No sound in individual slide

[Eyes]

I recently bougth the program and I guess it's time to start asking q's. My problem is that when I add a music file to an individual slide in the Customize Slide dialogue box it doesn't sound when I preview it (e.i. play the slide show in the program). However, when I make an exe it plays as it should. Some setting I am missing?

[Lin Evans]

Go to the Projects Options Main Tab and click on "synchronize music and slides" and you should hear it when playing.

Best regards,

Lin

I recently bougth the program and I guess it's time to start asking q's. My problem is that when I add a music file to an individual slide in the Customize Slide dialogue box it doesn't sound when I preview it (e.i. play the slide show in the program). However, when I make an exe it plays as it should. Some setting I am missing?

[Eyes]

Go to the Projects Options Main Tab and click on "synchronize music and slides" and you should hear it when playing.

Thanks. I checked the "Synchronize music and slides" but it still only plays in the exe. I have tested and added the sound file in the Project Options Music tab, and there it plays in both "preview" and exe, but in individual slides I can't make music play. Don't know what to try next, any suggestions?

[Lin Evans]

If you could zip the PTE file from the file menu and post it we can check and try to determine where the problem is. I can't duplicate the problem on any of my systems.

Best regards,

Lin

Thanks. I checked the "Synchronize music and slides" but it still only plays in the exe. I have tested and added the sound file in the Project Options Music tab, and there it plays in both "preview" and exe, but in individual slides I can't make music play. Don't know what to try next, any suggestions?

[fh1805]

Eyes,

Lin's advice to you in his reply was totally wrong. If you want to assign a soundfile (in your case, a music file) to an individual slide you must not have "Synchronize music and slides" ticked. PTE actually refuses to preview the sequence if you have this box ticked and you have assigned a soundfile to an individual slide.

I have attached a zip file that includes a very short sequence that starts playing a piece of music when the image of the red farm trailer appears. Take a look at the settings I have used in Project Options and for the slide that has been customized, and compare them to yours.

SlideMusicTest_Jun15_2008_8_21_25.zip

I hope this proves helpful.

[Eyes]

Thanks Peter. I tested your show and I experience exactly the same problem. I doesn't play when I run it inside the PTE program but it plays in the exe. Just to be sure I added the file in the project dialogue to play from the beginnnig of the show, and there it plays both inside PTE and in the exe.

Are there any program settings that I am unaware of? Settings that influence all shows, I mean. I hope there is a solution, it's rather frustrating to have to "compile" the show and run it in its entire every time I want to test the sounds.

By the way, Lin actually told me to click the "Synchronize" check box, not to uncheck it, so I guess she meant the same thing as you. However, I had already tried to uncheck it to no avail.

[fh1805]

You wrote: "I tested your show and I experience exactly the same problem."

That's unexpected!

I would suggest that the best approach now is for you to attach your pte file (just the file with the extension of .pte) to a reply and I'll take a look and see if I can spot anything amiss in your settings. But it is beginning to have the feel of being a problem somewhere outside PTE.

To do the attach of a file, use the ADDREPLY button to start a new reply. Then key in the text of your reply. Next use the Browse button to locate and select your pte file. Click on the UPLOAD button to upload your pte file to the forum server. Then click on the manage attachments button and click on the left-most little icon (the one with the green "+" on it. This will insert a link to your uploaded pte file in your reply. Then add the reply to the forum using the "Add Reply" button.

One small point: gender correction - Lin is a he not a she.

[fh1805]

Something I should have covered in my previous reply: could you give us some information about the following:

- your computer system: what processor? how much RAM, what graphics card or chipset? what soundcard or chipset?

- your image files: what size (expressed in pixels wide x pixels high)

- your music file: what format (e.g WAV, WMA, MP3)? how large?

[Eyes]

Oh, sorry about the gender confusion, Lin.

Thanks for the answers, this seems to be a very friendly and helpful community.

Peter, I have Vista environment, Intel Core2 Duo 3 GHz, nVidia 8800 GTX, 4 GB RAM.

Peter, I have now installed PTE on an XP computer and the same thing happens there when I try your sample slide show. So the problem can't be my slide show settings, and it can't be this particular computer. I makes me wonder if it really is possible to hear the individual slides' sounds when previewing, but then again, you guys can hear them... Or is it a bug that occurs for anyone who installs the latest version of PTE without having older components of the version 5 development? I'm just rambling here, I'm at a loss.

Here is another piece of info to ponder: When I add music on project level and leave the playlist for a slide empty, with "Play new music" checkbox checked, all music is supposed to stop when it reaches that slide. I does in the exe, but not in preview.

Sum up so far: When playing Peter's very simple slide show with sound in one of the slides I can't hear any sound when previewing, only when playing the compiled exe. It doesn't matter what OS I play it in. I have a fresh copy of PTE 5.5 and I have not had any older version installed before. Music on project level plays fine, both in preview and in exe.

[fh1805]

Ok! where does that leave us?

Your PC spec has enough CPU power, enough RAM and an excellent graphics card. The PC should not be the culprit. The fact that you've found the same problem on a different PC also eliminates the PC hardware and software infrastucture as being likely culprits.

I am assuming that your installations of PTEv5.5 on both the Vista PC and the XP PC were "first ever" PTE installs on each machine (i.e. there was not a previous install of PTE on either of the PCs). Am I right in this?

Assuming I am then, the fact that my project runs OK on my PC but not on either of yours suggests to me that the problem is associated with a default setting in the default install of PTE.

I really do believe that having sight of your .pte file is going to be a great help in trying to identify what the "rogue" setting is? Please post the .pte file as an attachment to a reply to this post, following the instructions in my post #7 above.

[fh1805]

A further thought has struck me:

When you installed PTEv5.5 on the XP machine, did you simply copy the zip file over and install from that, or did you do a fresh download from www.wnsoft.com?

If you simply copied the zip across, it is possible (unlikely but possible) that your zip file has become, in some way or other, corrupted. It would certainly be worthwhile downloading a fresh copy of PTEv5.5 from wnsoft.com and trying that.

[Eyes]

Peter, on the XP machine I downloaded a fresh zip from WnSoft. And on that machine I have only opened your pte file and nothing else. It was a virgin installation with which absolutely nothing was done except opening your file. The problem can't lie in my pte file. I guess I have to give up for the time being.

...But hang on. Are we talking about the same thing? It just struck me that we could mean different things with preview. When using the Preview button at the bottom of the screen, next to the Create button, the music plays as it should, since this is the same as creating an exe file. What I'm doing is clicking the arrow button under the large preview window in the upper right corner of the main window, you know where there is a play button, a stop button, and a slider to preview the show. It's when I click that button that it doesn't work properly.

By the way, thanks for you patience, it is much appreciated!

[fh1805]

Ah, ha!

We've been talking at cross-purposes. What you have been using to preview is what is referred to in the PTE User Guide as the "mini-player". And in this mode the music files associated with individual slides via Customize Slide do not play.

But you can still use the Preview buttom to see a full-screen preview of your sequence. And you do not have to start from slide 1 every time. If you select a middle slide and then click the little button that sits between the Preview and Video buttons, your full screen preview will begin at your chosen slide.

You (we!) have been banging our heads against PTE working as coded by Igor and his team.

Hope this now explains things for you and that you can now move on with your project.

[Eyes]

Rats! No wonder this turned into such a confusing thread. Both functions are actually referred to as "preview" in the manual.

I do apologize! And thanks for the tip to do a real preview from a selected slide.

[fh1805]

No apology needed!

As with so many software products, there are often several ways to achieve the same or equivalent function.

With regards to the manual, you must bear in mind that, for the development team, English is not their first language. Given that fact, they do a really remarkable job with the Help function, the manual and this forum.

[Lin Evans]

Yes,

As Peter has pointed out, comments or sounds entered via the "customize this slide" will not play back via the mini-player. If you want your sound bytes, sound comments or background music to play via the mini-player then use the little "add sound" feature next to the speaker icon in the upper right side of your screen above the mini-player. When sound is added this way to individual slides you "will" hear it on the mini-player.

I'm beginning to think that a mini-tutorial on adding music and sounds is in order because there seems to be a great deal of confusion over the various audio features. Music or sound added via "Customize this Slide" "Music Tab" are different than sound added via the "add sound" above the mini-player or at the top of the Main Slide list. This feature allows a mini play list for convenience and has the added feature of allowing the user to bridge two or more slides with commentary or music depending on the "cutomize this slide" settings of the other slides. This feature is especially nice for presentations being given to a large audience where the commentary may cover a selection of several slides rather than being specific to a single slide.

The confusion arises naturally because of the complexity possible but the complexity is a natural by-product of versatility. I'll see if I can make an AVI tutorial to explain this all sometime this week.

Best regards,

Lin

Peter, on the XP machine I downloaded a fresh zip from WnSoft. And on that machine I have only opened your pte file and nothing else. It was a virgin installation with which absolutely nothing was done except opening your file. The problem can't lie in my pte file. I guess I have to give up for the time being.

...But hang on. Are we talking about the same thing? It just struck me that we could mean different things with preview. When using the Preview button at the bottom of the screen, next to the Create button, the music plays as it should, since this is the same as creating an exe file. What I'm doing is clicking the arrow button under the large preview window in the upper right corner of the main window, you know where there is a play button, a stop button, and a slider to preview the show. It's when I click that button that it doesn't work properly.

By the way, thanks for you patience, it is much appreciated!

[fh1805]

Lin,

Even I didn't know that the "Add Sound" and "Customize Slide...Music" gave different results; and I consider myself an experienced user of PTE!

[Eyes]

Yes, the sound part is a bit confusing to a newcomer. I discovered the Add music button during this thread, and it has another advantage that I was looking for: It doesn't stop the other music from playing. It's not actually commentary I'm after but sound effects, and the Add music button seems to me to be the only way of adding a sound to a slide without breaking the background music from playing. Correct?

[Lin Evans]

Hi,

Yes, the "add sound" choice allows you to have sound on the currently selected slide without affecting what's playing in the background. Whatever you add via this feature will only play for the particular slide and then stop.

If you want have no background music, etc., for a number of slides then begin at some particular slide then use the "customize this slide" feature to enter sound at any chosen point. If you do nothing, this background music will continue until either the chosen music, etc., has played its entire length or the slideshow ends, whichever occurs first.

If you want the music or sound to stop at a particular slide when started from a previous slide via the "cutomize this slide" feature you can simply open the customize this slide box from the slide where you want to end the music, sound, etc., and place a check in the box "play new background music" but leave the list blank. This forces the ongoing music or sound previously entered from an earlier slide via the "customize this slide" feature to stop at this point.

The reason for the "playlist" type feature is that sometimes one may want to begin background music from a particular slide after others have played with no background music or having only individual slide sound comments, etc. Having the choice of more than one music selection can be useful for long slideshows where one particular selection of music may not be long enough to cover the remaining slides.

On the other hand, using the "customize this slide" feature to begin play of another selection with a background selection already in progress allows the user to end the currently playing background sound and begin another which "could" be made to continue through any number of additional slides, etc.

The features are quite versatile, but can be confusing so I think an AVI tutorial will be forthcoming soon on this.

Best regards,

Lin

Yes, the sound part is a bit confusing to a newcomer. I discovered the Add music button during this thread, and it has another advantage that I was looking for: It doesn't stop the other music from playing. It's not actually commentary I'm after but sound effects, and the Add music button seems to me to be the only way of adding a sound to a slide without breaking the background music from playing. Correct?

[fh1805]

The features are quite versatile, but can be confusing

Amen to that! I look forward to improving my understanding by watching your AVI tutorial once its available. Thanks in anticipation, Lin.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Guys,

Tutorials now posted:

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7901

Go to bottom of pinned "PTE Made Easy" to download.

Best regards,

Lin

Amen to that! I look forward to improving my understanding by watching your AVI tutorial once its available. Thanks in anticipation, Lin.

[Ken Cox]

THKS LIN

KEN