Where to, now?
So with Media Pro SE killed and all that lacks on C1 as a DAM where are you all going to? I know, Media Pro is still working, but it just seems unwise to keep using it (even though I am still using MS Expression Media eventually!). I was an Lightroom subscriber, but cancelled it the moment they've increased the subscription costs (I live in Brazil, they've basically doubled the subscription price on 2017. Worst: the price for old subscribers, like me, was higher than the price for new subscribers!). Anyway, what company currently deserves my ~US$200 for a really good DAM? I'm not looking for anything else but a DAM.
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[quote="Paul Dymond" wrote:
One thing I forgot to ask, does anybody know if the Catalog Set information transfers across to any other software apart from CO? I am guessing you would have to sync the information back to the original files for it to be readable? The advantage of CO (if it had a comparable DAM) would have been that you could have just imported existing MP catalogs and everything would come across. I’m thinking creating the Catalog Set structure in another software manually would be a long, arduous task.
I know RobertE has written about this. A quick search found this advice (move Catalog Sets to keywords):
[The Capture One forum has migrated to a new platform, as a result all links to Capture One related postsstopped working and have been removed]&p=123331&hilit=Catalog+Sets#p123331
I think it will be arduous no matter what, since you'll have to recreate the Catalog Set structure from scratch in the new DAM's native system. But at least having them in keywords gets you part way there. I would probably tag each catalog set with "CS:name of set" to find them easier in the list of keywords.
Maybe Robert has other advice.0 -
[quote="Paul Dymond" wrote:
One thing I forgot to ask, does anybody know if the Catalog Set information transfers across to any other software apart from CO?
There is no other software that can read/ import C1 catalogs.
The best and I mean only way to switch from C1 catalog to other DAM is write all Metadata into XMP sidecar files.
But be careful, C1 doesn't do it right either.
As I decided to switch my smal catalog with ~60000 images it took me almost two weeks to make order.
Even a change from catalog to session is not really practicable, because it's not possible to export settings only without copy/ move images self. Phase One simply created catalog without a round concept behind it 🤭0 -
Yes I’m thinking transferring all my Catalog Sets to a similar structure in another software programme is going to be a long nightmarish process. It seems our only real option is to keep using Media Pro for as long as we can and hope that either somebody buys it or C1 integrates it better in future versions. 0 -
[quote="syncrasy" wrote:
[*]If the “soon to be released†Photo Mechanic 6 includes a robust catalog/DAM comparable to Media Pro, migrate to Photo Mechanic. If not…
I mean this “soon to be released†has been valid for 2 or 3 years 😜0 -
[quote="RobiWan" wrote:
[quote="syncrasy" wrote:
[*]If the “soon to be released†Photo Mechanic 6 includes a robust catalog/DAM comparable to Media Pro, migrate to Photo Mechanic. If not…
I mean this “soon to be released†has been valid for 2 or 3 years 😜
But since the beginning of 2018, it has changed to "before the end of the 2018"
Cheers,
Graham0 -
I pointed the Serif company to the possibility of filling the gap in their software suite with buying Media Pro, in case PO will sell it. The answer was, they will not buy anything but have began looking into thier own DAM solution. As they start from scratch and the requested feature list is already long, that will take its time. But it could become one way out of our misery.
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index. ... am/&page=40 -
Good day
Just received the Phase One email informing that Media Pro SE (a very recent version) would be discontinued and suggesting users should switch to Capture One. I paid 232€ for Media Pro last version only in last March 2017.
I am thus assuming that I will get from Phase One a free License Code for Capture One last version and following ones.
Can you kindly tell me if the Capture One Licence Code is being supplied, or if not, what is Phase One's idea ??
Hope Phase One is not expecting that Media Pro SE buyers now buy Capture One also ....
Will appreciate some light on this issue.
Thanks in advance
Best Regards
Marco C. Pereira0 -
[quote="MJCPEREIRA" wrote:
Good day
Just received the Phase One email informing that Media Pro SE (a very recent version) would be discontinued and suggesting users should switch to Capture One. I paid 232€ for Media Pro last version only in last March 2017.
I am thus assuming that I will get from Phase One a free License Code for Capture One last version and following ones.
Can you kindly tell me if the Capture One Licence Code is being supplied, or if not, what is Phase One's idea ??
Hope Phase One is not expecting that Media Pro SE buyers now buy Capture One also ....
Will appreciate some light on this issue.
That's an excellent point. I would not assume that Phase One will do this (no such offer was made in the email). I have just sent a request via the Support ticket system about this matter. Since this forum is a user-to-user forum, not an official channel for business requests, I suggest all Media Pro users create a Support ticket asking that Phase One provide Media Pro users a free Capture One license. The argument is straightforward: Media Pro customers paid for a product that they believed was a viable product. Phase One suddenly discontinued the product. Phase One is therefore morally, and perhaps legally, obligated to provide a free license for the product the company recommends customers use as a replacement (Capture One).0 -
Hi Mark
Thanks for your answer. that was so obvious to me, that was finding it really really strange, that nobody else had asked about it in the Forum...
I will never pay now, once more for Capture One, sincerely hope that Phase One has the dignity of providing the License Code instead of expecting to make money out of customers out of Phase One inability to make their products work throughout time (and since 2017, it wasn't that much time).
If they do that, I think it should be the end of Phase One, AT LEAST for the previous Media Pro users...but even other users should carefully judge if it's wise to invest their money in softwares that may just end up like Media Pro is ending....0 -
By the way, I also placed a Ticket asking for the Capture One License Code. We should all place tickets and get the License Code or abandon Phase One once and for all. 0 -
"Phase One suddenly discontinued the product. Phase One is therefore morally, and perhaps legally, obligated to provide a free license for the product the company recommends customers use as a replacement (Capture One)."
Bulls eye, Mark.
That's exactly the issue and let's hope Phase One reveals itself morally up to it.. Legally, I'm sure the company wouldn't stand a chance but I'm really hoping they understand they should not get to that.0 -
[quote="MJCPEREIRA" wrote:
I am thus assuming that I will get from Phase One a free License Code for Capture One last version and following ones.
It's very interesting aspect. But I don't think Phase One will do anything.0 -
Just got their answer:
"
Hi Marco,
We are not able to provide free Capture One licenses, but you can get $100 (USD) off of a Capture One license if you enter your media Pro key in the promo code section at checkout.
Best regards,
Phase One Technical Support "
It's obviously time for all of us to abandon Phase One products and place a claim in court. The European Union right institutions will handle this pretty well, companies trying to Rip off clients sistematically...
There's obviously zero morality in the Phase One people...0 -
Marco - with respect I think this argument is ill-founded. I am also very disappointed that Media Pro will not be developed further. But the Media Pro we all have will not suddenly stop working. Are you arguing that a software company should never, reluctantly, cease developing a product? I suspect that if Media Pro was profitable they would want to continue. But you only have to look at the low number of posts in this forum (before the last week!) and the several days it can sometimes take for anyone at all to respond to a post, to guess that the user base is pretty small. So I'm disappointed, but not entirely surprised.
Ian0 -
[quote="MJCPEREIRA" wrote:
Just got their answer:
"
Hi Marco,
We are not able to provide free Capture One licenses, but you can get $100 (USD) off of a Capture One license if you enter your media Pro key in the promo code section at checkout.
Best regards,
Phase One Technical Support "
And its doesn't work. I have tried it already0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
to guess that the user base is pretty small.
Or MP just worked, which you can't say about C10 -
[quote="RobiWan" wrote:
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
to guess that the user base is pretty small.
Or MP just worked, which you can't say about C1
Well, I do find that C1 works really well for me as a raw processor. But I haven't got far into its catalog features yet. I'm just trying to do so in order to see whether I can use it instead of MP. And when I was starting to get to grips with MP, and asked questions in this forum, I often waited quite some time before anybody responded. It would be interesting to know what the user base is.
Ian0 -
Yeah, when I left LR my plan was to use MP for DAM with C1 as my editor. To me it sounded like I would get a better DAM and a better editor. That was right when a new version of C1 came out. MP did not fully support that new version and it took a really long time to get an update of MP. IMHO those should have been in sync to the day - but that's just me. That delay was an alarm bell for me so I decided to just go with C1 and wait and see if the MP situation improved.
Sigh, I was sorry to see the news of cancellation of MP but I was not really surprised.
So, I only got a better raw editor not a better DAM - probably sightly worse in terms of performance and handling of variants.0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
Marco - with respect I think this argument is ill-founded. I am also very disappointed that Media Pro will not be developed further. But the Media Pro we all have will not suddenly stop working. Are you arguing that a software company should never, reluctantly, cease developing a product? I suspect that if Media Pro was profitable they would want to continue. But you only have to look at the low number of posts in this forum (before the last week!) and the several days it can sometimes take for anyone at all to respond to a post, to guess that the user base is pretty small. So I'm disappointed, but not entirely surprised.
Surprising or not, Phase One discontinued Media Pro with no comparable replacement product. Many of us thought (based on Phase One's own marketing statements back in 2012) that the company wanted to leverage Media Pro's code to make Capture One's DAM comparable to, or better than, Adobe Lightroom (and certainly comparable to Media Pro itself). Why did they fail? Yes Media Pro still works for now, but for MP users, the feeling is not just disappointment but frustration at the company’s lack of transparency and apparent waste of eight years of ownership.
Not to speak for Marco, but I did join his plea, so I'll offer my thoughts on the free license argument…
The argument is not that a software company should never cease developing a product, but rather that the company has a certain obligation to the customer if such a decision is made. (The user base and profitability are irrelevant to that obligation.) In this case, a new customer pays US$189 (232€) for Media Pro and a reasonable expectation that it will be viable and supported for a certain period of time (even if the Terms of Use say “no warrantyâ€). Of course, deciding what period of time is reasonable is a matter for debate. Should it be based on purchase date? The developer’s typical release cycle? The OS release cycle? Some combination of all three? For the sake of argument, let’s say Media Pro has at most two years left on a Mac (High Sierra becomes obsolete ~2020). Media Pro’s last “major†upgrade (Media Pro SE) was in 2016. Is it reasonable for the company to say, “Well, for US$189 you'll get two years’ worth of use, which is the same as both our release cycle and Apple’s OS cycle. We have no further obligation.â€? Perhaps, but I think it is just as reasonable for the customer to say, “I paid US$189 for a product that I would happily pay to upgrade in two years, but now the purported upgrade is for an inferior product (Capture One’s catalog) that costs more money (US$299) than the originally-expected upgrade cost. If the company wants to keep me as a customer, it owes me some financial consideration that respects my original investment.â€
Have I convinced you, Ian?0 -
Hi all, just wanted to let you know that I contacted Peter Krogh (of the DAM book fame) and he said that he’s looking at a couple of software programmes as candidates to replace MP - Photo Supreme and Daminion. I have downloaded Photo Supreme for a play and here’s some observations. They have a downloadable script that will import Catalog Sets (assuming you’ve synced them back to the original file) and convert them to what they call Portfolios. But, and this is a big but, you have to manually confirm each and every picture, one at a time, by clicking on an ok button in a dialogue box that pops up! That’s a lot of clicking! And nested Catalog Sets don’t transfer into nested Portfolios, they are each their own separated portfolio. So if you have a Catalog Set with 20 subsets each and every one of those subsets will be it’s own Portfolio. In other words, unusable. Also I’ve imported 55000 images to get an idea of speed and it is slow as hell operating on a pretty well specced Windows machine. Back to the drawing board! 0 -
[quote="Paul Dymond" wrote:
Hi all, just wanted to let you know that I contacted Peter Krogh (of the DAM book fame) and he said that he’s looking at a couple of software programmes as candidates to replace MP - Photo Supreme and Daminion. I have downloaded Photo Supreme for a play and here’s some observations. They have a downloadable script that will import Catalog Sets (assuming you’ve synced them back to the original file) and convert them to what they call Portfolios. But, and this is a big but, you have to manually confirm each and every picture, one at a time, by clicking on an ok button in a dialogue box that pops up! That’s a lot of clicking! And nested Catalog Sets don’t transfer into nested Portfolios, they are each their own separated portfolio. So if you have a Catalog Set with 20 subsets each and every one of those subsets will be it’s own Portfolio. In other words, unusable. Also I’ve imported 55000 images to get an idea of speed and it is slow as hell operating on a pretty well specced Windows machine. Back to the drawing board!
Wow. Thanks for contacting Peter and doing all that work. The PSu script sounds like it's less useful than turning Catalog Sets into temporary MP keywords prior to migration. At least with temporary MP keywords you wouldn't have to confirm images one by one—just select all and create a Portfolio. I suppose the nesting could be staged in temporary MP keywords with logical shorthand names, e.g., keyword for Catalog Set parent = "CS001-[name of Catalog Set]", first nested child of CS001 = "CS001-a-[name of Catalog Set]". But that's still a lot of work and the speed issue appears to be a killer. I have ~ 40,000 images and hundreds of nested Catalog Sets, not to mention my 1,000s of hierarchical keywords, so I'm not keen on migrating.0 -
I tried Photo Supreme. It is ok not as good as Media Pro but the developer is regularly on his forums answering questions. There is only one person developing PSu. This is good because he is responsive but bad because innovation is not going to happen and if he gets tired of doing it the program dies.
I was looking for a better DAM than C1. I tried a bunch of different ones but Photo Supreme was decent because it allowed you to open a file in C1 from PSu. Keywords worked well and C1 could read them.
My issue with PSu was after the trial ran out and I purchased a license. Once I did this the program would crash any time I tried to add a photo to it. I tried every trick I know how and no luck. I even went so far as to try it with a clean install of Mac OS. No luck. In the end the developer just refunded my money and I stuck with Media Pro.
I have now decided unless something really good comes along I will suffer with C1 and it's limitations. I have spent way too much energy and time trying to get things organized to start all over again. I found C1 is getting faster each incremental release.0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
[quote="RobiWan" wrote:
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
to guess that the user base is pretty small.
Or MP just worked, which you can't say about C1
Well, I do find that C1 works really well for me as a raw processor.
Yes of course works C1 ery well as RAW processor, but we are talking here about DAM replacement 😜
@All
I can really tell you, I'm since 3/4 year Photo Supreme user, and have now Windows and OSX single User and Server with PostreSQL running and ben very happy to purchased this software 😄 😄 😄
Photo Supreme has a programming/ scripting Interface with Pascal Script which is available for all versions! I think its very important to know, that users can extend this Software.0 -
I have also been taking a look at iMatch. Is anybody using it? It seems to be pretty good, has quite a lot of the functions I need. Again, no ability to transfer catalog sets across so that would be a pain in the butt but it seems pretty good otherwise. 0 -
[quote="Paul Dymond" wrote:
Is anybody using it?
I had it tested. There are people who are happy with it and there are people like me who can't handle the process. I hate it when DAM software thinks it's automatic - read/write XMP without asking.
I know this guy @Wolfram32 use IMatch0 -
[quote="Paul Dymond" wrote:
I have also been taking a look at iMatch. Is anybody using it?
I moved from IMatch about 12 years ago so can't comment on its current status. When I did use it IMatch was a solid DAM solution for Windows users. Far more scalable than competitors, more options like mapping fields, ability to import databases from competitors, and the dev Mario is very responsive. In the end the UI made me move on.0 -
[quote="Paul Dymond" wrote:
I have also been taking a look at iMatch. Is anybody using it? It seems to be pretty good, has quite a lot of the functions I need. Again, no ability to transfer catalog sets across so that would be a pain in the butt but it seems pretty good otherwise.
But it's Windows only.
Ian0 -
[quote="syncrasy" wrote:
Have I convinced you, Ian?
Convinced me that I would like a free or subsidised licence for C1, yes. Convinced me that there is actually a legal case for demanding it, unfortunately not.
I suppose that one of the factors in this is to see whether C1 v12 when it comes has enhanced DAM capabilities or performance. I have not until now been a catalog user in C1 (working only in sessions) but those who are seem to say that the last few versions have all improved in that respect. It would be nice to have reassurance or information from Phase One about that at the same time as the announcement about MP, but I know they have a policy of never making those kinds of announcements in advance, which is somewhat understandable. If it turns out that much of the functionality we know and love from MP appears in C1 we will probably be happy. That would actually overcome one of the frustrations of MP, which is that if you find a photo in MP that you want to do some more work on, you then have to find the C1 session it is in, open that session, do your further edits on the file, then get MP to update its preview of the new edit of the file. (And it can't display more than one variant of an image.) Whereas if C1 catalogs can be made to work well, it's all done within the app, which is more convenient and saves time.
If not, there is time to chose something else after we see what v12 of C1 has to offer.
Ian0 -
Great discussion and a very diversified collection of experiences, opinions, and outlooks!
I've been questioning my inner self, researching on the internet, and sitting at the 'drawing board' for the better part of a week now (lol, yes I can do that since I am old and retired) although I much prefer to be 'out there' taking pictures but that is another story... 🙄
@ Ian3,
ditto with 'sessions only' in C1.
and I agree, version 12 will probably bring 'some' improvements, however, this has been an ongoing process for what - the last 6 YEARS?!? All the while we as users have been patiently paying for the annual upgrades with the benefit to participate in bug reporting and 'feature request' submissions which of course has to be a formal process with no feedback on the developers part.
About your 'windows only' statement, yes, iMatch is just that, but for ~$80.00 one can install Parallels 14 and ~$100.00 for a windows license (about the price of a MediaPro license,lol) and you are set for any 'windows only' software applications.
@ roberte,
same here, tried iMatch back then when I was on windows systems and had a similar experience as you! Looking at it now (iMatch2018), all I can say is 'wow' if their webpage and forums is any reflection as to the current state of the actual software...
@RobiWan,
automatic read/write - not true according to their documentation and tutorial videos...
What I do like though is version stacking (even stacking of derivates of any .image format) , association of 'buddy files' (xmp,etc) with the image (if you physically move your image files from within the software it will take these with it (Dxo, Affinity, FastrawViewer, et all...)
In general, I do prefer a software that does NOT require me to 'script' and/or 'program' to accomplish tasks that I thought I had when I purchased said software in the first place...
Well, this whole DAM business (pun intended) led me to some decisions of exploration and possible workflow modifications,
- I will try the iMatch/ Parallels route (30/14 day free trial) as the Mac OS scene in DAM apps is rather 'dark' atm...
- Still hoping PM6 with DAM will come out soon - afraid though initially, there will be a period of rl hurdles and as even they themselves recommend don't trust until at least version .3 or.4 of any sw even Apple OS upgrades....
- as far as C1 is concerned, sessions only to be continued...
generally speaking, Phase one is primarily a medium format camera manufacturer; looking at the sw market for the past several years:
Apple abandoned Aperture, Nikon abandoned NX2, Canon and Olympus have rather 'questionable' sw for their cameras, even Sony-they give you a free C1for Sony license with your purchased camera, Adobe went subscription only (next step cloud only???) - just scary and disappointing to me...
- iMatch,
the one thing I ran across that worries me a bit is the official statement of not being able to 'merge/ import' 2 or more individual databases( you can have multiple Dbs though), also, like PSU it seems 'individual' driven and raises the question what happens if something happens to the guy in charge? - then again that holds true for almost any sw...
- NeoFinder,
not a 'full fledged DAM' but a great 'pre DAM' tool to get organized in your quest to migrate onto a DAM, especially when (as in my case) your various 'assets' are scattered over 10+ external HD's with a mix of backups, duplicate files, and 'work in progress' of derivative/output/'Master copies of RAW, etc.0 -
[quote="Ian3" wrote:
I suppose that one of the factors in this is to see whether C1 v12 when it comes has enhanced DAM capabilities or performance. I have not until now been a catalog user in C1 (working only in sessions) but those who are seem to say that the last few versions have all improved in that respect. It would be nice to have reassurance or information from Phase One about that at the same time as the announcement about MP, but I know they have a policy of never making those kinds of announcements in advance, which is somewhat understandable.
Usually I would totally agree however in this case they announced that a product has been discontinued without also announcing enhancements that would bring their existing one even close to par with the discontinued product. The point being, if they want to stay quite about C1 feature development then they should have waited until a release of C1 that had catalogue features / performance that could at least be argued were equivalent to MP OR waited to discontinue MP until after the said version of C1 was released.[quote="Ian3" wrote:
If it turns out that much of the functionality we know and love from MP appears in C1 we will probably be happy.
That certainly would be nice. But someone published a list of features they needed in C1 and non of them were things that I think are a priority for C1. So, I feel certain that few if anyone would be totally satisfied. 😊
I do hope that progress is made. Actually since there has been no announcement at all about future C1 features I actually hope that version 12 actually focuses on catalogue features.0
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