Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

I'm an ApogeeX user that I mainly use to produce final trapped composite PDFs. Had a demo of Rampage at a Graphic show last fall and the Fuji guy told me that such PDFs couldn't be produced out of Rampage. True or false? I don't know, just thought it was strange...
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

As far as I know (someone correct me if I am wrong), unlike ApogeeX, Rampage does not have a separate Normalizer for making PDF files on its front end.

Kind regards,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

Rampage can produce trapped composite pdfs through the NORM workflow. The advantage of Rampage in my opinion is you can have two workflows.
NORM or ROOM unlike other systems out there.
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

Hi macphenom,

I think my last message was a little vague. To reiterate, as far as I know, unlike ApogeeX, Rampage does not have a separate Normalizer with which to make a PDF from original content (InDesign, Quark, etc.) which can then be used in the rest of the Rampage workflow.

That aside, yes it can produce ripped and trapped PDF files from ripped data.

Kind regards,
Jon :)
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

Haven't run Rampage, but I'm currently running ApogeeX v3.5. Apogee seems pretty inefficient. I've run Contex, Brisque, and TrueFlow before this.

As to the other comments posted, ApogeeX can export a PDF, but it can't export a trapped PDF - can it?

Lastly, take a look at SMA costs. Agfa is pretty pricey for support.
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

Hi Rich,

Yes, ApogeeX can export a trapped PDF if you have the PDF Trapper license.

What do you find inefficient about ApogeeX?

Kind regards,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

I find that PrintDrive is a big time waster. Forces you to screen everything way before you need to.

If I want to generate a proof (we're using Apogee to drive our Sherpas) I can't click on something that says "Proof It", I have to go in and edit the entire "plan" for the job.

Generating Impo proofs, again requires that you've screened the files all ready. That's backward.

If you want to use a different plating curve, whether due to a change in press or stock, you must RE-render (or screen) the file. Screening should never occur until plating.

It may be a product of how our system is set up, but I find that if I place a proofing "branch" in a plan the job just grinds waaaaay tooooooo sloooooooowllyyyy.

Apogee screens all channels of a job before you can plate it. Other systems screen a channel and then send it to the platesetter. The next color (or "plane") is being screened while the previous one is imaging.

You cannot cancel a process - you can only put it on hold.

In PrintDrive you can't see the order that jobs are queued up in for plating or impo proofs.

No trap editor.

PageStore doesn't give you the option of wiping out a file once you import it into a job. You end up maintaining a copy of the file in the PageStore, in the job, and in PrintDrive.

Again, it may be how our system is set up, but the number of computers and "shares" in our system is mind-boggling.

You cannot copy pieces of workflows (or "plans") either into other jobs, or simply another branch of the same job.

Every time you click on a job, on System Overview, on Hot Tickets, on Jobs, on the job editor a new window opens.

I do like the Mac Client very much. The integration with Preps is pretty good - but I've seen some strange errors (marks that don't print out, stuff like that).
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

Hi Rich,

Compared to Rampage, ApogeeX is not...really...a ROOM workflow, I agree. There might be some purchasable options available for ApogeeX that might make it behave more like Rampage though.

Based on some of your comments...

I am curious if you use ticket templates. If you don't, you can set up default ticket templates. For example, a template that is only for sending a job to your Sherpa. After the template is created and saved, you can use it as many times as needed and the cool thing is, the system will create a new ticket from the template thus leaving the template itself untouched. We have a ticket template that is only for sending to our Epson's. Outside of that, I have templates that are broken down by Press, then by color mode (keep spot versus all process), then by paper type (coated versus uncoated), then by screening type (ABS versus Sublima), then by line frequency (133, 175, etc.). Might seem a little too much but it saves a lot of time when setting up a new job. The operator is only left with entering administration info, selecting pages from the Public PageStore, selecting a Preps template and associated options and then they submit the job.

Actually, you can cancel a process. In the Jobs screen, right-click on the job that the particular process in question is processing and choose "Mark as Finished". This will cancel the job.

We used to be a Rampage customer and I miss the trap editor. Although creating trap zones in Acrobat is not as elegant as the Rampage trap editor, it does work.

I agree, it would be nice when switching between System Overview, Hot Tickets, and Jobs that they be treated as real tabs rather than as separate windows (although I can think of reasons where having them as different windows could be a good thing).

How do you generate your impo proofs?

Kind regards,
Jon

P.S. Please don't take my comments as I am trying to argue the better workflow or the likes. I could feel the frustration in your words and I simply wondered if perhaps your Agfa trainer didn't show you some of its features.
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

> {quote:title=hopkinsprinting wrote:}{quote}
>
> P.S. Please don't take my comments as I am trying to argue the better workflow or the likes. I could feel the frustration in your words and I simply wondered if perhaps your Agfa trainer didn't show you some of its features.

Not at all, Jon. Actually, I've never been trained. Guess you could call it "work-study".

The imposition proofs are run out on a Sherpamatic driven by PrintDrive.

As to the ticket templates - the workflow that I've inherited has everything being done through hot folders. Ticket templates sounds more like what I'm used to. I feel that the requirements for a ticket are too much, though. I prefer more granularity. For example, I'd like to apply a ticket (or operation) that just proofed the file; or a ticket that simply plated the file for press "A" with such-and-such line screen.
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

You know Rich, there is another lame duck with Apogee, and that's the box it runs on. It appears (never tried) you need Enterprise server with about 6 gigs ram and a fast fiber channel raid to work off of. The solutions agfa sells are rather inadequate if you have multiple users sending complex or even multipage 4c magazines. It comes to a grinding halt. I went round and round with these performance issues and finally got the tip for the 6gigs of ram as being the sweet spot, any more is overkill according to the tech.

The kicker is that Win server standard which comes with the standard install only recognizes 3.5 gigs of ram leaving the other half gig to run sequel svr. They should spell out the real requirements from the beginning, like enterprise instead of standard, but this would inflate the cost apparently too much. My argument was we already spent well over 100k what's another couple that would actually make this workflow fast.

As you can imagine my findings were not accepted very well by the folks who purchased this expensive jalopy.
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

> {quote:title=rich apollo wrote:}{quote}
> As to the ticket templates - the workflow that I've inherited has everything being done through hot folders. Ticket templates sounds more like what I'm used to. I feel that the requirements for a ticket are too much, though. I prefer more granularity. For example, I'd like to apply a ticket (or operation) that just proofed the file; or a ticket that simply plated the file for press "A" with such-and-such line screen.

If I am understanding your comment correctly, ticket templates are what you want.

Cheers,
Jon
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

> {quote:title=jbbbarr wrote:}{quote}
> The kicker is that Win server standard which comes with the standard install only recognizes 3.5 gigs of ram leaving the other half gig to run sequel svr. They should spell out the real requirements from the beginning, like enterprise instead of standard, but this would inflate the cost apparently too much. My argument was we already spent well over 100k what's another couple that would actually make this workflow fast.

Hi John,

The problem you describe is an issue with several models of HP Proliant server (perhaps other brands?). We had the issue as well. The issue and solution are documented at the link below:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...=15351&prodSeriesId=397646&objectID=c01199560

That aside, I wouldn't mind having the enterprise version of Win2K3 so I could put 6 gigs in my systems :)

Cheers,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

Thanks for the answer, that always bugged me, I had 2 (ProLiant DL360 G4) both with 2/2gig chips installed. But I still don't know why they just don't make you get enterprise and the xtra ram if it will make the customer that much satisfied with the throughput. It works great if just 1 or 2 hit it with large color files.
 
Re: Rampage ver Agfa Apogee

Rich,

We have ApogeeX and Printdrive. All proofs (including color) are printed from Printdrive. I don't like how the ApogeeX renderer(s) get tied up for printing the proof. We do a lot of single page corrections, and Printdrive is a lot faster for selecting single pages to print.

There is definitely a potential pitfall with printing the color proofs from Printdrive. If a press/plate/simulation curve is applied by the RIP, Printdrive will be performing color management on post-curve values using a profile representing pre-curve values. I have discovered a way to perfectly compensate for this and create proofs that match the ApogeeX proofs. If anyone is interested, please contact me.

The way I set up our workflow seems to work pretty well. We have a ticket template for each press/screen combination, and the imposition template is set to be undefined. Because the template is undefined, you can create a new job using the ticket template and submit it without having to get the pages into a public page-store first. You then have a job in the job list (with no imposition template or pages) that pages can be dropped onto (as long as there is a hot folder task processor). No public page-store to maintain. Once the pages begin uploading, the job can be edited, and the pages will appear as soon as they are processed into the system.

If you want to cancel processes in ApogeeX (not selectively), control-click or right-click on the job in the job list and choose "Mark as finished."

Edited by: Kyle Faucett on Apr 4, 2008 7:35 PM
 

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