Voice over migration

[Nathan2118 Profile Private message]

I recently updated to ProShow Gold 5.0 in hopes that a persistent problem I've experienced has been resolved. It hasn't! Apparently the latest program update only added "exciting" new features and neglected to correct existing problems!

I've been using-voice overs for my last 10+ shows and frequently find that when a new-voice over is added to a slide, it will also migrate to another slide. This usually happens only when I'm correcting an existing voice-over, somewhere in the interior of a show, but that issue sometimes occurs when I'm adding one beyond all other voice-overs. When such a migration happens, I can always make a correction (a do-over) - but that usually produces a chain of problems as one migration leads to another. The only effective solution I've discovered is to delete the slide with the migrated voice-over. That doesn't really solve the problem, especially if that slide is necessary to tell the story. In addition, I've learned to review my entire show periodically during production to detect unexpected migrations. They can pop-up in unexpected locations!

Also, thinking this might be a hardware problem, I recently purchased a new state-of-the-art photoediting PC; Windows 7 Ultimate, Intel I7 processor with 8GB, 2TB hard drive, etc. This computer update did absolutely nothing to resolve the ProShow Gold problem.

Any suggestions?

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

I've not heard of anyone reporting this problem or anything like it. That's not to say you're not experiencing it, just that it is unlikely that anyone here has seen it and knows what to do about it, if anything. I would contact PhotoDex and send them a report of the problem with as much detail as you can provide. They're usually helpful and if there's an issue in the software they will want to know.
Dick

[Nathan2118 Profile Private message]

Dick,

I appreciate your help, but I've appealed to PhotoDex for assistance twice with no results. I found this site after giving up on PhotoDex.

[trulytango Profile Private message]

Just a stab in the dark from a Producer user... you are using ProShow's own facility to record individual voiceovers onto your slide(s)? And you say if you add one beyond the existing ones, it pops up elsewhere? Is that correct? Or are you adding your voiceovers as individual slide sounds i.e. files you recorded elsewhere? In either case, it all sounds very odd!

Can't say I've generally seen a lot of shows that include ProShow's narration, so it could be that you're a bit of a pioneer in that area, and as such, you need to bombard Photodex with calls or emails until they sit up and listen.

[Nathan2118 Profile Private message]

I use my narrations on individual slides.

At this moment, I'm dealing with a problem such as I described. I'm producing a slide show about our recent Rhine River cruise. Slide 106 is a photo of Pushkin and 107 a photo of an equestrian statue. On each of these, my narrations told something about the photo. My voice-over on slide 150, a photo of a castle, migrated to 107 (it remained on 150). When I corrected the voice-over on 107, it migrated to 106. When I deleted the incorrect narration on 106 and did a new voice-over it also appeared on 105.

That's what frequently happens! My correction strategy is to delete the wrong voice-over, save and close the show and sometimes restart the computer. That might work, and it might not! Today, It didn't.

Hopefully someone on ProShow Enthusiasts has a solution.

I've developed somewhat of a relationship with Jared, a customer relations agent at Photodex - with no apparent results. I'll keep trying!

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Yes, odd that the voice-over will copy itself to another slide somehow. I've never experienced it myself. Yes, a voice-over could extend into the next slide or, if I set the offset too large, start in the previous slide. But, I've never experienced a situation where the program will cause a duplication of a sound file attached to a slide (direct voice-over or a sound file added to the slide).

I wonder what Photodex might have (as insight) into this...

Dale

[Nathan2118 Profile Private message]

Dale,

I sometimes have narrations that extend into several slides. That's a seperate issue and has never caused problems.

After my last post earlier this morning, I returned to my show and apparently resolved the problems on 105-107, but - I'll need to review the entire 24 minutes I've completed to see if other surprises are lurking. Needless to say, producing a show under these conditions is an ordeal and unnecessarily time consuming! I anticipate this show will run about 45 minutes, so there could be more fun and games in the future. Fortunately, I'm patient by nature - but there times when I consider switching to another program. I learned years ago that sometimes this only results in changing one set of problems for another. The reason that I've remained a ProShow user is that, if I persist, it results in a very satisfactory product.

Having recieved no relief from Photodex, I'm hoping someone on this forum can help. Thanks for your interest!

Roger

[trulytango Profile Private message]

Nathan?

Are your slides 'individual' i.e. are they each built from scratch, and not the result of some copying and pasting of styles/and replacing of photos? Reason I ask is what you describe (as going on with your narration files) reminds me very much of the bed hopping that went on at one time in Producer, when using templates/styles with irreplaceable layers. Completely maddening. It involved so much chasing of one's own tail...

You have caught my interest enough for me to have a go with Producer's own 'record' narration feature right now. I'll report back later!

[osharr Profile Private message]

Nathan , you didn't say how you resolved the problem in slide 105 and 107 . I would be interested in how you fixed it there . Ollie

[trulytango Profile Private message]

Sorry Nathan... I'm not able to reproduce any of your problems in my copy of Producer. I am using a simple microphone/headset and inserting narration as a slide sound using Producer's 'Record' feature

I built a show containing 50+ slides and added narration on a good number of slides. For some, I locked the slide time to the length of the narration, and for others I allowed the narration to continue over a number of slides. I even had narration doubling up in places... i.e. I attached narration to slides which already had some narration spilling over into them from a previous insertion - and it all behaved very well indeed. No unusual behavior whatsoever.

Iris

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Have not run into that issue before (or even heard of it), however, there are a couple of things you can check to see just where this is happening. When this happens, close Producer, saving the file (save it as a new file if you want), then open the .psh file in a text editor. Look through the psh file (it is just a text file) for the slides where the problem happened. Remember that "Slide 1" is "Cell[0]" in the psh file. See what audio clips it has associated with that slide that got changed. You will find something like this for that slide:

Code: Select all

cell[3].images[0].keyframes[1].colorizeStrength=10000
cell[3].images[0].keyframes[1].shadowOffsetX=70
cell[3].images[0].keyframes[1].shadowOffsetY=70
cell[3].background=1
cell[3].bgDefault=1
cell[3].bgSizeMode=2
cell[3].bgColorizeColor=8421504
cell[3].sound.file=sound/honey_bee_heather_1.wav
cell[3].sound.length=6796
cell[3].sound.volume=100
cell[3].sound.startTime=2766
cell[3].sound.endTime=4528

See if the sound did indeed get changed. You can see in the above segment where is specifies the sound file for Slide 4 (cell[3]) (honey_bee_heather_1.wav in this case) If it didn't actually change, delete the .pxc (cache file) for that show, then restart Producer and open your show - it will rebuild the cache file (that thing gets confused sometimes). On the other hand, if the code from the .psh file does indeed show that the audio file for that slide got switched, you have something you can pass along to Photodex to show what the problem is.

mikey

[Nathan2118 Profile Private message]

Nathan?

Are your slides 'individual' i.e. are they each built from scratch, and not the result of some copying and pasting of styles/and replacing of photos? Reason I ask is what you describe (as going on with your narration files) reminds me very much of the bed hopping that went on at one time in Producer, when using templates/styles with irreplaceable layers. Completely maddening. It involved so much chasing of one's own tail...

You have caught my interest enough for me to have a go with Producer's own 'record' narration feature right now. I'll report back later!

I'm just getting a feel of how to navigate in this forum and discovered "QUOTE - now my response:

I use slides from my photo files, with an occasional video clip. I don't copy and paste from one slide to another. I've always used music, captions, the Ken Burns effect and recently voice-overs. Mostly, I use "no slide styles" with an occasional "3 photos" style. I'm not a glitzy person, so I only use three transition styles in each show. I burn the show to a DVD for our enjoyment and might share the show with family and friends.

Thanks for your response.

Roger

[Nathan2118 Profile Private message]

Nathan , you didn't say how you resolved the problem in slide 105 and 107 . I would be interested in how you fixed it there . Ollie

Who knows? Maybe, blind stupid luck!

Seriously, I deleted the offending voice-over on 105. Then I saved my show, closed ProShow and restarted my computer. When I reopened the show and added a voice-over to 105. It didn't migrate to 104, which seems like a small victory. I've not had a chance to preview the entire 24 minutes of this show yet, and realize that it is quite possible that more surprises are lurking among the other 164 slides. With a projected length of about 300 slides, I'm not optimistic that I can maintain my sanity through the completion of this show. Even with my best efforts, I seem unable to escape the dreaded migration! Regardless, with all this nonsense the effort is hardly worth the stress.

Thanks for your interests. I have hopes that someone on the forum has a solution.

Roger

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

I'm not sure what you mean by "migrate?" Are you saying that if you create a voice-over on Slide C that it will actually show up on Slide B? Or is it on Slide B and C?

As I stated before, I've never seen this problem. Nor have I been able to re-create it. But, if you're getting the sound file on both the slide you put it on and the previous slide (or moved somehow from the current slide to the previous slide), you've got something seriously wrong ... especially if it happens regularly.

It could be a program installation problem. When you install PSG, do you install over the previous installation or in its own (new) folder? Installing over a previous installation is NOT generally recommended. To maintain settings for those installations that were made to a new folder, you can copy the CFG and PHD files from the previous installation into your new installation (if desired).

You have a new computer so the chances of a corrupted disk cluster is minimal. Installation with the anti-virus software active is probably not something you want to do either. Turn it off first.

The fact that your problem typically occurs during a "correction" of the voice-over, you might be experiencing a corruption of the cache file. Have you tried to remove the cache and then re-opening the show? But, the problem MAY also include a possible inadvertent change in the PSH (both the cache and PSH files are continuously updated while the associated show is open). If this happens again, you might want to look at the PSH code BEFORE doing anything else. The PSH file is an ASCII file so you need to look at it with either WordPad, NotePad, or a text editor (look at a copy or immediately save the opened PSH file to a NEW name). Mikey gave you some good information on this. It's probably worth checking out.

Just because none of the rest of us have NOT experienced this problem doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It must may not work with our setups.

Good Luck.

Dale

[Nathan2118 Profile Private message]

I'm not sure what you mean by "migrate?" Are you saying that if you create a voice-over on Slide C that it will actually show up on Slide B? Or is it on Slide B and C?

As I stated before, I've never seen this problem. Nor have I been able to re-create it. But, if you're getting the sound file on both the slide you put it on and the previous slide (or moved somehow from the current slide to the previous slide), you've got something seriously wrong ... especially if it happens regularly.

It could be a program installation problem. When you install PSG, do you install over the previous installation or in its own (new) folder? Installing over a previous installation is NOT generally recommended. To maintain settings for those installations that were made to a new folder, you can copy the CFG and PHD files from the previous installation into your new installation (if desired).

You have a new computer so the chances of a corrupted disk cluster is minimal. Installation with the anti-virus software active is probably not something you want to do either. Turn it off first.

The fact that your problem typically occurs during a "correction" of the voice-over, you might be experiencing a corruption of the cache file. Have you tried to remove the cache and then re-opening the show? But, the problem MAY also include a possible inadvertent change in the PSH (both the cache and PSH files are continuously updated while the associated show is open). If this happens again, you might want to look at the PSH code BEFORE doing anything else. The PSH file is an ASCII file so you need to look at it with either WordPad, NotePad, or a text editor (look at a copy or immediately save the opened PSH file to a NEW name). Mikey gave you some good information on this. It's probably worth checking out.

Just because none of the rest of us have NOT experienced this problem doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It must may not work with our setups.

Good Luck.

Dale

Dale,

I used "migate" to mean "to move from one place to another." What I meant to convey, and perhaps didn't express very clearly, was that when I add a voice-over it may duplicate itself and migrate to another location. As an example, if I put a voice-over on slide 120 it may also appear on 119 or even on show up in some remote part of the show. That would result in having the correct voice-over on 120 and an unwelcome one on another slide. I've never experienced having more than one extra voice-over at a time, but as I make corrections, there may develop a chain on such problems. Sometimes if I persist in making corrections, the problem just goes away. In other instances, when the migrant voice-over lands on a slide I deem to be unnecessary, I just cut that slide and the chain is broken. Another solution is to leave the slide and remove the voice-over. Regardless, this is a real pain in the ...

I think your suggestion about installing PSG has merit. I doubt that I turned off my Viper screen saver when I installed the program. I'm not sure what to do about the CFG and PHD files you mentioned; I'm a fairly competent computer user, but haven't much experience dealing with the many files that accompany PSG. I did pick up on a recommendation on another thread to delete the PXC file. When I did that, the program seemed to work much better. I've developed a paranoia about loosing changes and have a habit of saving after each minor change; perhaps I overloaded the PXC file - it was in the range of 125K when I deleted it. Maybe this paranoia has created some of the problems I've experienced.

Although I didn't mention it in this thread, I have always had problems with PSG crashing; sometimes after I add a voice-over, the little circle just keeps spinning until I give in and abort the program. Sometimes crashes just happen without any apparent reason. Thats why I save frequently. In summary, I'm not a happy PSG user and would consider investing in another program, but I'm reluctant to change because I've learned from experience that you sometimes just change one set of problems for another!

Thanks for your suggestions.

When my mood improves, perhaps tomorrow, I'll delete PSG and download it again with Viper disabled. In addition, I'll clean out my download file first.

Roger