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Backwards Compatibility

Grant Hodgeon
Hi guys,

With every major release of Capture One I'm stuck with the prospects of having to either keep multiple copies of C1 in my Applications Folder, or upgrading old Capture Sessions to C1-8.

I don't like this. Let me explain why;

1. It's another step in my workflow that I shouldn't have to think about
2. It then writes a new file and a backup file every time (I'd end up with 5-6 different backup files for super old jobs)
3. It stops my ability to send out entire sessions to clients if they aren't using the very latest version
4. It actually hinders my want to upgrade due to these issues
5. If it's a really old job C-1 won't even recognise the filetype. This is just ridiculous. Imagine Photoshop doing away with PSD's?

Sadly this is an every-year occurrence. I'd love on a technical level to understand why there isn't a way to open old sessions in compatibility mode? The same way you can open up something with the C1-7 Engine and press 'upgrade' once the session is opened?

This is one of my biggest pet-peeves with C-1 besides its general instability and slow interface. I am more than happy to pay the monthly premium to run this software if it means actual strides will be taken to improve performance. A large chunk of the people running this software are technically educated DIT's so some transparency and overall commitment to our needs would be awesome. I'd definitely appreciate if this didn't turn into a 'machine' performance argument. I've had C-1 running on a variety of different workhorses, the bottleneck is the software, not the hardware.

I'd happily pay $15 a month vs. $10 if it supported technical blog posts regarding performance, benchmarks and no-bullshit explanations.

I love the software, I love what it allows me to do on set. I'd just appreciate a release log that didn't introduce a new grain filter and instead boasted interface performance increase.

Sorry if this comes across in any way other than constructive!
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Comments

9 comments

Date Votes
  • Paul Steunebrink
    In my experience, CO8 explicitly addresses some of the issues you mention: stability and speed (of the interface, among others). Are you running the 60-day trial?

    Other than that, my reply to your post is that you should not upgrade any piece of software, being it an application or operating system, if you are not ready for it. It must fit your entire workflow, including all your machines and those from editors or clients you work with. Take your time and decide what is the best moment for it.
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  • SFA
    [quote="NNN635466537848617072" wrote:

    5. If it's a really old job C-1 won't even recognise the filetype. This is just ridiculous. Imagine Photoshop doing away with PSD's?





    I would not assume that Adobe would never at some future point, eliminate support for their older file formats in some new product they release.

    In the same way the the camera manufacturers will abandon features of older models as time passes - Canon's support for tethering in older 1D series for example or when they dropped remote control for Powershot devices a few years ago. There's not much one can do about things like that and sometimes there has to be a leap into the new. Consider the computer industry and how many types of storage device appear and disappear within a couple of years.

    I would assume that decisions are often made about what the market will stand compared with the effort and cost of support what are likely to be very low volumes of legacy requirements and the additional complexity of software require, the resulting "bloat" and the needs for testing the functionality still works even though it may never be used.

    One might see an opportunity for a specialist archive level product support service but I can only guess that it would need to be very expensive to justify its existence ... in which case it would probably not exist. Or at least not exist from a single product vendor. I could imagine that there may be some sort of service provided independently covering all hardware, software and camera vendors in so far as it would be possible. That might just be viable as a commercial operation.

    Thought anyone?


    Grant
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  • Grant Hodgeon
    [quote="Paul_Steunebrink" wrote:
    In my experience, CO8 explicitly addresses some of the issues you mention: stability and speed (of the interface, among others). Are you running the 60-day trial?

    Other than that, my reply to your post is that you should not upgrade any piece of software, being it an application or operating system, if you are not ready for it. It must fit your entire workflow, including all your machines and those from editors or clients you work with. Take your time and decide what is the best moment for it.


    I'm on the fence with this. I'm completely appreciative of the fact that you should fit the software around your workflow, but if I were to take your advice on this I'd be using C1-3 still.

    With regards to C1 stating improvements in speed throughout the program, it's great to be told that but hard numbers would be awesome. I'm running a licensed version of C1-8. We're technical people running this software, we speak numbers. It'd be great to be met at this level when it comes to performance improvements.

    As an aside and to hold my hands up, I must admit there are calls to upgrade the database w/ Lightroom but I'm not sure whether you can open a new catalog with an older version of Lightroom. Can anyone shed any light on this?

    I really don't want to sound like some asshole troll who is requesting the impossible. I just wanted to open the discussion of better transparency with us tech's, especially where speed is concerned. I've been on job's with A list photographers who request shooting to a new folder every 50-60 shots due to preview and interface slow-downs. Regardless of my opinion and without the ability to pull hard numbers on this, I have to be able to do my job as quickly as possible and whatever C1 can afford to do in order to help us with that, I'd be ever so grateful.

    The software really is top grade, and there's nothing else like it, or close to it. I'm just hoping to see improvements and dialog in areas that I personally believe it's lacking.
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  • Grant Hodgeon
    [quote="SFA" wrote:
    [quote="NNN635466537848617072" wrote:

    5. If it's a really old job C-1 won't even recognise the filetype. This is just ridiculous. Imagine Photoshop doing away with PSD's?





    I would not assume that Adobe would never at some future point, eliminate support for their older file formats in some new product they release.


    Adobe has iterated on their filetype with backwards compatibility in mind, you'll see that anytime you save a PSD.

    http://share.photogrant.com/image/1f3W3D1C0e17/Photoshop_Format_Options.jpg

    In fact, the PSD format has been in existence for 23 years.

    Sure, they could still eliminate support for the old file formats but as of writing, they haven't.
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  • SFA
    [quote="NNN635466537848617072" wrote:


    With regards to C1 stating improvements in speed throughout the program, it's great to be told that but hard numbers would be awesome. I'm running a licensed version of C1-8. We're technical people running this software, we speak numbers. It'd be great to be met at this level when it comes to performance improvements.

    As an aside and to hold my hands up, I must admit there are calls to upgrade the database w/ Lightroom but I'm not sure whether you can open a new catalog with an older version of Lightroom. Can anyone shed any light on this?


    The software really is top grade, and there's nothing else like it, or close to it. I'm just hoping to see improvements and dialog in areas that I personally believe it's lacking.


    I guess it might be possible to attempt to come up with some numbers in a Mac environment for a range of given configurations but whether that would translate into a real world usable reference could be questionable. I'm not sure you could really get close in a Windows environment wiht so many possible permutations of ever changing specifications.

    The danger is that you give numbers, people percieve different results and you end up with a negative spiral based on something that people will want to see as "facts".

    For reference consider mileage figures for fuel use in vehicles. Back in the day there were expectations that the avergae car (in Europe) would give about 30mpg. Maybe 28, maybe 32 but around 30. And they did.

    Along came regulation and taxation and the and need to "better inform the public". So now people read a test spec that say "75mpg" but they actually get closer to 45mpg in real use and they think they are being ripped off. But though they know that 75 is a figment of a test plan's imagination which is itself an attempt to beat the regulatory system to make the cars look more affordable ... they won't accept that if they can use is to try to beat up the manufacturers.

    Meanwhile a manufacturer who says 55mpg and delivers 55mpg will lose sales because buyers will think the vehicles are inefficient. Catch 22.

    Coming back to editing .... the real measure is whether the overall system is fast enough for the speed at which we individually feel we can work. Perhaps we might all take steps to measure that and provide the feedback to the manufacturers? 😉 👿

    As for dealing with legacy files, iirc LightRoom 1 had a database/catalog change between beta and release and at some point in V1 as well - enough to require catalogs to be regenerated. I think there was another update required when V2 came out? It was one of the things I was less than comfortable with at the time so I looked elsewhere.

    I wonder how many RAW files from the early days of digital still exist in any meaningful collection? Surely nearly all that are deemed important will have been saved in a more common archival form - TIFF say? The overhead for maintaining backwards compatibility long term is likely to be very costly and slow development - a cost we would all have to bear even though 99.9% may have no interest whatsoever in the functionality having never used any equipment that old.

    Despite saying that I can see that the subject may be important in some areas and for some people - just not something that needs to be supported in the "mass market" that subsequent digital imaging has become.

    A few pennies of thoughts for what they are worth.


    Grant
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  • Grant Hodgeon
    [quote="SFA" wrote:
    [quote="NNN635466537848617072" wrote:


    Coming back to editing .... the real measure is whether the overall system is fast enough for the speed at which we individually feel we can work. Perhaps we might all take steps to measure that and provide the feedback to the manufacturers? 😉 👿


    Bingo.

    For one instance - If there was an option to create a log file with batch processed images that gives a 'time taken to process' it would help determine bottlenecks, software speed improvements, etc.

    Could this be achieved with scripting? Curious.
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  • SFA
    [quote="NNN635466537848617072" wrote:
    [quote="SFA" wrote:
    [quote="NNN635466537848617072" wrote:


    Coming back to editing .... the real measure is whether the overall system is fast enough for the speed at which we individually feel we can work. Perhaps we might all take steps to measure that and provide the feedback to the manufacturers? 😉 👿


    Bingo.

    For one instance - If there was an option to create a log file with batch processed images that gives a 'time taken to process' it would help determine bottlenecks, software speed improvements, etc.

    Could this be achieved with scripting? Curious.


    Are you talking about machine batch processing or human batch processing?


    Grant
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  • Grant Hodgeon
    [quote="SFA" wrote:


    Are you talking about machine batch processing or human batch processing?


    Grant


    Batch processing recipe's in C1.
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  • SFA
    [quote="NNN635466537848617072" wrote:
    [quote="SFA" wrote:


    Are you talking about machine batch processing or human batch processing?


    Grant


    Batch processing recipe's in C1.


    Well, just run a large number of files and check the creation times. It's probably in a log as well.

    If you want to compare you would need a known batch of images to run each time. And make several runs.

    I don;t thank a background batch processing time is ultra critical for most people - at least not to the second - and I would imagine that this is already something used for controlled comparative testing.

    Deal with the human batch processor's perceptions and expectations may be somewhat trickier .... 😉
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