CasablancaForum.us

Ok, there have been a few threads recently that have alluded to asking questions of German CEO Herr Jörg Sprave and the new (and returned) MSUS President, Eric Kloor at the March Get Together so I thought I'd put this thread out there.

If you are not attending the MGT (bummer for you), what would you like to ask Jörg and Eric regarding our editors of choice?

This can be absolutely anything, things you have never quite understood, questions you have never got answered, questions about the compay's financial state, the company's strategy and philosophy of moving forward and prospering in the future, what weight is Jörg up to benchpressing now, anything.

I just ask that you keep it civil and real, questions you truly would be willing to ask face to face with a guy who probably outmasses you two to one in muscle and might also be smarter than you.

There are no promises all questions will be asked or answered, let alone answered to your satisfaction, but you don't get answers by not asking and I will be monitoring this thread next week and will personally try to hit Jörg and Eric up with as many of the questions as I can and I think several other BB participators who are also attending will help me with this.

So what would you like to ask or know?

Thanks Tim for doing this for the people who can't attend

Why take our money and sell this machine to us when it wasn't even ready yet.
Why promise all the format in and out put promises when it doesn't even do a WMV file with sound.
Why build a new machine when the other one is still not up to scratch.
Why ignore all the problems that being raised here on this bulletin board.
Why all these excessive prices on add on software when you get it on other systems for free.
Why doesn't any one response in Germany when you sent a personal Email.
Why are a year on most of the software programs not compatible with Bogart.
Why promise Blue Ray burning when it could only burn 20 min at the time.

Customers like me were very disappointed when they turned on the machine
and it was just another editor it didn't have the features shown on YouTube and still doesn't have.

This was it for now might have some more questions during the week.

Thanks Tim

For those of us who are choosing to retain our Cassie 2 machines, Avio, prestige, Solitaire at least for the time being where does Macrosystem envision the end of the line for further development. New O.S. Software ETC. At some point Macrosystem will need to throw most of their development energies to improving the Bogart line, which reading the posts is what really needs to happen to make good on the promise for what Bogart was pitched for. When Will we be relegated to the Cassie Classic 2 subgroup in the immediate future?

1. When is MS going to upgrade to the more professional 16 bit processing for it's programs.
2. When will we be able to use Alpha Channel effects from third party vendors.

Thanks Tim.

We purchased our first Cassie in July of 1998, against the advice of our local supplier, who - surprisingly - was a Cassie dealer. It served us well until we replaced it with our Prestige in November of 2003. We purchased the S4000-P in October 2008 following a long wait after the order was placed, trading in the Prestige.

As to concerns from my viewpoint as the owner of a production company organized in 1973:

1. We used the Photo Studio 2 program nearly every day on the Prestige, and the long delay in making that program work as promised with the S4000-P is very disturbing from a business standpoint. PS2 is meat and potatoes in documentary program production and we now wonder if we will ever get it back.

2. We are ready to go with HD; we have the four camcorders and ancillary equipment we need. But, again, the inability to play Cassie-made Blue Ray disks on anything but a Play Station and then only in short segments is also very disturbing from a business standpoint.

The machine’s other idiosyncracies result in lost time and are annoying, but we have found ways to live with them. Functioning adequately in HD, or even as we previously did in SD, is unfortunately not possible as was promised.

Respectfully,

- Norm Ross
Norman Ross Productions
Salt Lake

I plan to print out this entire thread just prior to leaving Monday morning to take with me.

I will try to interact with it while down there as well, but you have all of tomorrow to continue to post questions here for my Monday morning print out.

S-4000Pro PAL purchased May 2008

Why take our money and release a machine that can't atleast do the same as SolitairePlus. Not even after 1 year ?

I haven't even started new projects since May 2008 because of not having software that was promised "Coming Soon".
Photo Studio2, Columbus2.
I paid a lot of money for CBPaint but still it is not available. My creative power has changed to zero.

Why can we save a HDV-Storyboard to ext. harddrive when we can't restore it?

Why can't we monitor HDV-Import flawlessly on TV screen? Just stuttering, async and totally useless for me.

Why can't we monitor HDV-Export on TV screen?

Where are the promised various format-converters for import and export of footage?

Why are updates released when my reported issues haven't been fixed in the update?
What then is the use of reporting?

Please concentrate devellopment resources to finally come up with a S-4000 which was promised and so highly advertised!


Tim, many thanks for providing

Tim
I think all my technical and software issues have been detailed above, my comments are about this site.

MSUS have provided this great site, yes I know primarily for self help between Casablanca users, but it also can provide very useful feed back to MS.

I would like to see MS being more proactive on this site and using it to keep it’s customers and users better informed as well as being used for feed back to MS DE.

I know this can be a two edged sword, but when I see information issued on other sites (Carol Lam), that could also be rolled out here, it makes me feel like a second class customer. I know Chet, when at MS, would sometimes copy information onto this site, but even then it was originally posted elsewhere first.

As for the two edged sword issue, I think there are sufficient responsible and reasonable members of this group, who would first moderate any unreasonable criticism.

In the past, one of MS’s greatest strengths has been the personal relationship between themselves and their customers. The current dearth of information is rapidly eroding this relationship, to the detriment of both parties.

Also in the past, I like many others have often come to the defence of MS, where I thought it was justified, but I am now finding it very difficult, if not impossible to defend the current situation.

What would go a long way to restoring this loyalty, is to simply be as honest as possible and keep us informed of the essential progress. I don't think that is too much to ask.

Ian

Why is software not properly tested before release?
The latest PAL release now allows AVCHD to be played on the PS3, OK but the quality is dreadful with loss of colour and jerky motion. When using the audio envelope you can only play from the beginning of the clip, before you could play from the edit point. Its no good if the clip is along one.

The lack of CBpaint and Photo Studio is a disaster. I bought my machine (S4000pro) last May.

We know there are serious problems to solve, don't alienate us through poor communications, you are begining to look incompetent.

Alan UK

*Please ask Mr.Jorg:

If Casablanca could come out with a new machine , which is the S4001 PRO, Using the same Bogart SE, wouldn't that mean that you have figured out all the problems that the S4000 users are facing? If this is the case, why are we still having all these complications with the S4000 PRO?