Media Pro Trial - Our Experience
Hello,
We were hoping to add Media Pro into our production pipeline and decided to download the trial...Been using the trial version for nearly a month. In my opinion although there seems to be the bones of a robust piece of software it seems to fall down VERY quickly. Our experience was extremely frustrating...
Here are some thoughts:
1. Have a customisable colour scheme. The existing one is dreadful.
2. The software crashes EVERY time I close the software.
3. Regularly I am forced to open the most recent catalogue file as 'read only' even though no one else is accessing or using it.
4. The icons for the organise/info panels are stupidly small. These are probably the most used icons for me in the software.
5. A 'Quick find' for the keyword panel would be very helpful when dealing with many thousands of keywords.
6. Simple spell check would be an obvious help for us.
7. The rename function is very limited.
8. Software forces the files to be exported as JPEG and TIFF rather than the original jpg and tif which is annoying.
9. We lost many hours work when the image thumbnails, their filenames and metadata became mixed up - thumbnails displayed one image with the correct relative metadata applied to it but the actual media image was a different image altogether meaning that the metadata was completely wrong. VERY costly waste of time.
10. Reset folder paths often will not work - an error message says it cannot be reset to the same destination even though we are resetting to a different location.
11. IMPORTANT: Seems like the option to import metadata (titles/descriptions/keywords etc) from an existing excel sheet would be an obvious and productive tool.
12. Renaming colour labels should be as easy as to right click rename rather than going into the preferences.
13. 'Sort by' option seems to work most of the time but sometimes is troublesome.
14. Scrolling in thumbnail view is slow and jerky.
15. Scrolling through the keyword drop-down once they get numerous is slow.
16. Re-building items is slow.
17. There should be a purge unused keywords option.
18. Having a 'save a custom sort order' would be good.
19. Dual screen mode?
20. We had many many many software hangs...
Maybe some of the above can be fixed easily but for our company we are not sure that we can trust such an unstable piece of software in our pipeline - we presumed that seeing though it is a purchasable and licensed software it would stand up to professional work environments but we are not convinced.
Would anyone have advice as at the face of it this software should everything we could ever need and more but sadly it falls down in too many places.
Thanks,
Eoin
We were hoping to add Media Pro into our production pipeline and decided to download the trial...Been using the trial version for nearly a month. In my opinion although there seems to be the bones of a robust piece of software it seems to fall down VERY quickly. Our experience was extremely frustrating...
Here are some thoughts:
1. Have a customisable colour scheme. The existing one is dreadful.
2. The software crashes EVERY time I close the software.
3. Regularly I am forced to open the most recent catalogue file as 'read only' even though no one else is accessing or using it.
4. The icons for the organise/info panels are stupidly small. These are probably the most used icons for me in the software.
5. A 'Quick find' for the keyword panel would be very helpful when dealing with many thousands of keywords.
6. Simple spell check would be an obvious help for us.
7. The rename function is very limited.
8. Software forces the files to be exported as JPEG and TIFF rather than the original jpg and tif which is annoying.
9. We lost many hours work when the image thumbnails, their filenames and metadata became mixed up - thumbnails displayed one image with the correct relative metadata applied to it but the actual media image was a different image altogether meaning that the metadata was completely wrong. VERY costly waste of time.
10. Reset folder paths often will not work - an error message says it cannot be reset to the same destination even though we are resetting to a different location.
11. IMPORTANT: Seems like the option to import metadata (titles/descriptions/keywords etc) from an existing excel sheet would be an obvious and productive tool.
12. Renaming colour labels should be as easy as to right click rename rather than going into the preferences.
13. 'Sort by' option seems to work most of the time but sometimes is troublesome.
14. Scrolling in thumbnail view is slow and jerky.
15. Scrolling through the keyword drop-down once they get numerous is slow.
16. Re-building items is slow.
17. There should be a purge unused keywords option.
18. Having a 'save a custom sort order' would be good.
19. Dual screen mode?
20. We had many many many software hangs...
Maybe some of the above can be fixed easily but for our company we are not sure that we can trust such an unstable piece of software in our pipeline - we presumed that seeing though it is a purchasable and licensed software it would stand up to professional work environments but we are not convinced.
Would anyone have advice as at the face of it this software should everything we could ever need and more but sadly it falls down in too many places.
Thanks,
Eoin
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I agree with most of these but #13 - you would NEVER want to change the meaning of color labels globally by just doing a right click - could lead to too many issues.. once you set these up - you would rarely need to change them which is why they are in the settings.
Your other points are spot on...0 -
Hey I see your point about the label names.
Sometimes we need to highlight certain collection of images into obvious labels for image reviews. For example one week red might be "Needs Revision" and the next week it might be "Completed and Saved"
But I do see your point that this maybe is not the best workflow!
Thanks for the response,
Eoin0 -
Hi Eoin--
I agree resoundingly with your list (especially such apparently "small" issues as the color scheme and the size/location of the organize and info icons). I hope Phase One will take your suggestions to heart - they're all issues that need attention and/or repair.
As a possible fix to the "Read Only" problem, here is something that has worked for me - (I got it originally from Peter Krogh's DAM Forum or possibly elsewhere on this one; I've forgotten where the thread was). Every time the software starts up it creates a temporary file, and if it crashes or closes unexpectedly, sometimes it fails to delete this and thus thinks it is open elsewhere. You need to make your "hidden files and folders" visible, then you can see the temporary file and delete it. If you're on Windows, while looking at the folders, go to Tools, then Folder Options. Choose "View", and you'll see the box to check that says "Show hidden files and folders". (I'd close the catalog first). It's a similar procedure on Mac.
As for global label color changes - my workaround has always been to only have a "hard" assignment to the first 5 colors in my workflow. That leaves me the rest to play with for temporary assignments. Don't know if that will help in what you're trying to do.
I wish I'd browsed this forum before I trustingly bought the upgrade. But one thing Phase One did right - the upgrade does NOT automatically convert EM catalogs to Media Pro (the way the EM upgrade did to iview). So I guess I'll stay with EM for now and wait to upgrade my other two licenses till some of these issues get resolved. (The software is useless to me as long as Batch Rename is so buggy...and your item #9 is particularly terrifying).
Dinah0 -
Hey thanks for the detailed response to my post,
Your advice was helpful for the read only problem (Although having to use this work-around seems a little odd to have to do) but it works thanks. Also your thoughts on the label colours makes sense too...
Really hope a robust and comprehensive update is on the way! I wonder if Capture is more of a focus for Phase One and that Media Pro might be an annoying little brother that they hoped a colour scheme change would keep quiet for a time... hope I am wrong.
Thanks,
Eoin0 -
[quote="Eoin Winston" wrote:
......
Really hope a robust and comprehensive update is on the way! I wonder if Capture is more of a focus for Phase One and that Media Pro might be an annoying little brother that they hoped a colour scheme change would keep quiet for a time...
My two cents is that they "bit off more than they could chew".
Strategically, I think they want to expand beyond a "camera company with software" to a "camera company AND a software company" and compete with Lightroom for the advanced photographer (pro & amateur) market.
They introduced CO 6 which brought them feature wise back up to LR. However, CO 6 has a number of issues for a lot of people, including crashes and hangups.
At almost the same time, they introduced Media Pro, along with a lot of marketing hype about playing well with CO. But MP has its own set of issues. But they need a good MP to compete with LR.
Now they are faced with trying to get both packages working very well and working well together.
I have both packages, and use them both. Once you recognize the limitations and bugs of each, you can set up a decent workflow. I probably use CO & MP 75% of the time, and LR the other 25%, though not the DAM features of LR.
I await the day when I can use CO 6 and MP 1 100% of the time. I think CO is committed to this, but is struggling to reach it.0 -
Hi, I too have issues like this. And I agree with Jim on these 2 potentially great pieces of software are full of issues.
-CO, I have stopped using as it is slow going from folder to folder, and really is limited in color to BW conversion(yes I use 6.2). It is easier to fine tune in Adobe CRaw with sliders for each set.
It is also slower to capture with compared to 3.78. So I shoot in 3.78 (12 seonds or more faster than CO6 (this is to get the file in complete Focus...Which brings me to my next problem, and likely the deal breaker...
It takes to long or is unclear when things are at actual focus, and switching between % views to be in focus is slow and unclear which just gets you annoyed as heck and you close it and forget it.
I tried to love it, I've tried for years to love it...I was loving 3.78 as it is fast and no frills. But CO6 is just unusable on my Quad 3.6Ghz 16GB system using 2x 30" screens, with files on servers.
Now to Media Pro....This i see as a strong potential but if they marry it to CO, It would be its demise.
ISSUES for me:
_crashes on close and indicated.
_crashes on start as it looks for a catalogue sitting on a server that is OFF. (I default to New Cat on startup to resolve.
_looks like dual monitor is supposed to work, but a duplicate Lightbox appears on top of the browser window.
_saving a cat is not really known as it sits there with no feedback until a minute or so goes by.
_PSD files are not visible (this is a deal breaker)
_some icons are small, as mentioned.
Thoughts: I think fixing these bugs would be a huge help. I see requests for face recognition, different metadata options, etc, etc. if the sw isn't stable in a rather standard editing system, it is pointless to chase popular features.
I now use Bridige, ACDSee and AdobeCRAW for sort/editing. but I am so open to MPro as I see how catalogues would be nice to not have ACDSee get all confused from multiple servers, and only call catalogues requested. Actually if ACDSee could resolve reading latest PSD files and PDF's without a fuss and do CMYK color space(Bride does it nicely), and not have a problem with it being on multiple computers, it would be amazing as I like the batch file and text overlay with compression and format changes you can make with it(without needing PS as Bridge does). I see less hope for using CO as it is just too meating in its core to have any updates fix it.(so I think).
So, I use CO 3.78 to capture so I know what is sharp fast, and now starting to use Media Pro while I get a better handle and pray for updates to address these issues. I only can hope Phase One can contact users to test out and report to solve problems vs "select" testers that are the same.
There is more to list, no doubt, but these come to mind. I also would like to mention, I have seldom contacted support as I do like to read forums such as this or trouble shoot thru knowledge base, and I think Phase makes this available to try first to resolve. but it maybe backfiring when these forums are not treated as "support/trouble" logs. They really should be, and moderators should contact posters to resolve problems here.0
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