CompuServe Messages

"Depends on whether you measure productivity or just price" No it doesn't. I fyou measure price, we win. Period. If you measure by capabilities, we win. period. Now, if _all_ you do is use the features in AdPro, and you already know how, then yep, you'd suffer a productivity hit if you tried to change to IM. But if you have use for the _tons_ of other capabilties in IM that simply _aren't there in ANY form_ inside AdPro, regardless of version, then your productivity gets hit no matter if you know AdPro, or not, just because you chose it. further, if you do NOT already know AdPro, and are just choosing one or the other to begin with, then You'd be much better of with IM R/t, most especially the current 1.50 version as it's considerably easier to use than earlier versions. It's not at all the way you made it sound in your message. "not as easy to use as a document with a good TOC and INDEX" Are you kidding me? Have you _looked_ at the IM R/t docs??? The Imagemaster R/t docs have large, detailed TOC's _and_ indexes _and_ are context sensitive – and are a darned sight easier to use than paper versions of the same as it "gets you where you're going" in the docs faster than you can do it on paper more often than not. Then there's the find… which has no parallel in paper docs, and comprises a user definable, persistant index for some situations. As for wading factor, could be, but I disagree, personally – it depends on how you read it, I believe. Re paper to home, lunch etc, easy: print it out – right ther ein the menu – you DO have a printer, don't you? :^) No, IM doesn't directly render to the Toaster at this time. It may, shortly, if certain issues work out well. Despite the current lack of direct writes to the Toaster's buffer, you can still "get there from here" simply by using an intermediate file – it's less convenient, but not in any way impractical. OTOH, it does much more on many, many fronts than AdPro does. Some things, like rendering into Amiga modes such as 16 color palette mapped, it does _so_ much better than AdPro that you're pretty well shooting yourself in the foot if you use AdPro instead of Imagemaster: Unless you _prefer_ a poorer quality image, that is. IM's always had more power than AdPro, and if the past development rates of both companies are any indication, it probably always will. As for Adpro being "better supported by third party products", yeah, it is, and it needs it a lot more than we do since IM has much of that power built right in from the start – we don't _need_ third party products to be viable the way AdPro does. In fact, more AdPro "support" from ASDG themselves like the extra formats you have to buy, the morphing that's NOT included, are in many cases included in the basic Imagemaster price. In some cases, like comparing "Fred" with IM's built in filmstrip, catalog, and graphic buffer (postage stamp or "tile") selection powerhouse of UI capability, both packages offer functionality that _appears_ similar but in fact is integrated in IM and external and mcu, much more limited inthe AdPro package. ASDG's strength has never been general capability: AdPro has been supremely reliable in past releases, and ASDG is a marketing powerhouse: they've done what needed to be done to convince magazines, dealers and endusers that they're #1- just like WIndows, #1 isn't "best", it's just #1 in sales. In some cases, what ASDG has done to stay on top been good stuff. Like MorphPlus. Like the tech support they provide. Like the basic very high quality of the product. But some of what they've done has been otherwise, as you probably well know. Examples? You're a dealer: Remember the fax ASDG sent to it's dealers with that outragous statement about IM's NTSC conversions, how AdPro's was better because it "used units recognized by broadcast engineers"? It's a fact that it does indeed use those units. However, it's _also_ a fact that IM's NTSC conversions are head and shoulders more effective, result in better looking NTSC output, handle far more sophisticated color changes and in fact do far more than just limit the final output levels of the image, as compared to the AdPro tool being compared at that time (and for all I know, still). So, you get your choice: use ApPro, and get that warm and fuzzy feeling of "knowing your units", or use IM and simply get a better NTSC image as a result. That's a very good example of some of ASDG's "other" techniques for staying on top. So's the time they poked Cinemorph in the eye using a bogus comparison they dreamed up against a half-blind beta tester of the GVP product. And you say? –Ben …via AutoPilot