@Martin Bayless said:

hi alex. digital performer for everything - including notation, unless parts have to be extracted or something needs to be sent to a publisher.

No dongle in DP? Interesting.
I should say at this point, the many years i used Cubase with the printer port based red dongle were relatively trouble free, once i'd removed explorer from Win98 (with the help of a clever piece of software called 98 Lite pro. Still to this day the most stable Win system i ever had.)

I'm not sure that VSL have as big a part in this, as is being portrayed. Any CP for Win based systems have to be pretty flexible to work with so many different variations in configuration. And even the Cubase 'Brick' needed a bit of coaxing from time to time to recognise and work in a new or modified system. Mac doesn't always fare so well either, with the Logic dongle suddenly stopping, or changing its mind. It would be better for all if the CP 'lottery' didn't impact so much on work practises, as the number of variations in degrees of success seems to imply no particular pattern, aside from the openly recognised bugs. That's the difficult bit i guess for VSL and the CP company. One fellow has no problems, and another has all of them.
[[:|]]

You made an interesting point Martin, about your excursion into software development and the problems you had with CP. Is it that difficult to marry the two, software and protection, and get them working well together? Or do variations in hardware pose the most issues?

Regards, and good luck to you all. I hope your problems are short lived, and you can get back to writing music. (for most of the time anyway.)

Alex.

i think variations of any sort, hardware or software are the problem because it just isn't practical to test out every combination users will encounter. generally, the less invasive the protection, the better for maximum compatibility. in other words, a simple enter a key once and you're on your way is much better (like digital performer among others) than hard drive finger printing. it's not as secure but niche markets like vsl tend to protect themselves simply because there aren't as many people trying to hack around the protection. the vsl mindset is obvious in its paranoia of users adapting things for themselves as their products have become increasingly more user restrictive. fortunately, its a rookie mistake that will probably be corrected if they're going to survive. the bigger problem for vsl is their symphonic edition was so good that users just don't need to put up with the latest junk. if vsl embraced and built upon that rather than fought it, everyone, including them might be better off.

martin et al, we hear and we see currently several problems related to the copy protection we decided to use, but we are sure this will be ironed out soon.
on the other hand, just as a single example, we know form a major company using, producing and publishing stuff using the vienna symphonic library's pro edition without ever having licensed a single product. of course this data also gets widely spread from their servers and do _not_ encourage others to license the so pirated stuff.

so please understand the copy protection was simply a constraint to put VSL into a position beeing able to produce more libraries during the next years
christian

personally,i don't have a problem with copy protection, just so long as it works, and, most importantly, you're not aware of it while you work.

i'm sure there's a reason why they went with this syncrosoft system, but i can't work out why. it seems uber-cumbersome, slow and v unreliable. i've been using Ilok with mach 5 for a couple of years, and never even thought about it after plugging it in. IMO, that's how it should be - working away invisiblly in thebackground. i sure hope the VSI team get it worked out soon. v annoying, and time-wasting. (on a mac os 10.4.5 and Digital performer).

@cm said:

martin et al, we hear and we see currently several problems related to the copy protection we decided to use, but we are sure this will be ironed out soon.
on the other hand, just as a single example, we know form a major company using, producing and publishing stuff using the vienna symphonic library's pro edition without ever having licensed a single product. of course this data also gets widely spread from their servers and do _not_ encourage others to license the so pirated stuff.

so please understand the copy protection was simply a constraint to put VSL into a position beeing able to produce more libraries during the next years
christian

I think you should publish the name of that company so that we may all refuse to do business with them.

IMO it doesn't help to publish a name without having the irrefutable proof (one which stands firm 200% at court) of a license violation, and even then i think it would make more sense to receive the license fee [;)]

@paul lm said:

personally,i don't have a problem with copy protection, just so long as it works, and, most importantly, you're not aware of it while you work.

i'm sure there's a reason why they went with this syncrosoft system, but i can't work out why. it seems uber-cumbersome, slow and v unreliable. i've been using Ilok with mach 5 for a couple of years, and never even thought about it after plugging it in. IMO, that's how it should be - working away invisiblly in thebackground. i sure hope the VSI team get it worked out soon. v annoying, and time-wasting. (on a mac os 10.4.5 and Digital performer).

Invisibility. Wholly agreed.

Not only do I not mind copy protection, I think it's crucial to have it with VSL/VI. I certainly don't want anyone else accessing my investment without permission-- and I don't want to see VSL get hurt by pirates.

But there are days when I'd like to use VI and dread doing so or avoid it altogether because I just don't have the time and energy to deal with some potential new glitch arising as a result of LCC. Too often, time and energy set aside for creativity are spent on fixing problems. Entire days are lost, and the sheer fatigue of dealing with the glitches simply saps any desire to do anything but to save VI for another day. VI doesn't deserve this. The VSL team doesn't deserve this, and legal VI owners don't deserve it.

Copy protection should make pirating a miserable and discouraging process. It's odd to hear that someone has managed their way around this while legit users are hitting a firewall of authorization issues.

Recently, none of my USB dongles worked, and all software related to those dongles had to be totally reconfigured before I could get any of them to work properly again. Needless to say, the entire nightmare began with a Syncrosoft warning. That was a few days ago, but I've not had the will to use VI since.

I do hope all this gets sorted out soon.

Compared with other versions of VSL stuff (Giga, Kontakt, EXS) it would appear a significant percentage of forum traffic is concerning removing the blocks stopping the VI's actually working. so it would appear we have a great new bunch of programmes and higher def samples but they are still just out of reach for professional work.

I have to admit to still using my Pro edition for current projects - partly learning curve, partly as the full library is not yet available but mainly due to speed limitations of VI load and liability of potential bugs.

I'm sure as expressed earlier that VSL are aware of the grief and are concerned, equally they would have researched the options for copy protection
(a requirement I totally agree with - I don't want a producton tool I've invested $10,000 turning up pirated causing unfair competion and a reduction in further development and pro support from VSL)

I would wonder if this is now a time for VSL to consider reviewing the current protection arrangements to see if there is a more reliable and less system intrusive option.

Julian

@julian said:

I would wonder if this is now a time for VSL to consider reviewing the current protection arrangements to see if there is a more reliable and less system intrusive option.

Julian

I couldn't agree more. I mean, I'm confident VSL will get their part right (fixing bugs and slow loading times, etc)...but if syncrosoft can't get their act together...then so what, VSL VI's are still going to be unreliable. The only thing that is "currently" keeping me from buying VSL VI is syncrosoft. Isn't that a shame...

Btw, how long has this syncrosoft company been around now...I'm just surprised that they're still in business.

Btw, I've heard that Digital Performer 5 will now use iLOK also...but I don't mind because I've never had any problems with ilok. Just plug it and forget it.

@julian said:

I would wonder if this is now a time for VSL to consider reviewing the current protection arrangements to see if there is a more reliable and less system intrusive option.

Julian

Btw, I've heard that Digital Performer 5 will now use iLOK also...but I don't mind because I've never had any problems with ilok. Just plug it and forget it.

first i've heard of it. the guys at MOTU said it would just be the same - serial number, etc. if it does, so be it - not really a problem.

Same old, same old problem. Had to restart my computer this morning, MAC, and once agaim have spent 90 minutes trying to get logic and/or the satndalone to load with no success. Just getting endless license errors. Has anyone found any strategy for working around this. tried the usual restart, re-download LCC, empty and refill VI folders, move the dongle, etc..

Jay

I seems to me that one has to regularly "activate date licenses" because the warning of a pending expiration prevents instruments from loading (even though pending may mean 10 or more starts left). Then you have to restart in order for the License Wizard to work. So one gets caught off guard by waiting a while for instruments to load then they don't then you run the LCC it doesn't work then you restart and back to square one.

I'm guessing that getting the perminant license puts an end to this procedure.

I have paid for the extended library and still have these problems. I am not sure what to do with th esyncrosoft issues.

J

Hmm.

I'm wondering if having some sort of LCC activity bar and / or a warning window wouldn't at least put the user at ease. We do see a "scanning" indication, but if the process is likely to fail the user should know that as well, imho, instead of having to wait and wonder.