when is the lastest version going to ship

[rbailleu]

I heard today that they should be showing ppm5.0 at the print show in chicago. and we started digging into 4.5 today and it looks nice. the whole drag and drop thing is cool. the transition from signa only is going to be a bit tricky. but I think the new system is easier for new people. its good that we had signa first though.

 

[Ritter]

In the past month I heard the 5.0 rumor as well. I'm impressed to see them jumping headfirst and making the software more user friendly and fluid. Are you using 4.5 on any Intel Macs? If so any performance boost?

 

[rbailleu]

I use intel windows machines only. and this is my first ppm. so i can't tell you if it is faster. we were signa/ meta only untill this week. I bought a used prosetter with scl and printready to replace my current manual feed prosetter and meta/signa. I wanted to cut some labor out of the process. on busy plate days we would spend all day just feeding plates. now its print and collect in an hour or so.

 

[prepressguru]

Hmm how can they be showing version 5 when they haven't been able to get 4.5 upgrades out?

If they are working on the interface for version 5 this would be great as it's kinda clunky.

 

[rbailleu]

its 3 months off yet, but they were showing 4.0 5 months before wide release.

 

[prepressguru]

its 3 months off yet, but they were showing 4.0 5 months before wide release.

We are at v4.0 at the moment, have been for awhile since about Novemeber, we are eagerly waiting for the 4.5 patch. But it always seems to be about another month when we talk with support.

 

[rbailleu]

I hear 4.5 media kits are to be shipped in july

 

[toronar]

I hear 4.5 media kits are to be shipped in july

Well, I will get 4.5 Service Release 1 on monday, so I guess it has been "out" for 1-2 weeks already.
Media kits seem to be scarce, the technician will bring it in on an external harddrive as the local dependence only has 1 media kit and does not want to part with it

 

[rbailleu]

when they did my install the gave me the locally produced discs. I still dont have the books and what not.

 

[rbailleu]

well its almost august and no media kit yet. for either my meta/signa or my ppm4.5

 

[toronar]

Well ... maybe Heidelberg wants to resolve some of the 12 bugs -erm- "features" that cropped up after using 4.5.1 for 1 hour. Or it has something to do with Heidelberg's support working short-time.

Either way, I hope you will get 4.5.1 soon - there are a lot of improvements, GUI-wise.

 

[rbailleu]

I have the software installed and on disk, just no books and pretty package. you spend thousands on upgrades and the least they could do is ship it to you. seems like things are getting flaky with heidelberg recently.

 

[rbailleu]

I got 4.5.1 installed yesterday. rumor has it they may start shipping media kits soon.

 

[toronar]

I got 4.5.1 installed yesterday. rumor has it they may start shipping media kits soon.

I got the media kit 2 weeks ago, so the kits should be ready

BTW did they alter your MetaDimension settings to output proofs with true opaque colors?
If this is set, Meta can simulate output of opaque colors (think metallic) as colors with full opacity. Nice feature.

 

[rbailleu]

no they did not change the simulate opacity setting, but I would have little use for it anyway. it is nice to know that someone has the 4.5 media kits.

 

[rbailleu]

finally got my 4.5 media kits today. 3 months after the software was installed. so I expect ppm 5.0 should be out any day now.

 

[toronar]

Any bets for a release around christmas with media kits arriving after easter?

 

[Ritter]

hah! They probably would have been demoing 5.0 at the show had that been true though. The new Prinance > Signa Station integration was pretty neat at the show but still no gang-run(montage) support. Rumor is R&D has started overhauling the web interfaces (webaccess, remoteaccess) using Printable's technology.

 

[rbailleu]

my bet is a february announcement with a july install and labor day shipment of media kits.

all with the new heidelbergroland prepress graphics.

 

[prepressguru]

We had our 4.5.1 update installed not to long ago. Some points of interest. Cockpit is a little faster at loading and snappier. They fixed the jumpy pane for the progress bars at the bottom. ColorProof Pro seems more accurate with our custom media sizes for our epson. Signa has a welcome new feature, of being able to assign spot colours to cmyk positions on a colour bar.