WHICH DAC? Blah blah blah....

[Picasso]

the funny part about all of this is......if one wanted to you can still rip the content from the ILDA port, or even the wav recordings from adat. so the whole protection of frames is kind of a joke.

[tsteele93]

I will say that as I delve deeper into this, I see where the companies are coming from, except as a new user I very much see it from swamidog's analogy to buying adobe elements and finding out it won't save to jpg.

But I also understand these companies are coming from a very limited number of sales per unit and for them to sell their high end stuff for $600 isn't going to keep the lights on in the quantities they are probably moving.

I think where they are headed for big trouble is that crippling the software only works as long as the hobbyists can't create the same software at a much cheaper price point. And that may not last long...

I suspect that LSX is capable of most of the creation that QS is capable of, just right now I think QS has a much easier interface if you are just getting started.

I do find it particularly odd though, that trace-it is free for fb3 owners and it is really a step in the right direction for what quick trace should do... It addresses a great many of my complaints with quick trace and the frame editor.

You are a good emissary for them White-Light. You don't seem to get upset or take it personal, but you do take the time to explain things. The more you keep telling me about the animation features of QS, it is starting to sink in just how powerful that can be.

I'm going to try and keep playing with QS and try some of the features you have been patiently explaining. But it is frustrating to keep running into weird roadblocks with QS. Some of them really do make things harder than they should be...

[james]

the funny part about all of this is......if one wanted to you can still rip the content from the ILDA port, or even the wav recordings from adat. so the whole protection of frames is kind of a joke.

There are some applications out there that create waves files of continuous trigonometric functions. So there are no frames at all. However the concept of frames comes in handy when you want to convert these waves back into usable color vector art and possibly save that as ILDA, no matter where they came from.

With LaserBoy you can convert waves back into color vector art you can see and edit on the screen, save as ILDA or whatever. You can do this by setting a fixed number of samples per frame or you can even have LaserBoy take a good guess at the frame boundaries by looking for the big blanking spot found between frames generated by one of the more popular commercial DACs.

[Stuka]

Tom -

A few points:

* Pangolin isn't "crippling" their software ~ QuickShow does exactly what it's meant to do - and then some - for the intended end users, which isn't necessarily just us! Hobbyists on this (and other) forums are a VERY small piece of the world-wide market for the QuickShow package, and based on the sales numbers the Pangolin team mentioned at SELEM, the package is working just fine for most end users, and a LOT of them. Every Pangolin user on this forum could become "non-customers" overnight (not likely), and the loss would have little impact on Pangolin's sales figures. In spite of that, you'll find the Pangolin team, and especially Bill Benner, the President/CEO of the company, are VERY supportive of their hobbyist clients!

* Your former experience with graphics software packages might be working against you ~ you seem to have a preset idea of how the software should work. Laser graphics are quite different than screen or print graphics, and the software needs to work differently. Like any software package, it takes time to really learn the features. The "quick" part of "QuickShow" is pretty quick and obvious to use (by design); the real power behind the scenes takes digging and practice! Pangolin documentation doesn't always dig deep into all the features, but the posters on this forum (including Bill himself, on occasion!) can definitely provide help!

* Post your particular "roadblocks" - you might find that others here have run into a similar issue, and the solution may be just a few mouse clicks away!!

* White-Light (Al) IS a great help with many things Pangolin-related

* As you have figured by now, probably no one software solution will do everything you want it to accomplish, and yes, some solutions (not just Pangolin) require their own particular interface. If you do get another DAC and software package (not that uncommon in this money-pit hobby!!), you probably want to get a DB25 switchbox and adapter cables so you can switch between controllers on the fly. You can find them in the same place you bought your cables...

* You weren't expecting this to be a cheap hobby, were you?

I'll repeat an earlier recommendation from another thread -
You're within a driveable distance from some hobbyists AND "pros" who have dealing with the same issues you are dealing with for a LONG time.
Give 'em a shout; might save you some time, frustration, and money!!

(Actually, forget the money part - it seems that everytime I get together with another laserist, I wind up spending even MORE money!!!)

[JohnYayas]

You can grow many things in the garden of your mind.

[dzodzo]

I suspect that LSX is capable of most of the creation that QS is capable of, just right now I think QS has a much easier interface if you are just getting started.

you can check out Section 3 of our manual if it's that more complicated to make a show in LSX http://furikuri.kirril.com/Private/l...vingManual.pdf (it's still not finished and probably never will be as new things will be added)
when i first ran lsx i was overwhelmed with controls compared to moncha but quickly got addicted to the rich possibilities that lsx offers, math functions might be scary but if you take the effort to understand the beauty of them, you'll be able to create quick and beautiful effects

[mixedgas]

LOL,


Jeeze, once I sent one hour with LSX actually trying, I realized timelines are timelines. They may be executed differently, but you use one Lasershow time line editor, you've used them all. Not that much different then Pangolin, except tracks can reflect upwards.

LSX just requires you to USE ALL THREE MOUSE BUTTONS and perhaps think a bit more.

Steve

[colouredmirrorball]

But can you play a show backwards in Pangolin?

[mixedgas]

But can you play a show backwards in Pangolin?

Long ago you could, in the QM32 days.

Steve

[dzodzo]

and does it support mathematical equations? there's the real power