Problem Running CD PS7 Tutorial

Rhobes · Nov 21, 2005

Hello-
I will try to better describe the problem.....

I have a new 8 CD tutorial from Total Training (For Photoshop7). Firstly, I have worn out my welcome with there support, they say my system is too slow to run it, and they have never had another similar question before, thats their final reply & no return. I forgot to mention that I did download and am using the most recent update from their web site support, the dmg file. I also downloaded the other available files even though they didn't apply, and didn't help. I am using Quiktime player 7.0.3 (Pro) and IE 5.2 which the tutorial uses.

My system specs: iMac 17" G4(Model 8812) 80GB HD, 800MHz, 1024 MB SDRAM, OS X v10.3.9. I think it's pretty sad to say my system can't run their CD because it's too old and powerless, Oh, sorry, they said it was TOO SLOW.

I have the most recent updates for any associated software, including QuikTime Pro(which didn't help in the least). My software FAR exceeds all minimal requirments for the tutorial. The program runs absolutley fine except, the REVERSE feature[<<] simply will not work, you have to return all the way back to the lesson beginning (using the Fast Rev Mode [/<] button), the regular REV dosen't function. There is no knob to stop or move the time line(you can't alter it like in older versions), you ONLY have typical VCR type push button controls. FAST FORWARD[>>] & [>/] works great, but I need to go backward to hear something over. It also has PLAY,PAUSE.

After loading the program installation disc, your left with a desk top Icon you open to begin. It opens to a table of contents & the whole image(table of contents) is within the(VCR type) player, with all the control buttons at the bottom. You next select your lesson from the player(that which the icon opened), you then insert the correct CD and it fills the player and the movie begins, your VCR type controls at the bottom of the player.

My thought is it may work with an older QuickTime version, something put out at the time this PS7 tutorial was made but I don't have OS 9 and can't load any of the older versions to see. I tend to think it probably is not the CD's. Some say copy the CD to the HD & run it from there, I've tried but it dosen't work, you have to use the player which the icon opens to run the CD & select the lesson from it, as well as have any control with it.

ANY IDEA's??? I'm ready to bring it into a Mac authorized repair but am afraid they won't get it fixed, yet charge me up front, & say it's the CD's not the Mac- you can bet. I don't know much about computers but with the help from Mac forums & a little reading I usually know more about my problems than the repair techs here in Western Montana. But, this has got me pulling my hair out!!!!!

Thanks for any suggestion....
Your humble servant
Rhobes

Blue Velvet · Nov 21, 2005

You could try making a disk image of the CD (.dmg) with Disk Utility, mounting the disk image and try running it from that. Slim chance but possibly worth trying.

iGav · Nov 22, 2005

Okay... let me get this straight. The tutorial disc plays the video content in it's own movie player as opposed to in QuickTime, correct?

Either way it ain't your Mac that's the problem, so don't worry about that.

Now, is this tutorial disc basically nothing but video? e.g. it shows you's a screen capture video of the person demonstrating something with a commentary track? Is that it?

If that's the case, and the disc uses a QuickTime movie/s, then somewhere on that disc will be a copy of the QuickTime movie, usually you'll find it in a folder entitled 'Media' or 'Movies' something along those lines.

If you can find that file, or files (they might have several QuickTime movies each tutorial for example) then copy the folder containing all the QuickTime movies to your Desktop from the CD-ROM and you should then be able to view them directly off your Mac in QuickTime bypassing their crappy VCR player.

It sounds more like a poor CD-ROM than anything else.... and I honestly can't believe they're fobbing you off about your specs being the problem.

Let us know how you get on, and we'll go from there if needs be.

G

Rhobes · Nov 22, 2005

iGav said:
Okay... let me get this straight. The tutorial disc plays the video content in it's own movie player as opposed to in QuickTime, correct?

This is correct, but the system requires QT to run it, however that works.

Either way it ain't your Mac that's the problem, so don't worry about that.

Now, is this tutorial disc basically nothing but video? e.g. it shows you's a screen capture video of the person demonstrating something with a commentary track? Is that it?

Yes, just video

If that's the case, and the disc uses a QuickTime movie/s, then somewhere on that disc will be a copy of the QuickTime movie, usually you'll find it in a folder entitled 'Media' or 'Movies' something along those lines.

If you can find that file, or files (they might have several QuickTime movies each tutorial for example) then copy the folder containing all the QuickTime movies to your Desktop from the CD-ROM and you should then be able to view them directly off your Mac in QuickTime bypassing their crappy VCR player.

***I will try this, I hope I can do it...

It sounds more like a poor CD-ROM than anything else.... and I honestly can't believe they're fobbing you off about your specs being the problem.

Here is my last response from Total Training: Quote:

Hi Rhobes,
After discussing with our product team, the only recommendations we can
give
(due to your system speed) is to make sure you do not have any other
programs running. This may help the processor run the training and may
help
with the rewind issue.
______________________
Jeff Ritter
Technical Support Representative
Total Training
t: 888.368.6825 x9022
t: 760.517.9022
http://www.totaltraining.com
jritter@totaltraining.com

Let us know how you get on, and we'll go from there if needs be.

***I will let you know, I really appreciate your help here.

G

Rhobes · Nov 22, 2005

OK

I used Disc utility and made a .dmg file of a Lesson CD, I also burned a CD of it. When the original Total Training(TT) CD was in disc utility it said the disc was Read Only, 7 Folders, 73 Files. I insert my newly burned CD and it's the same. But you don't see these folders or files anywhere just the listed info from the disc utility.

Opening the CD you see one empty Desktop folder and a named(eg. This is disc 3)disc icon in the finder window. Opening the .dmg file does the same but also places a rectangular disc/HD icon onto the desktop. I'm not able to view anything beyond this. Dragging & dropping the disc icon to the QT Player icon opens QT Player with one line of text: Total Photoshop 7 CD Series Keyfile-Disc 3. You can run the player but only the static line of text shows while the time line flies by. The reverse button works but of course, no movie.

I did the same copy process to the Install CD. It listed 117 folders, 386 Files, Read only. Opening this you have: Empty Desktop folder, QT Installer folder, QT Tester, Read Me text, TPS7Install OS X Icon, and Total PS7 software folder (containg .jpg's for tutorial use), -thats all. Nothing here will open in QT.

I can start the program and select a lesson, and when it tells me to inset the lesson CD I can alternatively open the .dmg file & select the CD icon and it will run the lesson from the HD without inserting the CD. But the Fault with the REVERSE is still there.

The movies must be in the Lesson CD's but all I get is the line of text from them. The Cd must be Locked??

There must be some way to do this.....Any furthur ideas here???

Thanks...

iGav · Nov 26, 2005

Rhobes said:
Opening the .dmg file does the same but also places a rectangular disc/HD icon onto the desktop. I'm not able to view anything beyond this. Dragging & dropping the disc icon to the QT Player icon opens QT Player with one line of text: Total Photoshop 7 CD Series Keyfile-Disc 3. You can run the player but only the static line of text shows while the time line flies by. The reverse button works but of course, no movie.

This file won't play because it's a disc image, not a QuickTime movie, that explains the text you get in QuickTime player.

Rhobes said:
I did the same copy process to the Install CD. It listed 117 folders, 386 Files, Read only. Opening this you have: Empty Desktop folder, QT Installer folder, QT Tester, Read Me text, TPS7Install OS X Icon, and Total PS7 software folder (containg .jpg's for tutorial use), -thats all. Nothing here will open in QT.

By the sounds of it, this is the just their software install disc, which installs their player software (which is nothing more than their interface for playing movies,) so you won't find any movie content on that disc.

Rhobes said:
I can start the program and select a lesson, and when it tells me to inset the lesson CD I can alternatively open the .dmg file & select the CD icon and it will run the lesson from the HD without inserting the CD. But the Fault with the REVERSE is still there.

With this method, you're essentially still running the software as if it was a CD-ROM, and so performance will be similar to that of actually running it from a CD-ROM.

Now this reverse issue, reading your first post I understand that there are 2 rewind buttons, much like their is QuickTime player. Now one rewinds back to the beginning of the movie (l<) and the other reverse scans (<<) the footage yes? now when you click on the reverse scan what happens?? nothing the footage keeps playing?? the footage just pauses?? the footage looks like it's going to start rewinding but struggles and/or becomes jerky and then stops??

From what you're describing... I'm betting that the movie content is encoded as MPEG's... and I'm actually now thinking that even if you can find the movie files, they'll do exactly the same even if you open them directly in QuickTime player... though maybe not as bad and at least you'll be be able to use the timeline to scan back and forth.

Rhobes said:
The movies must be in the Lesson CD's but all I get is the line of text from them. The Cd must be Locked??

Yep, the movie content for each tutorial will be on each disc.

Firstly...

Trash all the software that the first disc installed.

Now insert one of the tutorial discs, doesn't matter which one, as long as it's not the disc that installs the player software.

An icon of some sort will appear on your desktop

When you double click that icon... what happens? don't drag it into QuickTime or anything else, just double-click it like you would to open a regular folder. What happens?

Rhobes · Nov 26, 2005

Hi iGav-

Quote
"Now this reverse issue, reading your first post I understand that there are 2 rewind buttons, much like their is QuickTime player. Now one rewinds back to the beginning of the movie (l<) and the other reverse scans (<<) the footage yes?"..................Correct

"Now when you click on the reverse scan what happens??"...........it will immediatley stop the movie play and you can hear the voices going backward(uninteligable), you don't see the movie scrolling backward(only hear it) smoothly--- then you see parts of the previously run movie appear and the second counter will jump apparently to that part, this repeats. You can continuously click the reverse button during this as well as any other button & nothing happens, it stays going backward slowly & jerky random fasion. Usually the cursor will turn into a color wheel after the REV button has been hit, it may go to color wheel and back to normal cursor several times but you can't stop it. You have to wait until it reaches the beginning of the lesson before it will automatically stop on its own, then you can FF up to where you want to see the movie and hit play.

The FF (forward scan) works normally, when used you see the seconds & time line smoothly increase. The seconds numerically & smoothly increase at the faster speed(reverse has large jumps). The time line smoothly moves to the right at a faster speed(Reverse, seems to stop, then a large jump backward- not keeping up with the reverse movement).

"Nothing the footage keeps playing??"...........see above, it stops and immediately begins to reverse based on hearing the garbled voices, with big skips back in the movie & jerky reverse movement in the time line.

"The footage just pauses??".................See above.

"The footage looks like it's going to start rewinding but struggles and/or becomes jerky and then stops??"................It does rewind, right away, but does struggle/become jerky and resumes all the way (painfully as you wait) back to the lesson beginning before it or you can stop it. At this point(when REV Mode reaches the beginning of the lesson) all functionality returns to the player.

______________________________________________________________

I went to the new account I created and trashed the installation, the whole thing. I inserted a Lesson CD, it opens placeing a Disc Icon on the Desktop labeled "TPS7CD". I double click this icon and I get the same finder window as previously described in the second paragraph of the preceeding reply. This is the empty Desktop Folder and Disc Icon labeled" This is disc 3".

If I then double click on this"This is disc 3" to open it, it will open TextEdit with the single line of text saying" Total photoshop 7 CD series keyfile-disc 3".

It is this disc icon( This is disc 3) that I previously drug & dropped to the QT player to get the same Text in the player window, but I have not tried it again as you suggested with all the instal trashed.

iGav · Nov 28, 2005

Rhobes said:
.................Correct

it will immediatley stop the movie play and you can hear the voices going backward(uninteligable), you don't see the movie scrolling backward(only hear it) smoothly--- then you see parts of the previously run movie appear and the second counter will jump apparently to that part, this repeats. You can continuously click the reverse button during this as well as any other button & nothing happens, it stays going backward slowly & jerky random fasion. Usually the cursor will turn into a color wheel after the REV button has been hit, it may go to color wheel and back to normal cursor several times but you can't stop it. You have to wait until it reaches the beginning of the lesson before it will automatically stop on its own, then you can FF up to where you want to see the movie and hit play.

The FF (forward scan) works normally, when used you see the seconds & time line smoothly increase. The seconds numerically & smoothly increase at the faster speed(reverse has large jumps). The time line smoothly moves to the right at a faster speed(Reverse, seems to stop, then a large jump backward- not keeping up with the reverse movement).

see above, it stops and immediately begins to reverse based on hearing the garbled voices, with big skips back in the movie & jerky reverse movement in the time line.

See above.

It does rewind, right away, but does struggle/become jerky and resumes all the way (painfully as you wait) back to the lesson beginning before it or you can stop it. At this point(when REV Mode reaches the beginning of the lesson) all functionality returns to the player.

I get you, from what you've said the movie content is almost certainly MPEG based, a lot of the time when I try to rewind MPEG's on either my PowerBook or Power Mac G5 I frequently get exactly what you describe, though some MPEG movies rewind reasonably well... it's to do with the compression.

So I suspect that even if you can find the media folders, even opening the movie files directly in QuickTime they'll almost certainly behave in the same way.

Rhobes said:
This is the empty Desktop Folder and Disc Icon labeled" This is disc 3".

If I then double click on this"This is disc 3" to open it, it will open TextEdit with the single line of text saying" Total photoshop 7 CD series keyfile-disc 3".

It is this disc icon( This is disc 3) that I previously drug & dropped to the QT player to get the same Text in the player window, but I have not tried it again as you suggested with all the instal trashed.

Now this is interesting, by the sounds of it, these discs have some kind of copy protection on them, which if memory serves I've never stumbled upon on any CD-ROM... hmmmmmm, not anti-copy, but they stop you copying the content of the disc. hmmmmm.

I wonder if a program like Show & Hide might help??? it's a program that makes the invisible files visible, something that I noticed you'd mentioned in an earlier post is...

I insert my newly burned CD and it's the same. But you don't see these folders or files anywhere just the listed info from the disc utility.

Now if you use 'Show & Hide' and your set your finder to display windows in columns (like the image I've attached below) that might show you the folders contained on the CD-ROM and allow you to copy the movies over by dragging them from the window/disc directly to the Desktop that way.

Try that and see what happens.

My other suggestion would be to try an application like this.

Failing that... and depending on how much HD space you've got... you could always use 'Snapz Pro X' and physically record the video as it plays on the screen and save it as a QuickTime movie (sorenson or similar) and that way you'll be able to rewind to your hearts content as you won't have a similar problem. It works like taking a screenshot does, but gives you the option of recording any movment on screen, and saving that as a movie.

iGav · Nov 28, 2005

whoopsie, I forgot to attach the image.

Rhobes · Nov 28, 2005

iGav.....YOU DID IT!!!!!

The Show & Hide Software exposed all the Movie files, I could drag & drop them into QT Player and run them!! Again you were right, in that the REVERSE was still not working BUT, I could now have control over the Time Line enabling me to drag it back, let go and it would resume forward play from that spot. There is a little extra time involved with dragging it back and waiting for it to resume forward play but this FAR OUTWEIGHS what it was before. I can live with this!!!!

I also checked out your second software suggestion: VCD GEAR OS X, downloaded & read the "Read Me First". Thats as far as I got here, I have no idea what thats about- and didn't think it a safe playground for me.

I then checked out you 3rd suggestion. I downloaded Snapz Pro X 2.0, and paged through its manual to gain enough know-how to try recording a lesson into QT. The recording I made had much to be desired, although I didn't play with it, there are many features to tweek which I basically left to their default setting. But overall here, even getting a good recording would require too much time in the process, especially looking at the hours of playtime required for my tutorial. It would be different if you just had a single movie you wanted to record as your watching it. But far too time consuming for my madness!!

Hey....

I'm going with the Show 'n' Hide QT route, it works great for me!!!
....Your a Savior iGav, I might even start going to church again, now that I truely believe there is a GOD.

If you ever make it to the USA, Montana that is, I have you covered. I'll take you to Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks, on the house! Try me...

P.S. So just a general opinion question. What was the problem here, was it the compression used in the movie, therefore the CD was my problem not my system actually? Do you think most of the other Mac users had the problem but never reported it? The TT for PS7 Support group said they never heard of this problem until I had it, believable?

Party Time

iGav · Nov 29, 2005

Rhobes said:
iGav.....YOU DID IT!!!!!

Yey!!!

Rhobes said:
The Show & Hide Software exposed all the Movie files, I could drag & drop them into QT Player and run them!! Again you were right, in that the REVERSE was still not working BUT, I could now have control over the Time Line enabling me to drag it back, let go and it would resume forward play from that spot. There is a little extra time involved with dragging it back and waiting for it to resume forward play but this FAR OUTWEIGHS what it was before. I can live with this!!!!

Pukka mate!!! make sure you copy the video's to your HD and run it off your Mac rather than the CD, that should help increase playback performance and smoothness.

Create a folder on your Desktop and title it 'Tutorial 1' and then copy the movie files into that, and then do the same for each disc 'Tutorial 2' etc.

I suspected that you'd probably still experience the rewind issue once I re-read your posts, they just sounded like the symptoms you get with some MPEG's, at least though with being able to view it directly in QuickTime you can use the progress bar.

Rhobes said:
I also checked out your second software suggestion: VCD GEAR OS X, downloaded & read the "Read Me First". Thats as far as I got here, I have no idea what thats about- and didn't think it a safe playground for me.

It's command line based, so it's not for the faint hearted, whether it would have worked or not is another thing, been as it was only the files that were hidden as opposed to the CD actually being protected.

Rhobes said:
I then checked out you 3rd suggestion. I downloaded Snapz Pro X 2.0, and paged through its manual to gain enough know-how to try recording a lesson into QT. The recording I made had much to be desired, although I didn't play with it, there are many features to tweek which I basically left to their default setting. But overall here, even getting a good recording would require too much time in the process, especially looking at the hours of playtime required for my tutorial. It would be different if you just had a single movie you wanted to record as your watching it. But far too time consuming for my madness!!

That's kinda the last resort... but with subtle tweaking it works a treat. As you noticed though for something like what you would've needed to do... it would've been seriously time consuming as you have to record in real time, but... it would've done the job.

It's a handy dandy app to have, especially if you view a movie online and there's no option to save it or it doesn't cache, you can just record it as it plays and bingo, pristine copy.

Rhobes said:
If you ever make it to the USA, Montana that is, I have you covered. I'll take you to Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks, on the house! Try me...

Rhobes said:
P.S. So just a general opinion question. What was the problem here, was it the compression used in the movie, therefore the CD was my problem not my system actually?

It's the compression, and it depends greatly on who has done it and if they actually know their arse from their elbow. I've stumbled across MPEG's that rewind reasonably well, and I've stumbled across MPEG's that even my Dual 2.7 can't shift.

As for your system, you'll probably find that you can rewind non-MPEG QuickTime movies back just fine, I know my 1GHz PowerBook can, a 10MB MPEG could be the biggest pain in the arse to rewind, but a 200MB Sorenson QuickTime movie can be skimmed through with ease.

That said throw it on a G5 Quad and it might work a treat... however, it's for Photoshop 7 right?? which I think was released in '01 or '02 so an 800MHz G4 would've been a pretty dandy machine then... so it should really be expected to work on such machines.

Rhobes said:
Do you think most of the other Mac users had the problem but never reported it? The TT for PS7 Support group said they never heard of this problem until I had it, believable?

Hard to say, though I find it unlikely that no one else has not encountered a similar problem, whether they bothered to complain or not is another thing.

Anyway, I'm glad it's all worked out for you!

G

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Problem Running CD PS7 Tutorial

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