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Buying FEC over and over and over again!
Several years back I bought Final Effects (from Cycore or was it somebody else?), then a couple of years later the Final Effects Complete upgrade from ___. (Who was it that was selling ICE at the time?) Then, after a few years the OSX- compatible (or was it AE 6 – compatible?) version from its then owner, Media 100. Anyway, this put me at version 4.0.1. Last month I upgraded my CPU to the Quad processor and for simplicity sake just moved the drive over and bought a new drive for the old CPU.
Then the problems started. Quark XPress (yes, we do more than just video) had me on the phone for half an hour, but after typing in a ridiculously long decode string (two of them, no less!) Quark worked again. Adobe products were far more polite and after a few seconds of identifying themselves over the net, resumed normal operations. Could the multi-orphaned FEC be so nice. Not even possible.
Boris, FEC’s current owner, has now told me that I must upgrade to 4.0.2, for $99 no less, in order to re-install and have a working version.
In other words… US$100 for a .1 version upgrade. Let me repeat that, US$100 for a .1 version upgrade. This in a world where all the apps and all the capabilities in the Final Cut Studio bundle sell for US$1,299!!!
So I’m about to take a deep breath, double my blood pressure medicine and fork over $99 to Boris for a .1 version upgrade just so I can re-open an older project that used their effects. One more time… US$100 for a .1 version upgrade.
Thanks, Boris. Thanks a LOT.
(There. I feel better now.)
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6 Replies
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The free Cycore effects in AE 6.5 and 7 ARE the FEC plugs. Is there something in the Boris group that isn’t included with the Cycore versions?
If you haven’t loaded them already, they are on your install disc in the folder ‘cycore’. There seems to be all the old FEC plugs I remember.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
Chris’ totally right.
My god, if Nick discovers his Cycore effects were in his CD the all time…
Justin Productions
Tangerin01@hotmail.com
Adobe After Effects 6.0 Professional -
I believe I mis-stated. FEC didn’t come from Cycore and the plug-ins are totally different from what’s now bundled with AE. And that’s another one, but oh well, I paid several hundreds of dollars for Cycore only to have it bundled a couple of years later. C’est la vie. That one I can live with. But $100 for what Boris says is basically just a different installer and very minor bug fixes — that still has me ticked.
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I feel your pain, Nick. I doubt it’ll solve your $ problem, but there’s some additional info on the subject you might find useful in the following post string, which includes a link to a good article by Barend Onneweer:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=866743Personally, I decided to bite the bullet and repurchase the Boris version because past experience with their products has given me more confidence in their ability to maintain, suppport and improve the FEC set than that of any of the other owners…including the original code writers Cycore. In other words, especially considering their awesome “obsolete plugins” backwards compatability method, I’m convinced that having the Boris version will finally make this the last time I have to buy the FEC set.
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I think my copy of FEC cost about $22,000, including the two Ice cards and the money those rat bastards at M100 demanded for the Ice and non-Ice updates. (Lesson: Beware proprietary effects technologies.)
I received tremendous satisfaction from dumping our M100 and finding FEC had more or less turned up as Cycore FX in After Effects. I do not see where the version Boris is hawking improves on anything in the AE7 set but the new 16 bit plugs from Cycore look awesome. I just don’t need that kind of color fidelity nor do I really have the processing power. .
Strictly personal with me: I’d never give anyone another freakin’ dime for anything called FEC. But I’m overly emotional about these things.
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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(CROSS-POSTED from the Boris COW)
“have you contacted Borisfx with your concerns…I have always found them to be very helpful.”
Yes. I’ve contacted them. That’s how I learned that I needed to buy 4.0.2 to “solve” the problem. The tech guy was sympathetic but took the attitude “yea, it sucks, but what are you gonna do?” He did however point out that I could use it in demo mode for 14 days before it would X-out the results. Time to seriously look at which of these are redundant with what comes in AE 7. I did mention that this whole thing became an issue because I needed to re-use an old project and it called for the FEC plug-ins on launch.
Oh, well. With the emotion of this subsiding I guess the money is not that big a deal. But I am still struck by the amazing contrast wherein Final Cut Studio is $1,300 and this meager update is $100. At least I didn’t buy the ICE card. Sorry Bogiesan.
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