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While I understand you anger, I don't share it. As a professional, I would be p*ssed-off more when the guy next door has the same high-profile product for "free" on his PC, when I paid some serious money for it myself. In the end, _this_ is what drives you out of business, not some minutes of licence scanning.
... and don't get me started about "paranoia" ... ;-)
Kind regards,
Dietz,
Sure we don't want the VSL to fall into the wrong hands, but surely there must be a better way to protect this software than to put the loyal financial supporter of the product through so much pain. Other software seems to have done it. Surely the whole library content does not have to be verified so often. It is after all the one aspect that is easily pirated. Why not simply protect the tools that enable the actual use of the library. Is this not enough? And if it is not enough then at least change the interval of checking the library content to once a month or so.
There must be a better way.
Tom
As a professional, I would be p*ssed-off more when the guy next door has the same high-profile product for "free" on his PC, when I paid some serious money for it myself
As a professional I AM p*ssed-off that VSL is the only company that punishes their loyal customer with this authentication procedure where any other company next door found a more or less balanced way of a copy protection scheme that protects their product without assuming that their customers turned into a thief since the last boot up.
Hello Edgar,
of course we are looking at solutions to improve the license and content scanning process, but these processes have to be 100% safe, simply because we do not want to have 1000s of "unloyal customers", accidentally.
I´m very sorry that you are so upset with our products. I have not seen 1 positive sentence in any of your (so far) 36 comments (and I hope I have just overlooked it).
We are listening and doing our best to improve our products. Everyday. Some changes are simple to implement, others are hard. In any case, if our copy protection does not protect our products anymore for any reason, there is no way this company can possibly exist. It´s as simple as that.
Which does not prevent us from looking into better solutions - and these solutions have to be better in every aspect.
Best,
Paul
Just wondering about a licensing scanning issue I've currently got. My licence scan currently takes between 2 and 3 minutes (OS 10.6.3 / Mac Pro with the latest Vienna and licence software ) However I have a number of projects that are using both the Vienna Instrument and Vienna Ensemble. The big nuisance now is that since installing the latest Vienna Instrument software the licence scan is happening twice. Once for Vienna Instruments and then a second time when VE loads - both as plug-ins.
It is the same deal with stand-alones - launch Vienna Instruments - 2/3 minute scan delay then once the app is running launch VE and the licence scan starts all over again. So double the already long and frustrating scan!!. Any ideas for a fix?
Thanks
Julian
Maybe on the PC side, at least XP, it is a less of an issue as DG pointed out and the complaints are not so loud but even 1 minutes to open a plugin is still too much.
I don't mean to be argumentative because maybe you truely are having some serious issues but have you considered maybe changing your workflow? 1 minute to open a plugin is still too much? We're not talking about a video game here, man, we're talking about a professional orchestral software application used to produce professional scores. I just don't understand what the fuss is all about.
Let me tell you how I work. I turn on my machine and start the project(s). During the authentication process and sample loading I check my e-mail, read up on the latest music technological developments, maybe go over some of my software manuals, maybe pour myself a glass of juice, etc. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes for my machine to be ready. All of my instruments are part of templates that I prefabricated with VE and all of my settings are already set up the way I like them. For the rest of the day, I don't shut the VSL server down unless I'm working on something that doesn't require VSL and I won't be coming back to it. Just leave it on all day or 24/7. Create templates with VE and load them instead of individual VI instances. At least that's how I work with my PC. Is it that drastically different on a Mac? Thank God I stuck with PC.
Until those genuises at MIT perfect MRAM (when your computer will work just like a TV) then this what we have to do to work. So multi-task. Again, I'm not trying to be a jerk but I think you need to improve your workflow before you start pounding on VSL.
I can see both sides of this argument. However, to say that this is a problem for everyone is just not true. For me it's a very minor annoyance. It's true that I don't like waiting 4 minutes for content scanning, when it used to be 1 minute, but this is a small price to pay for the continuing existence of VSL. After all many iLok products are cracked within days of being released, and even ProTools HD has been cracked, so it is getting harder and harder for small companies like VSL to protect the huge investment they have made.
DG
Although the loading time is an annoyance, an even bigger annoyance for me is projects not opening up at all if you don't have the dongle in.
Let's say I want to change my workflow from 5 local instances of VI software to a VE Pro setup. Now I open up Logic and open a song and go OH SHIT!! The dongle is in the other room with my VE Pro setup and now my machines forever loops and locks up and I have to force kill all processes. Other vendors will keep loading to the project but they just don't work. Which is fine since I will be removing that channel strip and putting one in place that does work.
It's a pain in the ass having to open them up and get the dongle from the other room, then save them as a new project, unload the old VI's etc and then go put the dongle back on the other computer and start creating VE Pro tracks.
Is this a possible programming change that could be done? I don't know what it would take to accomplish but sounds like a wonderful thing to me. I have done this many times in the past when I switched from Kontakt to VSL. Logic would open all my Kontakt projects just fine. It would one time ask me hmmm.. Where the hell is the kontakt player and its instruments? I would hit ignore/cancel and boom. Project loaded, I removed that channel strip and put in VSL and done. Songs ready to go in 30 seconds.
Maestro2be
@jasensmith said:
... maybe you truely are having some serious issues but have you considered maybe changing your workflow? 1 minute to open a plugin is still too much?
Thanks for your insight in your workflow and the PC side of life. But you are missing the point. There are two things here:
You are aware of that, right? I'm not talking about loading the preset/sample, of course that takes time if you load thousands of samples and your instrument is 1GB big. If I wanted to speed that up I would stuck 4 SSDs in my MacPro in a RAID0 configuration. All I'm talking about is to just open the freakin' plugin that usually takes from instantly (most of Logic's plugin) to a couple of seconds (Omnisphere, Play, etc). Which of your plugin on your PC takes 1 minute to open, I don't know any on my Mac.
I'm a a huge proponent of workflow that's why I'm so bitchy about the two issues with VI that stop my workflow cold dead, the VI authentication and the implementation of the VI interface (Mac only). What you are talking about has nothing to do with workFLOW, they are a "workAROUND" for a problem. You are not optimizing your workflow, you are minimizing the damage to your workflow.
Of course, loading gigabytes of samples into your RAM takes time and you start that and then doing something. There is no way around that. When you put on the kettle to boil water for the tea, you don't stand there, staring at the stove and watch the water get hot. Of course you get your other stuff in the kitchen ready for the breakfast.
But what would you say if you buy yourself a Ferrari with a keyless entry like many cars have nowadays. The only problem is that the Ferrari company is concerned about auto theft so they came up with a brilliant idea. Ever time you want to get into your car, the car key sends a signal to some third party that does a background check to see if you are the rightful owner of that fine piece of automotive. Great idea, not a single Ferrari theft since then. However imagine you pick up that hot girl at the club, get to the car, beep-beep, now you stand around with her for 5 minutes until the background check has cleared. Of course you can change your "workflow" and while the girl is waiting you can polish the hood, clean the mirrors, etc...
Now replace the Ferrari with VSL and the hot chick with the producer sitting in your studio who says "oh, I understand you have to load the samples" and you say "no, nothing is loading yet for the next 5 minutes"
Do you understand what I mean? I don't have an issue as you suspect in form of getting it fixed with troubleshooting, I have an issue with the form of authentication that is implemented by VSL.
But you are missing the point.
No, I don't think so. It's just that it only takes me 1 minute (not even, more like 30 seconds) to get that hot chick in my Ferrari and it takes you 5 minutes. I then leave the engine running until I'm done with the hot chick (windows fogged up) or the end of the day. I do it one time during the day and that's it.
But, OK Edgar, fair enough. I can see that 5 minutes would be a lot of smooth talking, to use your hot chick/Ferrari analogy, and an annoyance but only a minor annoyance if you do it just one time a day. Maybe the point that I am missing is how often you, and other Logic users, are having to experience the VSL authentication process.
I'll grant you that, of all my plug ins, VSL does take the most time to authenticate. However, I look at it this way, if I were a car thief and I was standing in front of three different sports cars; a Ferrari with it's doors open and engine running, a Corvette with doors locked, and the Porsche with doors locked alarm armed wheel booted, and steering wheel clubbed. Which one do you think I'm going to take? Oh damn! Another thief just drove off with the Ferrari! Of the two that are left, which one is going to be the easiest to take? I know it takes time to disconnect the boot, take the club off, and disarm the alarm but I'm willing to pay that price to keep my property safe and I guess that's how VSL sees it. It's unfortunate that Mac and, Windows 7 users have to wait that extra time but I sympathize VSL's position too.
After reading back through this thread I think the point I was missing was Edgar is talking about VI where as I'm talking about VE. Since I rarely ever work with VI I'm not aware of the authentication process. VSL scans your licenses ever time you open an instance of VI? If it costs you 5 minutes every time you start a VI instance I guess I can see where that would be a royal pain in the arse rather than just a pebble in your shoe.
@jasensmith said:
... maybe you truely are having some serious issues but have you considered maybe changing your workflow? 1 minute to open a plugin is still too much?
Thanks for your insight in your workflow and the PC side of life. But you are missing the point. There are two things here:
This is for me not understandable. I understand you have seen a distinction on your system between security checking and sample loading but I don't see that from where I'm at. The VE window says " I'm scanning", but I can't tell what it's scanning. And is it loading stuff into memory while it says 'scanning?' Seems to me it is 'cause when the plugin window opens with the presets, the instruments appear and are ready to play in about 1-2 seconds, like a slow screen draw.
I just happen to have a largish template for chamber orchestra, winds and percussion with 4 instances of Vienna Ensemble loaded each with seven instruments ( about 30 instruments so far). Those instruments are pretty fully loaded with lots of patches (oops, I mean presets). Thirty seconds or less for Cubase 4.5 to open. I can't really tell what's happening next after I select my template from the menu to load but yes, there is about a 30 second pause while all four Vienna Ensemble instances scan and load as plug ins. A group of Kontakt instruments load in a few seconds-total time just now was all of 1.5 minutes including a pause while I looked up which file to load. At the end Windows task manager says VE.exe has 2.91 gigabytes loaded into memory and Cubase 4.5 has .575 gigs (575 megs) loaded. Other programs are running as well with lesser amounts loaded into memory. I can't see that VE is scanning or loading cause it seems to be doing both.
Suggestions. Are you using VE or VI?
I have found VE manages the memory (I have 12 gigs ) on my system much better than Cubase 4.5. And when the sequencer is loaded with a bunch of instances of VI you may be getting a slow down. . So,
1. Group all of your instruments together (strings, woodwinds I and II, brass I and II and percussion) into various instances of VE and do not use any VI instances unless you have some over riding reason (although I can't think of one) I believe this will be a possible solution.
2. I had a terrible firewall program on my computer that almost killed my computer. I am now using Zone Alert but that might just be the issue as both VE and VI force a connection with the VSL server to check your license. Try shutting off the firewall.
3. Also, may I suggest that any time VSL stuff is loaded up these days-at least since the new 24 bit samples were published 3 years ago, that memory configurations should have been published to upgrade as well; anything less than 8 gigabytes of RAM these days is simply not enough. DDR 3 memory is out and on the PC side Intel's i7 technology really rocks. Again, on my side, when VE says it is 'scanning', I'm almost 100% certain it is also saying 'Loading instruments into memory'.
4. Try setting Logic to open as an empty shell (force it in preferences ) and then select your project. Sometimes getting the sequencer up and running before a big memory draw is made seems to work better for me, if the memory draw is really the issue for you which I am beginning to feel it is. As I say, from where I sit.
@jasensmith said:
until I'm done with the hot chick (windows fogged up).
Good one, "windows fogged up" ... PC ...
But seriously, it seems that there is some confusion here:
We seemed to establish already that ...
So if you are on a PC or using mainly VE then you don't have to deal with the long authorization process. Again this is not a call for help in trouble shooting. This post was intended to tell VSL that 5 minutes for a plugin authentication every time you start/restart your machine is outrages and gather more support from other Mac/Logic/VI users that are also outraged to show VSL this is unacceptable.
Obviously most VSL users are on a PC or are on a Mac and don't care much about that, so my mission has failed.
PS:
Using Logic in 64bit and having 16GB of RAM seems plenty. But here is the catch where you have to restart from time to time during the day. For example if you are using Omnisphere, Trilian or Play plugins in a Project and browse through lots of sounds (loading one preset after another while overwriting the previous one), then you will see that your 16GB of RAM gets eaten up pretty fast and you reach the 0 bytes physical RAM situation moving into swap space territory. Every time you overwrite a previous preset, OSX doesn't clean out that memory space but keeps some as inactive memory. So once your samples get paged out into swap space memory addressing, performance starts to degrade and it is time for tabula rasa and reboot the machine.
Although 32bit apps imposed the infamous 4GB memory limitation, but at least it also kept you from entering the swap space. This is a little detail that was hidden in the fine print when they sold us the holy land of 64bit apps.
Again this is on a Mac and I don't have any idea if you are dealing with the same RAM fragmentation and swap space issues on a PC.
@Paul said:
Hello Edgar,
of course we are looking at solutions to improve the license and content scanning process, but these processes have to be 100% safe, simply because we do not want to have 1000s of "unloyal customers", accidentally.
I´m very sorry that you are so upset with our products. I have not seen 1 positive sentence in any of your (so far) 36 comments (and I hope I have just overlooked it).
Paul,
thanks for your response, I really appreciate it.
I'm sorry to give you the impression that I'm not positive enough. I'm a member on the forum since 2003, we bought the VSL Library (The Cube) when it first came out for the Gigastudio, we later bought the upgrade for the EXS24 version and then bought the Cube again for the VI. I think it is an amazing product and that is one of the reasons I use it and love it for so long. I consider the contribution of VSL a milestone in Sample history that really pushed the industry forward on so many levels, I really mean that. But with every greatness in technology there are compromises forced by the current limitations of technology. If technology moves forward so does the products that profits from them, simple evolution, common fact.
Because I like the VSL product so much, I want it to be even better, that's why I'm so passionate about it. Sorry if it comes across as "negative bitching around". I get that on other forums too, but that is who I am. In my job people expect me to deliver the best and I cannot afford to settle for less than giving the best. What surprises me and also saddens in some way is the mentality of so many users who are just "ok with it", "not a big deal", "it is good enough".
Of course the users have to make sure that the company can survive financially by buying their product and accept their means of protecting it. But the users have also a big role in pushing the company to deliver excellence and pointing out areas that needs improvement in order to survive. If competitor B and C leapfrogs the company that I bought into and gets out of business, that is also not in the customers interest.
I understand and respect that VSL has a priority of improvements that they decide in what areas a product gets evolved. Too bad the authentication process seems to be at the bottom of that list. Too many users seem to be OK with the current situation and consider that "a small price to pay for the continuing existence of VSL" (quote from DG). I myself consider it a huge workflow killer but obviously I'm in the minority.
At least I'm happy that the other gripe I have with VI, the OSX interface integration gets fixed in the VI PRO version. If you still need a beta tester that tells you his honest opinion without holding back, let me know 😊
In the meantime I' stop complaining about the authentication process and sit back and patiently wait until VSL reconsider their position, either due to more user complaints or pressure form competing companies that manage to protect their product without putting the burden on their customers.
Edgar, I know that we don't see eye to eye on this issue, but some of your problems are actually caused by the fact that you are using OSX (the need to re-boot, for example). I don't really think that it's fair to try to hold VSL responsible for the inflexibility of Apple's OS.
However, I (and I'm sure VSL) would be interested to hear about a better copy protection system, if there is one. Do you have any thoughts? I'm assuming that it is not cost effective for VSL to come up with their own. To my knowledge there are 3 main sorts of copy protection:
Please feel free to post back any thoughts about other methods, because as Paul says that VSL is always listening, it might be that you have heard of a better solution that doesn't penalise the users who are actually able to work very efficiently with the current system.
DG
DG,
Here we go again. As I have communicated to you in a different thread, please try to avoid giving us your opinions on problems which you so happily don't have because you are using your beloved PC setup. We don't want or need to hear how you think everything is working well for you on a different platform to the one that's being discussed (and I know it affects PCs too but you don't seem to mind at all).
You stated that the wait time is not an issue for you. So why come to the defense of VSL again? They don't need you to do this, and you are not qualified to do this so please just leave it to the VSL team to respond to issues brought up by users of their software.
It sounds like you don't want VSL software to improve because you keep insisting that it's all working perfectly as it is (for you). So why comment? These are rhetorical questions by the way.
It's just silly games to ask Edgar to come up with a better protection mechanism. It's not his job, he's not being paid for it and he isn't qualified to do this. He is, however, justified in asking for something to be done about this problem. And yes, it is a problem and I am also amazed that so many people just put up with it without saying anything.
I will reiterate:
DG, by all means reply to a thread if you have a solution or can be helpful in some way, but stop defending the status quo of VSL software and try to hold back from adding your opinion to countless threads on this forum. I'm surprised you even get any time to use VSL.
Tom
@DG said:
I don't really think that it's fair to try to hold VSL responsible for the inflexibility of Apple's OS.
This response is a little tricky because I have to enter the slippery slop of PC vs Mac. Although I used PCs for many years with Gigastudio, I prefer the Mac. The Mac community is used to get treated as a second class citizen by developers for decades although things have changed a bit lately. Developers just plain ignored the Mac and just released Windows versions or the Mac versions was released much later after it was ported over (Skype, Netflix, Quicken, etc).
I understand that the developers have it not easy to deal with Apple and their policies and they have my sympathy, But having said, I also think that the developer should not use that as an excuse to release a less than optimal product. The user is interested in the promise of the product and this is the bases for his decision to spend his money on that. If it is not possible to deliver a true cross platform product then the developer should advertise it: "available for Windows and also for Mac in a stripped down less functional version". I didn't see a footnote at VSL that says "authentication on a Mac may take up to 5 times longer than on a PC" or "beware that the Mac version of the VI plugin has to violate basic OSX user interface guidelines in order to make it somehow functional". No, of course you don't see that.
This is what I'm talking about with "second class citizens". We are used to pick up the crumbs from the code floor and it is expected to be ok with it. And yes, you might say, why not coming over your greener side of the grass. But no thanks, I made my computer platform decision based on my personal experience the same way millions of users made their choice to use PC based on their personal experience. That is not the issue. I'm aware of the restrictions I might have based my decision to use Macs.
So this has nothing to do with " holding VSL responsible for the inflexibility of Apple's OS". The problem is when VSL releases a Mac versions and they are not upfront with possible limitations or restrictions compared to the Windows version. I don't want to bring that up all the time but how come that Spectrasonics, NI, FXpander seemed to mange the "inflexibility". Could it be that at the end it is the "inflexibility" of VSL's product?
Second topic "Copy Protection"
I don't know where to start. I don't even pretend to have an answer, just a few points I thought to be valid.
Conclusion:
I noticed quite often that companies tend to be self centered because that they can't imagine that users use other products/plugins besides their own. But this is not the reality. So just using VSL with that long authentication process seems ok for many users, but would it still be ok if every plugin/software on their computer uses the same protection scheme. If a user would spend 7 hour out of their 8 hour work day sitting around and waiting for authentication approval over and over again would it still be ok and tolerable?
@inwinterhesleeps said:
I will reiterate:
DG, by all means reply to a thread if you have a solution or can be helpful in some way, but stop defending the status quo of VSL software and try to hold back from adding your opinion to countless threads on this forum. I'm surprised you even get any time to use VSL.
Tom
It's not up to you when and where I post. It's not up to you whether or not I defend (to use your word) VSL, or any other company. In any case I wasn't talking to you, so if you don't like what I post, then don't read it. [|-)]
DG
@inwinterhesleeps said:
[...] We don't want or need to hear how you think [...], and you are not qualified to do this [...] So why comment? [...] It's just silly [...] DG, by all means reply to a thread if you have a solution or can be helpful in some way [...]Tom
Tom - with all due respect: DG has generously helped and supported fellow users in this forum (and a few others too, BTW) on more occasions than I am able to count, so your reply is simply inappropriate.
