Need Help with Screen CTP

[arossetti]

My company is acquiring another printer and part of their mix is a 1/2 sheet offset press. They pretty much stopped reinvesting in the company 5+ years ago and I am trying to understand what needs to happen in regards to upgrading the Software/RIP/CTP.

They use Truflow for trapping, flatworks for imposition and what I assume is the original RIP engine that came with their PlateRite platesetter.

The problem is that the RIP has an out of date adobe print engine (system bought 2005) which causes a lot of issues with live transparencies and layers. We want to continue our PDF-x4 workflow into their environment so we need a RIP that has an APPE.

So here are my specific questions:
Does the Truflow software house the RIP engine or is that a separate system?
Can I just purchase any RIP to replace the current, ie harlequin?
Does the platesetter just need a tiff file created by any program/rip?
Why hasn't a web based company popped up and all they do is RIP your file for your respective CTP and send you back tiffs?
Can anyone give me more specific advice?

 

[Johu]

Trueflow does house a rip inside. Depending on the version there is also APPE core inside. Trueflow as it is is no longer developed and has been replaced by Equios. There is an update path from Trueflow to Equios. Anyway as I said above there are versions of Trueflow that has APPE. If I remember correctly it was first introduced in version 5.x.
I think you can buy a separate RIP and input just 1-bit tiff files to Trueflow but to me the best thing to do would be to upgrade Trueflow to the last version or upgrade straight to Equois.
To your last question it would be extremely difficult for an external company to maintain all settings for different customers. Things like resolution, halftone form and especially individual settings like linearization and dot gain settings.