Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

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Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby jskintauy » Mon Feb 11, 2019 4:14 pm

Hi Folks,

This is more like a love letter to this product. I am not interested in creating a controversy or discussing alternative products. Here's why.

Photodex has historically been the best software company I have dealt with. The few occasions I've had to deal with their customer support have all been favorably resolved. When I wanted to do a comparison between Proshow Web and Animoto, they happily set me up with a full account for Proshow Web so I could work through the comparison. I love their add on products and the community surrounding Proshow. 3rd party support with additional slide styles and transitions is fantastic (thanks to all of you - you know who you are!). I don't live on this forum, seldom check in, but when I do I find a supportive, dedicated community.
I've created tons of shows for clients, family, and myself and am always amazed at how easy it is to create very nice results. I am not even an advanced user and frequently find myself taking refresher tutorials because I don't use some of the advance features that often. (thanks Jennifer Clark!)
If Photodex folds up, I will sadly look for alternatives, hoping to find another home, but I doubt we'll find a similar community or as good a company. I was a techie in a previous life, and can count on one hand the number of software companies that produced great products, had great support, and was surrounded by a loving community. Let's pray that Photodex finds a way forward and continues far into the future.
Last edited by jskintauy on Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby obeeone » Tue Feb 12, 2019 12:49 am

G'day Jim

And so say all of us. Or should that be and so say all of me.

Carl
Photodex Gallery: http://www.photodex.com/share/obeeone

There are 10 types of people who understand binary:
Those who do and those who don't.

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby Diane48 » Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:34 am

Hi Jim

You can add me to those thoughts too.

Diane

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby quetzal » Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:39 pm

I'm thinking like you ….

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby Dieter » Wed Feb 13, 2019 3:41 am

Hello Forum,
whenever I show the public my productions with ProShow, I am enthusiastic about the Software. I do not know what to do if PSP does not exist anymore. In germany there is nothing comparable.
I hope Photodex reads that !!!

Best regards Dieter

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby quetzal » Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:15 pm

Hi all the members,
Don't be discouraged, They are working hard (Photodex) to maintain the best software for all users. Be patient. quetzal A+

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby fnelsen » Tue Jun 04, 2019 11:10 am

I have been using PSP since the usb key days and hands down it has been the best "multimedia" software I use. I created hundreds of client videos for marketing. I also appreciate this group, although it seems to be dying as does PSP. I contacted support some time ago about the future of PS and no answer as of yet. I understand the programing issues and I know they lost the programmer. I also wonder if they suffered in sales. They promoted themselves as a slideshow software when they have been a full on multimedia software that could be as successful as the marketing software Camtasia (will end up as my go to software) or some of the online software. Anything else I use just does not hold up to PSP. Does anyone here have any updated info on what is going to happen to PSP? Thanks

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby nsd3 » Wed Jun 05, 2019 3:52 am

The last time I contacted Photodex (December 2018) regarding its future, I was informed that apart from some changes operationally within the company, it was very much business as usual. Apart from that, the person I corresponded with intimated, that he did not expect much news to be forthcoming until such time as Photodex had a new product to announce. That seems to be exactly the case. A browse of the Photodex website shows there hasn't been an update on anything since August 2018. Photodex may still be trading, but clearly resource is non existent if they allow their own website to stagnate.

I suspect staff levels have been paired to the bone, and resource focused on updating the product, hence support being email based only. There's no one around any more to man the phones, or maintain the website. I guess it comes down to what happens first, they develop a new version, release it and hope for a turnaround on fortunes, or they run out of money and shut down. The philosophy from Photodex appears to be "No news is good news."

Of course they could just sell the intellectual property rights of ProShow to another company. I'm sure Adobe would love to add the features of ProShow into their media fold. Time will most certainly tell.

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby Jeep » Wed Jun 05, 2019 5:31 am

If there are no news it's because there is nothing to announce. Photodex has no more office and no more staff. Don't wait for a new product from Photodex. If a new product might have been revealed by them, it will be done since months ! Perhaps a new one which will rise from "The other cheese country" as it's known in Europe : Netherlands. It's not sure it will keep the name of ProShow.
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Processor: Intel Quad core 2.33 Ghz - RAM: 4 Gb - Windows 8.1 64 bits - Video: Nvidia 720GT 2 Gb- Camera : Canon 5D Mark II + 24-105 + 100-400 - Sharing : jean_pierre

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby fivedollar » Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:52 pm

I've placed an order to upgrade my PSP to version 9, and buy2 style packs. Their e-commercial is working as usual. But I've sent them an email last week to ask for their company status, but no one answers me yet.

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby Hi_Im_Zane » Fri Jun 07, 2019 12:17 am

I've been using ProShow for about a year and I think it's still the best software for making slideshows. I've made so many cool things with their product!
Every company will have bad times some day. So I want to believe they will make it out and we will get even better products from them in the future.

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby Alan » Thu Jul 11, 2019 6:18 pm

If Photodex were to cease would it still be possible to confirm product purchases online should we wish to install on a new PC?
Alan

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby trshaner » Sun Jul 28, 2019 5:11 am

I Just saw the below post in the Adobe Photoshop forum. What's the current status with Photodex?

https://forums.adobe.com/message/10851493#10851493

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby Murray's Dad » Wed Oct 09, 2019 3:23 pm

After being an avid user of ProShow Producer for nine years, I am compelled under rather bizarre circumstances to join this forum for the first time. I think Photodex is a great company, has had great tech support in my experience, and produces IMO the best software of its kind (nine years ago I bailed out of another Windows software starting with the letter P after having worked in that software for seven years, after downloading the trial of Producer 4.5 and convincing myself that even back then it was better software, certainly for my needs).

Now for the bizarre circumstances of my feeling compelled to dive into the blogosphere on the subject of Photodex.

There has been some information on other blog sites on the Internet concerning the “demise” of Photodex. One example is this one:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/The-Loun ... p/10225251

I posted earlier today under another monicker the following reply to The Lounge blog above. I am sharing my post on ProShow Enthusiasts for the information of anyone else on the Enthusiasts forum who is concerned about Photodex.

Like other ProShow Producer users whose attention had been drawn to (The Lounge) and a couple of other blog threads alleging that Photodex has gone out of business, I have been rather upset at the “news” as have a number of fellow users in my photo club and another local photo club.

To paraphrase someone else’s famous statement (Mark Twain maybe, I don’t recall) — I am happy, and feel compelled to report here, that these rumours concerning the demise of Photodex are premature.

About two weeks ago, over two or three days I submitted some online tech support requests to the Photodex website. After not hearing back, other than the standard automated acknowledgements with case numbers, for up to ten days in the worst case, and after reading (The Lounge) blog thread, two days ago on October 7 I replied to all three auto-acknowledgments saying it has been X business days since I got this, yet no live response. What is wrong? Are you still in business? Please reply!

About half an hour (sic!!) after sending these replies, I received the following reply from Photodex support, signed by a person at Photodex support with whom I’ve corresponded in the past.

“Ed, we apologize for the extreme delay of this reply. A number of support requests in our system were previously lost due to a server-side problem, yours included. Those messages have only recently been recovered, hence the delay of this response. Photodex is still here … We’re still in business and working on new things. I’m not sure when the next version of the software will be released … I expect that there will be a big announcement when the next update becomes available. Please let us know if you need any further assistance.”

I have inserted the ellipses to remove some additional information pertaining to a specific technical question in one of my tech support requests, which information isn’t relevant here.

I think these rumours about Photodex going out of business are both untrue and unfair to the company. I suggest that others who may have experienced tech support non-responses try re-contacting them as I have.

I have been a nine-year customer and fairly heavy user of Photodex’s products and have no business or financial connections with them, nor have I been asked by them to post these comments. Their website is in fact still functioning, I have been able to re-download my installers from their website, and three days ago I successfully purchased, downloaded, and installed one of their products on my system. The appropriate charge has appeared on my credit card, per normal. The product works normally on my system, after I entered the registration key for it in the standard email I got from Photodex shortly after giving their website my credit card information. None of this spells “out of business” to me, nor anything like it.

There is enough "fake news" already on the Internet. Photodex and its customers don't need this nor deserve it. :x

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Re: Future of Proshow - Part 2 - A love letter

Postby Murray's Dad » Wed Oct 09, 2019 4:11 pm

On the subject of Mac versus Windows (there is some relevance here to the subject of what to do in the IMO unlikely event Photodex ever does go out of business):

I am a Mac user, having five years ago bailed out of Windows following 27 years of frustration and finally fury with Microsoft operating systems. On the advice of a friend and fellow photographer, who also is a tech professional, when I got my Mac I bought Parallels Desktop for it, installed a Windows 7 virtual machine (VM) on it, and then installed ProShow Producer and all the style and transition packs I'd bought over the years onto it. This is before I noticed that Photodex (at least now) has a web page advising Mac users on how to get ProShow onto their Macs, and their recommendation is to go with Parallels Desktop. That recommendation may partly have resulted after a senior Photodex tech spent about two hours on the phone with me over a tech problem I was having with Parallels not letting certain files into my ProShow via transfer from my Mac side. It was a great support experience, and HE thanked ME for MY time because he said this consultation would help Photodex figure out how to support those in the Mac community who want to use their product. (P.S. to the Love Letter -- in my opinion and experience, Photodex has given me tech support unmatched by any other tech company except Apple, which is saying a LOT, and also the ProShow user manuals are the clearest, most helpful, and best written technical manuals I've ever run across in more than 50 years of dealing with computers and software going back to bulky clumsy IBM mainframes that only accepted communication via punch cards.)

Cutting to the chase -- my Windows 7 VM is a single large (currently 80 GB) file residing on my Mac. I have confirmed with Apple tech, Parallels tech, and my own experimentation, that if my Mac dies, when I get a replacement I can simply restore Parallels Desktop onto it (if necessary via my Time Capsule backup of my Mac system), drop any of the four or five offline backups I keep of that Windows 7 VM into the appropriate Documents folder on the Mac, and hey presto my old Windows 7 installation, including my entire ProShow installation, is back up and running as before, no need to reinstall or reactivate anything. The VM file is essentially a disc image of a Windows 7 computer. (Hint to Windows users: get some software that will do a full disc image backup of your Windows system onto an external hard drive, with an off-line backup drive containing same, and if your Windows system dies you can get everything right back, or onto a new machine if you wish or need. Symantec made a program whose name I forget which did that on one of my old Windows systems).

Yes I know Microsoft is discontinuing support for Win7 in January. I don't care. The ONLY reason I have Windows 7, and the only thing I use it for, is to run Producer 9.3797 which runs beautifully on it (and better on my Mac Win7 VM than it ever ran on my last Dell Win 7 system). In January, I make a mental note always to disconnect my Mac from any internet access while I'm running the Win7 VM, and as far as I can tell I can still securely run Producer 9 until I die, become mentally incapable with age, or Apple goes out of business. I'm not losing sleep over any of these.

Just a couple of suggestions about how to keep ProShow running for you no matter what happens to the company or to Microsoft system upgrades if you're wedded to using them. Find out about doing a full backup of your entire system. Or do as I did and switch to Mac. I'll never go back to Microsoft.

For Mac users, check out this link https://kb.photodex.com/2981/how-to-run ... -on-a-mac/

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