Version 7 Now Available!

[hawksnutt8 Profile Private message]

Version 7 is now available! Has anyone got it yet?

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

To find out what's new in this version: http://kb.photodex.com/7603/whats-new-i ... roducer-7/

Perhaps the one big new thing in this version is access to Photodex's music library. If you're always screaming for royalty-free music, never having enough, this might make the upgrade price worth it.

For my taste, the new interface design is bland--very flat looking--but that's a matter of taste, and others may vehemently disagree with me.

I never use video, but if you do, they've apparently made the importing of it run much smoother.

There's now HTML5 video support, if you like.

I don't care much about all that, but I do care that they've made it a snap to convert one type of layer into another because I'm constantly changing my mind about what a layer should be. Solid? Photo? Text? Gradient? It's wonderful when you just can't seem to make up your mind.

The above is just a quick-and-dirty overview from only my own perspective. Take a really good, in-depth look at the changes to see if upgrading will make you happy or not.

Barbara

P.S. Yeah, we were all expecting something spectacular after all this time, right? Anyone thinking about 64-bit? I sure was.

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

I must admit. Not at all the version that we prayed for.
Same old Bess in a new dress.
Producer 7 is in fact Producer 6, with white or black new icons, which you may, or may not like.

As Barbara mentioned, the main addition is a rather nice library of royalty free music, that is at our disposal for both personal and commercial shows. (240+ tracks and sound effects, according to Photodex).
The downside of this music library is that the tracks come in a proprietary format, that can be used only in Producer. Moreover, no editing is allowed outside of Producer.
Apart from that, there are certain minor improvements in the menus, in the stability of the program, and in the various output options.

For me the most important thing in Producer 7, is the correction of the bugs of Producer 6 which were rather upsetting, and long, long overdue.

[jazzspot Profile Private message]

No upgrade for me from PSP 6 until 64bit support is available. Heck, my PC has 32GB of RAM and a robust GPU to play with! The music would be nice to have, but not using my PC's system to its potential is a waste. Am I incorrect in assuming that encoding a 1080P show of 150 slides will still take the same amount of time to complete with PSP 7 as it does with PSP 6?

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Well, I was pretty darn close to hitting the mark in this thread on 5/7: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=23196&p=174174#p174174 about how soon a new release would be coming.

So I'm gonna download my free upgrade tomorrow and see what it's all about. I briefly scanned the "What's New" page. The thing that caught my eye was the custom menu navigation control. What doesn't impress me is more styles, more themes, more transitions, more of anything we already have plenty of. I've got music out the wazoo too. Bug fixes should have been released throughout the year as they fixed things, not with a new release. I'd be embarrassed to list all those fixes now.

Since I didn't see anything mentioned, I'll assume they haven't done anything about simplifying operations that require modifiers and moving anchor points around. That would be a big deal for me. And of course, true 3D would be a big plus. Anything that improves the mechanics of making a show is what it needs, so you can spend more time using your creativity.

About 64 bit . . . . . I've been a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, for the average user here it will not make one iota of difference between 32bit vs 64bit. And that's probably 98% of the people here, including myself. It will not speed things up (enough that you would notice), my experience with other 64 bit programs tells me that.

'nuf said,

Joe

[Solitude Profile Private message]

I also had a free upgrade, must admit I was somewhat disappointed. Like many others was hoping for a 64 bit version. My own personal opinion, the black/white icons are a bit disconcerting and will take some getting use to. Kind of reminds me when I was first learning DOS and we had the old monitors. Anyway, at least it was a free upgrade.

Tanya

[margies3 Profile Private message]

Question: if I do the upgrade (because it's free and I want to see what it's like) but prefer Version 6, can I go back?

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Question: if I do the upgrade (because it's free and I want to see what it's like) but prefer Version 6, can I go back?

If it's within your year of free upgrades, and therefore Producer 7 is free for you, I don't quite see what's not to like, and why not to upgrade.
Producer 7 is better than 6 because of all the fixes that were mentioned earlier, and it has access to all those music tracks, also as mentioned earlier.
The different icons shouldn't worry you. You'll get used to them, in no time at all. The other little changes in the interface are almost unnoticeable. Everything is where you know it is (well, almost).

But, to answer your question, there are two ways to install upgrades:
(1) On top of a previous version. This option overwrites the previous version and you cannot get back to it, unless you reinstall the older version once again.
OR
(2) In parallel with the previous version
Create a new directory on your computer - let's say in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Photodex\ and name it for example: Producer 7
When you install the new version, pay attention to the path where it wants to install. Don't accept the default, because this will overwrite your previous install. Instead, direct the installation to the new directory that you created. To follow my example, that would be: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Photodex\Producer 7
This method allows you to have two (or more) versions of Producer on your computer.

But, really, I don't think that you should bother with 2 instals.
Just install on top of the older version and be done. It will work well, no worries.
If you really, really hate it, then you can reinstall version 6 on top of it once again. But, I don't think you'll want to

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Since I didn't see anything mentioned, I'll assume they haven't done anything about simplifying operations that require modifiers and moving anchor points around. That would be a big deal for me. And of course, true 3D would be a big plus. Anything that improves the mechanics of making a show is what it needs, so you can spend more time using your creativity.
Joe

Dream on, Joe. Nothing was added in this version.
There is a tiny, little change in modifiers. They've added a tool-tip with the duration of the fade. I haven't played with it too much yet, but maybe now it would be easier for you to make that pendulum effect using modifiers and not keyframes

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Joe, I use music software that, when the company developed a 64-bit version, stopped having the occasional out-of-memory problems. It was also a lot faster, but that may have been due to streamlining the code. I suspect the same might be true if Photodex rewrote for 64 bits. Granted, any current memory freezes may actually be caused by underwhelming video cards or the total lack thereof as is common in laptops where video shares space with everything else.

Margies3: If you do install separately, you'll see at the very beginning of the install process that it has 3 checkboxes involving icons/links. Uncheck all three because, if you don't, you'll end up losing things such as your Desktop icon for opening version 6. Once 7 is installed, go into the folder where you installed it and right-click proshow.exe, using the menu item to create a desktop shortcut, which you can then rename to Producer 7. In this way, you'll have easy access to both versions. However, unless you hate the interface, there's hardly a point in keeping the two versions.

My true disappointment is with modifiers. Using them is just as clunky now as when they were first introduced. And they can be a tad buggy in more involved setups.

I hope Photodex has something up its sleeve that this new version is merely a precursor to.

Barbara

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Barbara left out an important piece of having two versions installed - you MUST specify a new folder to install to instead of using the default. Something like "C:\Program Files (x86)\Photodex\ProShow Producer_V7" - otherwise it will install on top of the old one - just modify the install path when you get to that page of the install.

mikey

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Mikey,
No, Barbara didn't forget. She just didn't mention it, because I did, in one of my posts above

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Mikey, drink your morning coffee.

Barbara

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Since I didn't see anything mentioned, I'll assume they haven't done anything about simplifying operations that require modifiers and moving anchor points around. That would be a big deal for me. And of course, true 3D would be a big plus. Anything that improves the mechanics of making a show is what it needs, so you can spend more time using your creativity.
Joe

Dream on, Joe. Nothing was added in this version.
There is a tiny, little change in modifiers. They've added a tool-tip with the duration of the fade. I haven't played with it too much yet, but maybe now it would be easier for you to make that pendulum effect using modifiers and not keyframes

Challenge accepted!

Just kidding!

Who knows, maybe I'll have a look at it some day but I'd be surprised if PSP has that kind of hidden capability.

[VidQueen Profile Private messageWebsite]