Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Digital Asset Management => Topic started by: Streetshooter on December 21, 2013, 02:16:39 pm
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Hi,
I've just recently upgraded my iView Media Pro to the Phase One Media Pro. Simply because I upgraded my camera and the old version of iView didn't support the new camera. Man I'm tearing my hair out with the upgrade as it appears to be really unstable, buggy and almost unusable. Has anyone else had problems with the new Phase One Version or is it just me ?
The old version of iView was nigh on perfect for me, and I've used it for years with hardly any problems at all. I've tried contacting Phase One with the problems but lack of response from them means I'm just about to give up on it and find something else. I'm sure Lightroom would fit the bill but I'm not a fan of it to be honest. Can anybody suggest another DAM programme similar to iView ?
Pete
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It's not just you.
To even create a catalog was a pain in the butt. I had to build it in steps a couple thousand images at a time.
Now that the catalog is up and going, it crashes, its slow at times, and worse of all the color rendition is over saturated.
Because of this, I use Lightroom as my catalog. I keep Media Pro updated on the hope that it will someday work correctly.
Also hoping that the Capture One catalog will one day work as well. It's pretty much useless.
BTW I'm not a C1 hater. Love the rendition and ease of use, hate it's stability.
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Was not unhappy with LR5 really but heard all the buzz about the profiles in C1 so I tried it
my 6D seems absolutely made for C1 and the images are great with little or no input by me
C1 (7.5) wasn't all that stable itself when importing thousands of images to their catalogs and crashes with frightening regularity, So naturally I got Media Pro to "fix" that.
WRONG ANSWER! MP is not terribly intuitive, doesn't save settings I wish it would, and also crashes whenever it wants. For now, my solution is C1 for Canon and LR5.x for Leica RX-1 pup next to see what I get from each program. If you shoot an M240, LR5 is just gorgeous, as C1 is for Canon
Would like one program and I love the open architecture for C1. But it's slow and crashy in current form. I run a Big Mac with 32G of memory so it isn't the computer, LR runs like a scalded dog on it.
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Was not unhappy with LR5 really but heard all the buzz about the profiles in C1 so I tried it
my 6D seems absolutely made for C1 and the images are great with little or no input by me
You say your 6D seems made for C1.
It's more accurate to say that C1 is made (or significantly fine tuned and tweaked) for your 6D :).
That is to say, the image quality team ("Image Core" as they are known internally) spends a lot of time tweaking the algorithms C1 uses for each of the cameras it supports. You the results of this extra work more prominently in mainstream cameras (5DIII, D800) and cameras the image quality team themselves especially like personally (Fuji X Pro 1) than the "aslo ran" cameras (e.g. Panasonic point and shoots). So the fact your 6D raw files especially pop in C1 vs LR in your opinion is not at all surprising to me. This extra effort is especially true in the area of color where extensive real world shooting, laboratory testing, numerical analysis, and by-eye adjusting is done to make the files from each camera sing. No where is this more true than for their own cameras (Phase One and Mamiya Leaf digital backs) where they have an obvious financial incentive and a intra-company camaraderie and favorable logistical ease to make the best result from their cameras (and it's the only camera where the software image-quality team can give direct feedback to the hardware R+D team on what hardware developments are positively/negatively affecting the final output, including software tweaks and optimizations).
It's easy for end users to assume that "compatibility" is the same as "optimized for" which is one reason why DNG seems so attractive at first - the end user assumes that since DNG files will open in any DNG compliant software that this equates to "will be well supported and give great results". In reality adding basic support for a raw file (i.e. making sure it will open and be adjustable) is lightyears away from giving full-fledged support and optimization for a raw file.
Any MIDI reader can play a Bach score, but it takes an artistically talented, technically accurate, orchestra to really bring it to life. So the basic support that DNG promises (and doesn't always deliver on) is not really that helpful to those who have image quality as a high priority - what they need is software which has been specifically tuned to make their particular kind of raw file sing.
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C1 (7.5) wasn't all that stable itself when importing thousands of images to their catalogs and crashes with frightening regularity, So naturally I got Media Pro to "fix" that.
Sounds like your best option is to use C1 in session mode for spot-processing raw files to TIFFs which you can then integrate into your LR catalog.
That is, assuming you don't want to switch to Mac, on which we've found v7 to be very stable.
It might also be worth trying 7.1.6 as this was a bug-fix release and might address whatever issues you were seeing in your Windows usage. There is no "7.5" - I'm assuming you meant "7.1.5".
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Sounds like your best option is to use C1 in session mode for spot-processing raw files to TIFFs which you can then integrate into your LR catalog.
That is, assuming you don't want to switch to Mac, on which we've found v7 to be very stable.
It might also be worth trying 7.1.6 as this was a bug-fix release and might address whatever issues you were seeing in your Windows usage. There is no "7.5" - I'm assuming you meant "7.1.5".
Doug, not to hijack, but I have a question.
I have a Mac Pro 2012.
The setup I'm using now is as follows.
1 500gb SSD in the PCIe slot, other spinning drives in the normal sleds.
I have all my OS and catalogs on the SSD and the original photos on the spinning drive. There are about 49,000 photos.
I really want to use C1 as my all in one and LR as a printing module.
The catalog has to be a single catalog. Is the possible, and if so , what is best way to accomplish this?
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Doug, not to hijack, but I have a question.
I have a Mac Pro 2012.
The setup I'm using now is as follows.
1 500gb SSD in the PCIe slot, other spinning drives in the normal sleds.
I have all my OS and catalogs on the SSD and the original photos on the spinning drive. There are about 49,000 photos.
I really want to use C1 as my all in one and LR as a printing module.
The catalog has to be a single catalog. Is the possible, and if so , what is best way to accomplish this?
You can start a catalog in C1 just like you start a catalog in LR. In our testing on good Mac hardware and the latest version of C1 a catalog of 49k should be ok.
"what is the best way to accomplish this" is a big vague and broad, sort of like asking "what's the best way to organize my images?". If you have specific questions I'd be glad to take a look (as I have time) and I'm sure others will contribute as well. If you're just generally looking for more resources/training on Capture One rather than an answer to a specific question I can suggest the YouTube series, the Luminous Landscape series, and our own live Capture One Training (https://digitaltransitions.com/event/training-events) options.
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The issue I keep running into is that C1 becomes unresponsive when I'm trying to create the catalog. I'm not saying that editing etc becomes unresponsive, but the
actual act of creating the catalog just isn't happening.
I have tried importing the Lightroom catalog, which failed.
I have tried creating a brand new catalog, using the original photos and that failed. It gets to a certain amount, slows down, then becomes unresponsive.
What am I doing wrong?
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Are you using Capture One 7.1.6 or an earlier version?
Are you using OSX 10.6? If so try a more recent OS - we've seen a lot of problems with the legacy 10.6 OS.
Are you creating the catalog somewhere that OSX does permission management (e.g. anywhere in the user folder)? If so try creating it on a non-OS drive, or in the Shared folder. Or try repairing permissions.
If you're still having problems after the above I'd start a support case:
http://www.phaseone.com/en/SupportMain.aspx
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OK Doug, per your suggestion, I created the catalog in a shared folder.
One of the problems may have been that C1 kept taking a nap while it was importing the photos.
After 24+ hours of importing, I now have a working catalog. I really like having a C1 catalog, but it still needs tweaking.
I'll move on to the C1 section of the forum for my remaining concerns.
BTW, thanks.
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To the OP, I would ask: Do you really need a catalog? The only compelling reason that I can think of is having multiple volumes of photos that are offline but that you want to be able to access for previews, keywords etc. If that is not your actual need, then I would suggest that you use a browser for file management. Browsers are much easier and faster, and they do not require the constant maintenance that catalogs do. The browser that I use and recommend is Photo Mechanic. It is very powerful and does almost anything that I could ever want.
As an aside, I previously used Media Pro but gave up in frustration. That is how I ended up with Photo Mechanic.
Rob
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To the OP, I would ask: Do you really need a catalog? The only compelling reason that I can think of is having multiple volumes of photos that are offline but that you want to be able to access for previews, keywords etc. If that is not your actual need, then I would suggest that you use a browser for file management. Browsers are much easier and faster, and they do not require the constant maintenance that catalogs do. The browser that I use and recommend is Photo Mechanic. It is very powerful and does almost anything that I could ever want.
As an aside, I previously used Media Pro but gave up in frustration. That is how I ended up with Photo Mechanic.
Rob
Thanks Rob,
I've downloaded a trial of Photo Mechanic and it seems very good. I understand they are also working on a Catalogue add on to go with it and this will be ready soon. I think both of these will be the answer to my prayers. No more tearing my hair out with Media Pro.
Thanks to everybody for your advice.
Pete
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I've downloaded a trial of Photo Mechanic and it seems very good. I understand they are also working on a Catalogue add on to go with it and this will be ready soon.
Believe it only when you see it! Seriously, PM is the best photo browser, but they've been working on their catalogue for many years - and it's always ready soon.
If "iView was nigh on perfect for me", it's almost laughable to think you'd enjoy going back to a browser. Browsers have their uses, but are just Explorer or Finder on steroids. They only tell you what's there, not what's on offline drives, nor do they record and safeguard your pictures when a drive's gone down or a folder's been accidentally trashed or moved in Finder/Explorer. They don't help you search through all your pictures for those with certain keywords or ratings or other criteria - OK, they might if you're prepared to wait, and wait for the browser to look through countless folders and all those pictures. And so on.
For what it's worth, most of the old iView users (at least those who were active in iView's forums) seem to use Lightroom nowadays. By combining adjustment and management in a single program, LR and to a lesser extent Aperture have more-or-less taken the space that a single-user program like iView used to occupy.
John
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Believe it only when you see it! Seriously, PM is the best photo browser, but they've been working on their catalogue for many years - and it's always ready soon.
If "iView was nigh on perfect for me", it's almost laughable to think you'd enjoy going back to a browser. Browsers have their uses, but are just Explorer or Finder on steroids. They only tell you what's there, not what's on offline drives, nor do they record and safeguard your pictures when a drive's gone down or a folder's been accidentally trashed or moved in Finder/Explorer. They don't help you search through all your pictures for those with certain keywords or ratings or other criteria - OK, they might if you're prepared to wait, and wait for the browser to look through countless folders and all those pictures. And so on.
For what it's worth, most of the old iView users (at least those who were active in iView's forums) seem to use Lightroom nowadays. By combining adjustment and management in a single program, LR and to a lesser extent Aperture have more-or-less taken the space that a single-user program like iView used to occupy.
John
Trouble is John I don't like Lightroom........
Pete
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And that's your prerogative - just don't hold your breath waiting for PM's catalogue.
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And that's your prerogative - just don't hold your breath waiting for PM's catalogue.
This may be true, as I have been anticipating Photo Mechanic's catalog feature for over one year, but in the meantime I have learned that I don't really need a catalog after all. If and when a PM catalog finally appears, I may simply ignore it.
Rob
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I can't recall when I first heard of it, Rob, but it might easily be over 5 years ago.
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Pete -
It is not just you. I converted all of my catalogues from Expression Media to Media Pro well over a year ago. I then couldn't get anything to work properly; all of the issues that you describe. So I abandoned it and went back to Expression Media. The most frustrating part is how every subsequent version from iView -> MS Expresion Media -> Media Pro seemed to degrade much of the performance and stability of the program. And there is (was?) a very hungry user base who were champing at the bit to hand over $$ to Phase; and yet as you describe the customer service and responsiveness on the official forums has been nothing short of terrible.
As John says (and I still use some of your scripts in iView) many users have gone over to LR5 for their DAM. I haven't invested the time and energy to explore that route yet; but I know that Peter Krogh has got some books, courses, and terrific material on how to wrangle that beast.
One thing you mention @ the outset which no one has touched on is your point about your 'new camera not being supported'. Do you need to just install a new Codec (not sure that is the correct term here; but you can set different programs for helping with the import of files)? I use a Canon 5D MKIII without any issues with Expression Media, and that camera is certainly newer than the software. I guess at this point is also worth clarifying: are you using the original iView or the Microsoft Expression Media version? I use the latter and it certainly has its quirks, bugs, and issues that drive me crazy at times but I have learned to work around them. However one issue I have never experienced is an inability for it to display my raw files.
If you are able to clarify what version you are using and what you have set to render the media (on a Win version of Expression Media: Edit > Preferences > Media Rendering > RAW > Manufacturer or Windows Imaging Component are your options here. I have mine set to Manufacturer and have zero rendering issues.
Hopefully this helps,
Andrew.
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Pete -
It is not just you. I converted all of my catalogues from Expression Media to Media Pro well over a year ago. I then couldn't get anything to work properly; all of the issues that you describe. So I abandoned it and went back to Expression Media. The most frustrating part is how every subsequent version from iView -> MS Expresion Media -> Media Pro seemed to degrade much of the performance and stability of the program. And there is (was?) a very hungry user base who were champing at the bit to hand over $$ to Phase; and yet as you describe the customer service and responsiveness on the official forums has been nothing short of terrible.
As John says (and I still use some of your scripts in iView) many users have gone over to LR5 for their DAM. I haven't invested the time and energy to explore that route yet; but I know that Peter Krogh has got some books, courses, and terrific material on how to wrangle that beast.
One thing you mention @ the outset which no one has touched on is your point about your 'new camera not being supported'. Do you need to just install a new Codec (not sure that is the correct term here; but you can set different programs for helping with the import of files)? I use a Canon 5D MKIII without any issues with Expression Media, and that camera is certainly newer than the software. I guess at this point is also worth clarifying: are you using the original iView or the Microsoft Expression Media version? I use the latter and it certainly has its quirks, bugs, and issues that drive me crazy at times but I have learned to work around them. However one issue I have never experienced is an inability for it to display my raw files.
If you are able to clarify what version you are using and what you have set to render the media (on a Win version of Expression Media: Edit > Preferences > Media Rendering > RAW > Manufacturer or Windows Imaging Component are your options here. I have mine set to Manufacturer and have zero rendering issues.
Hopefully this helps,
Andrew.
Andrew I've got iView Media Pro Ver 3.0. It doesn't display Nikon D700 NEF's. I've tried all ways to get them to show but to no avail. I use it on a Macbook and a PC with XP pro and it's the same there too. I didn't go for the MS Expression Media version but reverted to Nikon View NX which is just about OK in my opinion.
When I heard iView was reborn as Phase One's Media Pro I thought I'd upgrade. Big mistake.....I encountered all sorts of problems. The worst was it managed to delete some of my RAW files from my hard drive ! I won't touch it now as I deem it too dangerous. I hate being a beta tester for software and having to pay for the privilege.
I never had any problems at all with iView apart from not being able to upgrade it for the D700. It was nigh on perfect for me. I just wished they hadn't sold out.
Pete
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Pete -
You might want to try Expression Media if you can get your hands on a copy (PM me if you can't) -- it has some of the same foibles as iView itself; but for my purposes (mainly) works. I would poke around here and at the DAM Book Forum to see if anyone is using it with your combo of OS & files. I wouldn't hold my breath on Media Pro -- it has been well over a year (much longer?) and everyone has moved on. You can see this thread (which I contributed to in 2012): http://forum.phaseone.com/En/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=12634&start=15&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
Baffling that the company basically gives users zero support -- imagine if a restaurant had people lined up around the block trying to give them money and they just kept them waiting there....forever.
No need to be a beta tester for them. Move on, frustrating as that may be.
Andrew.
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Pete -
You might want to try Expression Media if you can get your hands on a copy (PM me if you can't) --
You can get a trial copy from Phase One's Microsoft Expression Media Archive page (http://www.phaseone.com/en/Downloads/Software-Archive/Microsoft-Expression-Media.aspx). Not sure of the purchase price, but it's worth trying out. It displays my D300 NEFs on Snow Leopard so it might display D700 files too. (I don't remember the Nikon release timeline.)
In my experience, EM is actually an improvement over iView (a little more stable, bigger Light Table), so I intend to stay with it as long as I can on my Mac (as long as the catalog size limitations aren't an issue for me). EM even works (with some limitations) on Mavericks.
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I'm glad to see it's not only me ... I made the even worse mistake of not really testing MP during the trial and then forking over $200 for the lic to find out what most here already know ... MP is buggy as hell. When I contacted P1 and asked for a refund they were pretty snotty about it and basically said, "tough luck, but dont worry we're coming out w an update very soon" ... that was in January ... no update as far as I can tell. So ... two questions:
Is there a way to import LR5 Catalogs in MP? ... there are some MP features whick look pretty good if I can get it to work:) Like most of you, I'm sure, I've got 10s of thousands of images ... many labeled, flagged and rated in LR and have no interest in starting over.
Assuming no way to import (w/ data) ... Any media management tools running on Mavericks folks recommend which are more robust than LR?
Thanks!
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I'm glad to see it's not only me ... I made the even worse mistake of not really testing MP during the trial and then forking over $200 for the lic to find out what most here already know ... MP is buggy as hell. When I contacted P1 and asked for a refund they were pretty snotty about it and basically said, "tough luck, but dont worry we're coming out w an update very soon" ... that was in January ... no update as far as I can tell. So ... two questions:
Is there a way to import LR5 Catalogs in MP? ... there are some MP features whick look pretty good if I can get it to work:) Like most of you, I'm sure, I've got 10s of thousands of images ... many labeled, flagged and rated in LR and have no interest in starting over.
Assuming no way to import (w/ data) ... Any media management tools running on Mavericks folks recommend which are more robust than LR?
Thanks!
I'm toying with Photo Supreme and its OK. It works with Mavericks.
It gets better with every update and updates come fairly regular.
That being said, I always end up going back to Lightroom.
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I have been a user of iView Media Pro since its first version and still use it on a Mac Pro with OS 10.6.8. 10.7 is also OK but I have heard a report that the latest OS may not run it - not really confirmed yet.
The only raw files I have had a problem with iView reading so far are Panasonic. I've never had any difficulty with any Nikon files, including the D700, so not sure what might be going on there. I am running iView version 3.1.1
When Microsoft bought iView I thought I would have to go there to keep current so upgraded to it, opened it once and after the shock of that crime of an interface, never used it again. Then Phase One got it and offered another deal to upgrade and a friendlier interface, so I took that too, but gave up after realizing how painfully slow it was, and how unsharp its rendering of images was. I do use it on occasion when I need to catalogue Panasonic raw files.
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When Microsoft bought iView I thought I would have to go there to keep current so upgraded to it, opened it once and after the shock of that crime of an interface, never used it again. Then Phase One got it and offered another deal to upgrade and a friendlier interface, so I took that too, but gave up after realizing how painfully slow it was, and how unsharp its rendering of images was. I do use it on occasion when I need to catalogue Panasonic raw files.
I don't remember Microsoft changing the interface very much except for minor changes to the icons across the top. What interface "crimes" are you talking about?
To my eye, Phase One really mucked up the interface's usability by going all black on the left (information) side.
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I guess it's a matter of taste, but I thought the clear and practical iView interface was made less useful by Microsoft's - to my eye - crude reworking of it.
You are right that Phase One's interface is also very unfriendly - it LOOKS good, but the spindly gray font reversed on black is almost illegible.
The rendering time for images is sluggish. Large files do indeed appear sharp, but for some reason jpegs are rendered soft, and exported email size images are likewise. However, after reading an earlier post, I just reset the preferences to Apple rendering engine which seems to improve the performance and yield a sharp image on screen.
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I guess it's a matter of taste, but I thought the clear and practical iView interface was made less useful by Microsoft's - to my eye - crude reworking of it.
You are right that Phase One's interface is also very unfriendly - it LOOKS good, but the spindly gray font reversed on black is almost illegible.
The rendering time for images is sluggish. Large files do indeed appear sharp, but for some reason jpegs are rendered soft, and exported email size images are likewise. However, after reading an earlier post, I just reset the preferences to Apple rendering engine which seems to improve the performance and yield a sharp image on screen.
Yes, iView 3 was the best-looking incarnation. They really created a "best-in-class" application. Great attention to detail, incredibly usable. I upgraded to Expression Media for the larger lightbox (6 images) and, believe it or not, greater stability (for me at least). I don't mind the minor interface changes. To me the real "crime" is Phase One's apparent lack of interest in Media Pro (in addition to their horrid interface changes); the last two minor updates were a year apart. They say they haven't abandoned it, but they acknowledged to me over the phone that their developers are focused on Capture One, not Media Pro.
For what it's worth, I plan to use Expression Media until I'm forced to find another program. It appears to work on Mavericks with only a couple glitches. I would suggest you re-consider Expression Media if iView 3 won't run on your Mac. I think Microsoft's interface changes are too trivial to cause a person to refuse to use the software. iView's excellent functionality and usability are still intact.
I haven't heard whether EM works on Yosemite. That could spell my downfall.
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Mark,
What are the glitches you mentioned on Mavericks ? I ended up buying Expression Media 2 and it is working fine with all my cameras and appears to do everything that iView Media Pro 3 did. I do agree though I thought the older iView look was more pleasing to my eye.
In my opinion nothing has bettered the original iVew version. The newer Phase One Media Pro is just a joke and not worth using for the aggravation it causes.
Pete
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What are the glitches you mentioned on Mavericks ?
Pete,
The two glitches I've noticed are:
- Loud "bonk" noise upon first launching the app. It sounds like a warning sound, as if you've done something wrong. I assume it's due to some underlying minor incompatibility with Mavericks, even though the app appears to run okay after launch.
- Lack of green color on auto-update folders. You'll have to double check whether or not you set a folder to auto update if you don't remember.
I haven't actually made a complete transition to Mavericks -- only tested it on a partition. I'm still running EM2 on my Snow Leopard partition. But I just got a new Nikon D7100, whose NEFs Snow Leopard doesn't recognize, so I'll have to move to Mavericks soon. (I had to install a trial version of Apple Aperture on the Mavericks partition so I could get the latest Apple Digital Camera RAW Compatibility update that will read D7100 NEFs.)
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I have used PhotoSupreme aka IDIMager. Its actually very good, but more complex than ACDSEE. The problem with ACDSee is that it doesn't see IQ files! But does see everything else, can be catalogued, or just browser. It has crashed and they always have an upgrade version to buy to remedy the crashes each year! Otherwise very good. The non-develop version is rather priced well and maybe your answer.
I just wish the interface could have custom colors as I get it confused with LR or others with dark/black GUInterface.
I was very resistant to LR, and it still has issues,(no PDF, PNG). It also is sluggish. Its dual screen support is limited. The interface and tools are not modular....
but I must say with about 150K images in each catalog, it is still usable, yet sometimes clunky. I wish the sliders bars were easier to grad(I know the other options).
I swap around depending on my need..between ACDSee, LR, or Windows Explorer(which has been rather nice since Windows7)
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A little late to the party here, but I'm using Media Pro as a stand alone application- version 1.2.0.
It works great for cataloguing. I just drag my images into it and name them according to client. Super fast and very solid.