Onyx V7 anyone using it?

[bigbly]

I got the upgrade, and due to various problems still using 6.5

the new Media Manager seems broken, running through the new profiling procedure it hangs at the printing of the first swatch..

Rip-Queue - placement preview shows left aligned no matter what I choose..


anyone else using 7 with any luck or issues?

[eye4clr]

I tried it since a customer wanted to upgrade. My HP9000 and Seiko104 moved over OK. But the Mimaki didn't move over at all. After some time with support we found that since i'd made my own profiles, using my own configuration names, it wouldn't move over.

I'll wait for them to fix it before I rebuild 20+ media models from scratch again.

I have been supporting the customer driving 4 HP5500's without any significant problems. The media models I'd previously built them had to have the linearization and the ICC redone from within v7 since it was having 'known' problems with imported ICC built in ProfileMaker.

I'm a big advocate of Onyx. I've used it, done training on it since v5, and purchased it for my shop when I opened it in Jan '06. I think it is the best production RIP i've seen. I'm saddened that they have rushed a product to market before sorting out the mountain size challenge of driving every inkjet on the market for every possible user. I fully understand how difficult this is to do, but it really isn't ready for prime time.

I'll only get really mad if they cut off my phone support because I continue to use 6.5

[MassiveGraphics]

I'm currently running Production 7.0.

There's a few bugs that I have noticed some more annoying then others. Biggest annoyance was installing one of the large Updates only to have my Media Manager not work. Solution was to uninstall 7.0 and reinstall with the new update which meant losing all of my Profiles in the process.

Tech support has been great though, and have helped with all my questions and problems.

Another thing is the New Layout tool. even though it might allow to save an extra few sq ft of material here and there it takes a long time (forever) to send the file to the RIP queue.

[Rick]

I couldn't justify the $$ for the v7 upgrade when it first came out based on the new features. Now I'm glad I didn't upgrade after hearing some of the complaints. V6.5 works just great for now. I'll probably upgrade later though when bugs are worked out and when Onyx no longer supports v6.5.

[MassiveGraphics]

I kinda fell into the upgrade. We had just boughten a new printer and upgrade from postershop to Production House 6.5. with the new software we got a "free" upgrade to 7.0 when it came out. So.. not knowing any better I upgraded as soon as it was available. I realized I might have made a mistake when I called the company that sold us ONYX and they guy told me that they we not using it yet and weren't planning on it any time soon.

Oh Well what can you do.. as of right now It's working pretty good so I can't complain. I haven't updated in awhile and probably won't until there's a new larger update.

[bigbly]

yep luckily my dealer suggested I leave 6.5 installed just in case...

so guess I will wait till the bugs are ironed out before moving to it.

that problem with media manager is the main issue atm. sigh.
nothing like forking out for an expensive unusable upgrade.

don't get me wrong I think it's a great product and runs 4 printers off one standard 2.8 gig p4 box with only 512 meg of ram.
same puter doubles as my internet router and ftp server!
yikes been meaning to stick more ram in that, doesn't seem to be a need though hehe

[MassiveGraphics]

I feel your pain. I'm running 4 off mines aswell (only 2 on a daily basis)
and it's really pushing the limits of the PC.. not really fast enough I've gotten in the habit of ripping all my files in the early morning so I can print them all later without large file ripping waiting periods.

We're looking (wishing, dreaming more likely) at getting a new Dual Processor unit with 2gigs of Ram and 2 hard drives, hopefully that will cure the problem.

[Ron Helliar]

Running two stations, solvent & flatbed. Overall, probably a bit slower than 6.5 but has to do with us measuring ink use. And no, a one month old dual processor (top of line & speed) with 4 fast gigs & 4 hard drives didn't change anything. All in all so far a standard upgrade.

[MassiveGraphics]

Originally Posted by Ron Helliar

Running two stations, solvent & flatbed. Overall, probably a bit slower than 6.5 but has to do with us measuring ink use. And no, a one month old dual processor (top of line & speed) with 4 fast gigs & 4 hard drives didn't change anything. All in all so far a standard upgrade.

So you new computer didn't help at all?

I've been told that a dual processor with 2 hard drives one for storing file and one for the Onxy working files was the ideal setup for this. What were you using before you upgraded.

Don't really feel like spending the $ if it's not going to cure the problem problem. I think part of the problem is trying to Rip something while the others are printing. But more RAM and more free space can never hurt

[Ron Helliar]

I can't say one way or the other on speed. It seems slower, but that's relative to each situation. We are mostly concerned with volume flow, stability and efficient running of the printers so rip times don't mean much to me. I would say that by turning ink measuring and some other fluff features off in the rip setup will probably yield more speed increases of 6.5. We also haven't had time & resources to effectively sort the drives for system, rip, scratch disk & mirrors. I think once those are sorted out, even more speed gains will be made.

Edited to add:

We added the new computer & second production house 6.5 to 7.0 to run a flatbed. We've had roughly the same computer config running with a solvent printer for about a year & a half during the conversion to 7.0 and haven't noticed significant speed gains, again probably relative to files, workflow, etc. I'd agree that more ram & being able to defrag a fast scratch disk may be the best speed gains.