Filmmaker V3 problems

[Spreading Ink]

So I downloaded the trial version of Filmmaker V3 and installed on a machine with a clean new windows 7 install (professional version).  The idea was to upgrade to this rip and use it to run two 9800's we have from a stand alone computer rip station that is on the network. 

Install went ok with no noticeable issues.  Going through the quick start I created a queue and shared the print queue across the network to the other machines that need it.  I go to any machine (including the one that filmmaker is installed on) and print a test page - page goes to queue and holds it (as it is setup to do).  All good so far - then when I go to print the file - filmmaker comes up with an error "Microsoft Visual C++ runtime library"  - C:\Program Files\cadlink\filmmaker v3
 
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
 
Pleas contact the application's support team for more information.

*********************

Some additional info:

Epson drivers are loaded and printing a test page from them works fine. 

Within Filmmaker if you look at devices you can see there is communication with the printer as ink level, maintenance tank levels and ability to print using the head alignment etc... work.

*********************

Frustrated as I spent quite a bit of time with it today to no avail - anyone else had problems - seen something similar - any experiences or recommendations welcomed.    Cadlink is in Boston and I am on the west coast so I plan on getting up and going in early and calling them with the issue to see if they have any solutions.

Any help greatly appreciated - please PM me so I see the response right away as well if you can.

[cbjamel]

I know stupid question, have you rebooted your computer to  if that helps?
Sometimes thats all it takes.
Shane

[Spreading Ink]

Thought I would update my post to include some info on using Filmmaker and overall impressions so far.

Turns out that even though we had done a clean install of Windows 7 Pro and over 180 updates upon installing - Windows update still had not gotten up to SP1 installed when I attempted to install FM which was what was causing FM to through the Visual C++ library exception when trying to print.

The folks at Cadlink got back to us quickly this morning and low and behold today was the one day (out of every 90 or so it seems) that we had internet connectivity issues with our service provider.  The tech at Cadlink agreed to give us a call back in a couple of hours to see if it was resolved and true to their word they did.

The techs logged in remotely and fixed the above issue.  Once done with this they were having an install issue that was hanging up when trying to put the EPSON SEPARATIONS driver on the machine from their software.  I don't honestly know what the fix was to this as (I only went back and forth to the machine about 40 times today to get the tech's logged in with reboots etc... - didn't get too much work done until late afternoon today .  Regardless, they finally had us up so that we could print a test file from the rip station to the one of the two printers and they built a couple of basic queues for us.

From there (it was 5pm EST at this point) I modified the queues to meet our needs and built two additional queues (so that each printer has a couple of queues).  All seemed good.  Then I went to our individual work stations that need to rip and started setting up the FM printer drivers in each of them so we could finally get to producing some films.

At the first workstation after installing the FM print drivers I tried to send a test file to make sure all was working - low and behold it goes across to FM fine, but when release it gets a 'HOLD ERROR'.  Not much documentation in the FM Quick Start guide so I went and took at what T RIP had to say about this since it's basically the same product.  From there it states to clear the error and resend  -after doing this about 5 times with no progress I gave up for the day to get back to some quotes, daily invoicing and shipping etc. and thought I would come back to it after hours when I could easily reboot people's workstations without disrupting the shop workflow anymore than I already had for the day. 

After hours we rebooted the rip station and the work station that had an issue and finally got a print to go to the printer (finally - after two days of dorking with this stuff).  Although the print went to the 'wrong' printer....hmmmmm......  Some further investigation showed that the reboot of the rip station had caused the computer to assign LPT port #1 to printer #2 and LPT Port 2 (both USB Virtual printer ports) to Epson #1.  We have two EPSON 9800 printers connected to this machine so we started looking for causes for the switch.  We found that in the windows printer and devices the two Epson printers were called 'Epson Stylus Pro 9800' for what had originally been printer #1 (and was now printing as #2 through the FM queue) and 'Epson Stylus Pro 9800 (copy 1)' for what had originally been designated as printer #2 (and was now printing as #1 through the FM queue).  So we went and changed the names to 'Epson Stylus Pro 9800 1' and 'Epson Stylus Pro 9800 2' through the windows devices manager.  We then rebooted the rip station about 3 times to make sure it no longer switched upon reboot from one USB port to another for the specific printers - this appears to have worked as three out of three reboots did not change after this.....

Finally we ripped a four color all over through a remote workstation to the rip station (4 pages at 44 x 44 for this job).  It after receiving and ripping the four pages we sent them to print - the first page printed fine, but the three behind it spooled and did not print automatically when the first page was complete.  We then grabbed the next three pages under the jobs menu and told them to print - the first one went to print and within about 2 or 3 minutes FM crashed.   (Error message - FM unexpected ceased working in a pop up menu).  So cleared the printer and restarted FM and reprocessed the three pages that had not printed yet.  When I left the office at 8pm this evening the first of the three remaining pages was printing and the other two showed a 98% and Active for spooling.... I guess I will see if they printed without error in the morning.

Some general impressions so far.....

1.  There are almost no troubleshooting suggestions within the FM Quick Start guide and those listed on T Rips site are only slightly better.

2.  What I thought would be a pretty straight forward install and evaluation has been anything but so far.  The first issue inadvertently, and admittedly caused by me and Windows Update.   I really hoped that after that most of the issues would be over, and while I think I have fairly good grasp of how to configure and operate the rip - the overall stability of the program has not been very good so far - hopefully this is just shakedown stuff but we'll see.   We did, back in the day, use Fastfilms and I remember (even more clearly now) that is wasn't always the most stable program - hopefully this isn't how things will be with the FM3 version though as honestly - we must have stability in our work flow - we have too much going on to be constantly dorking with the rip once setup and need to have it be pretty much a shoot the file to the rip and go program in order to make this upgrade a serious contender for purchase.  It's early yet, though and we'll give it a week or so to see how it performs now that we are setup to print from all of the work stations that need access to the RIP.

3.  The overall quality of the film and halftones do see to look a little cleaner (by the naked eye) to what we were getting from Accurip, but I honestly have not had time to look at them or compare them under a loop with all of the other issues we have had with just getting the software working and to a point we can print something.

4.  Speed seems really slow to send a file to the rip - as compared to Accurip (which is what we have been using) - that said I think we can probably tweak performance some on this through several of the available setting within the rip tomorrow so I do expect to be able to improve this some in the next day or so.

I plan on linearizing and comparing films in more detail over the next couple of days - once done I will post more info if I have it.

Overall it looks like a robust and good product - BUT so far the stability and ease of use seems pretty unstable (ease of use in this case just being quirks - not so much understanding the software - at least I don't think so anyway).

We are probably a kind of rare case for this software as I highly doubt there are many other screen printers out there using two 9800's at the same time, from the same computer, with this rip, with multiple work stations accessing the rip and them - if anyone here is I would love to hear your experiences.

Hope someone at least finds this info informative and if not maybe it will help someone more in the future.  My desire for having a clean install of windows and thinking that after 180 updates we should have surely been up to SP1 was the start of this fiasco and I take full responsibility for the start of my issues in that regard.  For the rest....well.....we'll see!

[blue moon]

few thoughts . . .
we had to set up FM on a couple of different occasions now (new computers) and it definitely takes a little to get everything sorted out. After a short amount of time thought, it has been rock solid. I think we manage to crash it once a year and a quick restart and resend of the files gets us back up and running seconds later.
One thing the software does not like is being interrupted. If something is halted, it has a higher tendency to mess up the next film (1 in 10 maybe?) so unless I am in a hurry, I just let it print what ever it is working on.
As far as speed, it does take time to rip. The bigger the file, longer it takes. Definitely not instant like AR! I can see taking 20-30 sec to process a complicated 40x40 file, maybe even more.
We have it shared and are printing to it from another station. It has been very smooth and trouble free until the other computer started developing problems. I finally replaced the computer yesterday so we should be back to normal.
I have not used the queues, we just share the printer and the graphic design person just prints to it. I review the films and release to print.
Sometimes the changes in settings do not "catch" and the program or the system needs to be rebooted. I think that is the main reason it takes so long to get it running. Once everything is working though, it has been very reliable and pretty much bug free.


pierre

[Spreading Ink]

Well I wish I could say we are up and running with this RIP now, but not the case.

After doing some internet research on my own I found that the 7600/7800/9600/9800 all have issues when printing a media type other than paper which causes the print to end up short in length off of a roll (width across roll is fine - print down the roll ends up short). 

Cadlink had me put a custom paper profile in the Epson, but this has not resolved the issue.  Accurip has a utility in their setup to compensate for this, but it doesn't appear that Filmmaker does or was/is aware of this issue for the large format printers. 

Cadlink has been very responsive throughout this process, but so far there doesn't seem to be a solution.  When printing a 12 inch square through the rip it comes out at 12 wide, but approx 3/16 of an inch short down the roll length.  When printing an 18 inch x 25 rectangle wide first down the roll of the film the 18 inches ends up approx. 1/4 inch short and on a 35 inch length rectangle down the roll of the film print ends up just over 34.5 inches in length.

Cadlink was closed on Good Friday so no progress was made that day other than me trying a few settings in the printer options menu.  I did try setting the printer feed adjust to +30 and while this helps it isn't enough to compensate totally for the issue and according to Epson this setting should only be used to help reduce banding in the print.

I'm a bit frustrated as I was really looking to upgrade to this RIP for multiple reasons (two 9800's - one rip machine - something Accurip can't do - and the variable dot ability built into filmmaker both made this the rip I was hoping to be able to employ).

Don't know where this will go from here, but thought I would update everyone as to the current state of our hoped for rip upgrade.

[Spreading Ink]

Just thought I would give a quick update....

We have had our Epson tech out to check out our printers and he basically found that he could adjust the print length when going through the EPSON driver, but as soon as he prints through the FILMMAKER driver any adjustment made doesnt' hold.

I have had Cadlink working on the problem and I think they actually are working to resolve the issues, but still not fixed yet.

Cadlink has talked with our Epson tech and they do feel they have a way forward (I am not aware of the specifics though as they have not shared that info).

When I know more I will post another update...for now still waiting..

[ebscreen]

Might be telling ya something you already know, but in terms of the print length problem, you
do pre-unwind the film off the roll correct? The paper feeds just aren't setup to unwind the roll
for you and maintain correct spacing, not unlike vinyl plotters.

[Spreading Ink]

Hi ebscreen  - you are the first person who has stated anything about pre-unwinding the the film (including our epson tech and the filmmaker people).  Please elaborate?  We did not need to do this when using accurip and did not see these issues?

All ears....

[cbjamel]

I run the 4800 with cadlink rip from GDS, what I did find was print all films up down never mix left or right and up down. That will screw up registration.
So you might try that, I am using rolled, that maybe problem. I will check my self.

Shane

[blue moon]

I run the 4800 with cadlink rip from GDS, what I did find was print all films up down never mix left or right and up down. That will screw up registration.
So you might try that, I am using rolled, that maybe problem. I will check my self.

Shane

shane, there is an adjustment in the queue, print mode overrides, printer options called feed adjust value. Print a 12" line and measure how long it is. Then use the reading to make the adjustment. We are at 30 (max) which I think is 3.0 mm and we can print in any direction. Reg marks are within few thousandths of an inch.

pierre

[ebscreen]

I've yet to see a roll fed anything that can keep the accuracy we require while having to pull
the material off a roll. We pre-feed/unwind everything and don't have sizing issues.
Many vinyl plotters ahve a pre-feed option for just this purpose. (unwinds amount needed
then spits it back out, letting it hang off the back)

I guess Accurip has a feature to overcome this, but I'd trust pre-feeding over a software solution.

[ZooCity]

I just let it go off the roll on our 4800 + AR.  It's only one in many, many films that is randomly stretched.

[Spreading Ink]

Unrolling the film upfront off the roll really is not a solution that will work well for us ebscreen - we often do 3 - 4 color all over jobs and this would be four films at 44 x 40 that we would have to unroll off the roll - like I said this isn't really a solution.

AR does have some software solutions to dial in feed and filmmaker really should too especially when selling a version for XL format printers and charging more for the rip - it should be able to adjust to provide accuracy and so far neither our Epson tech nor Cadlink has said that it shouldn't work and register off the roll.

If I am going to spend 1200+ to 'upgrade' to this rip I expect it work for our needs - if not I won't spend the money on it.  I am willing to be patient and be a guinea pig to help Cadlink get it figured out (to some extent), but I can't spend 1200+ on it if the rip can't work for our needs and frankly you shouldn't have to use a work around for a pc of software that costs this much.

Just my opinion and you know - we all have one

[ZooCity]

Filmmaker was previously FastRip?  I had a copy of FastRip with our 3000 and it seemed like really good stuff but never really worked out right for me at the same time.  I'm sure filmmaker is a different product altogether but maybe the core software is just tough for them to troubleshoot. 

AR really nails it on that front with it's ability to generate a driver for any printer/system it's on. 

Maybe check out SoftRip from Wasatch?  That's the one I would buy if I could justify dropping that much coin on a rip.  We don't really do enough of the kind of work that we would see a good roi on an expensive rip so we run AR.  I was looking hard at filmmaker after seeing Pierre's films!  I'm just adamant about not introducing windows based software right now...ain't nobody go time for that. 

[inkman996]

Been using FM for years now. It is fantastic software once you get it up and running BUT.

Cadlink seems to like to put the cart before the horse. On every single installation of the software it was a struggle, especially when moving to a new printer model. Most times they had issues that they were aware for that particular printer but failed to either offer documentation on how to resolve those issues or provide correct DL's like printer packages etc. Every single time I had issues getting a working install it required them taking over my pc remotely and troubleshooting for hours. Initially I had to pay for the tech support but after I refused to pay them for something that was clearly wrong on their end.

The other issue I dislike with them is both the lack of in depth user manuals and the lack of real information when you get an error. Basically you gat an error message with a hold print icon, yet there is very little if any info on why you are getting that error. You have to run down the list and go on process of elimination till you figure out what is wrong.

Other than that it really is decent software, I do occasionally get bad prints from it where it prints objects that are not supposed to print and do not show up in its print preview. Other than that once installed and running correctly it is solid.