound option below each slide, silly me.

Thanks to everyone for your help! And Lin, thanks for the tip, I bought the program last night after I got my PC put back together. I still don't know what happened (or if it will happen again ) but I'll be more prepared if it does.

Thanks again everyone,

Nadine