Only person confused here is you Ringo .. below is the verbage off of the Eovia World Wide Store...

Carrara 5 PRO - English versions - Boxed Carrara 5 Pro - English versions

The boxed version of Eovia Carrara 5 includes a complete PDF (electronic) manual. A printed Carrara 5 manual will be available for sale separately.

.............
As you can see the printed Carrara 5 manual is not ready so one can not order it at the same time they place the order for C5. The presently included pdf file is inaccurate and is quite likely to not be the same as the soon to be released Carrara 5 manual.

Regardless of the price you pay, upgrade or full, you get an inaccurate pdf file and the grand opportunity to buy an aftermarket book.

By the way, at 49 years of age I am plenty grown up.

Given a choice, most folks I know or have spoken with prefer paper manuals, not electronic or on-line networked manuals.

In the end it's not if it is printed or not, It what's in them that counts. Poser is an example of how not to write a manual.

So very true and a good example to give. We all know what happened to CL. Apparently,the included pdf with C5 has errors in it also and that is a part of this mosaic that I am painting. Eovia is so concerned about turning out a product and maintaining market share that they can not even be bothered to correct old errors as well as include correct new information about their software. They lower the price and leave the customer to buy aftermarket books which may or may not contain correct information.

If the pdf were corrected and contained all the new features then there would be a lot less to this picture. Spiraling down into darkness is never good, cutting corners on your way down is really not good.

Understand all, I am not upset, mad or angry with Eovia. I knew what I was getting when I paid for C5Pro. I am just putting together the pieces of this mosaic. Hopefully Eovia will not go the way of CL.

Message edited on: 01/08/2006 15:33

I am not upset, just making an observation. The manual is unimportant to you. You are willing to pay your money and take what you get. Eventually, you will likely print the .pdf. It is highly likely that most users WILL print the manual or most users WILL buy an aftermarket pub. What advanage was the original price of Carrara to you and them? That is what you are not understanding about this discussion.

Another side of this is that once a company takes that downward slide to corporate greed and begins cutting things such as manuals, it tends to continue in other aspects of the software. Eventually they drive the software into the ground. Has happened before, will happen again. As long as you accept less from a company, they will continue to offer you less.

Nod .. you are spot on about 'yes men'. Somewhere in Eovia land someone made the decision about dropping the manual and lowering the price. Someone said "this will attract more buyers" and, everyone said 'yes'.

Eovia has taken the lower path, they have lowered the standard , the bar by which they judge the quality of their product. They have lessend the quality that the end consumer receives and then justified it by lowering the price. All this to attract more sales. What do they cut out next? How low can they go before users say, "well gee, I can get brand z over here for $60 dollars more and it comes with a well respected manual".

It is unlikely that I will buy C6, this is the downward spiral of Eovia into corporate greed. It will certainly come back to haunt them one day via the customer base. Over the next year it is likely that a competitor with a product as good as or better will lower their price, but keep the manual. I may give them a try. So how low will Eovia go and how much will they cut out in an effort to go after sales? It is a downward spiral once you start it.

Esterau .. it is hard to figure out what stance you take on this, you seem to move from one side of the fence to another. You either want and need a manual or you do not. The bottom line is this, you paid less and you did not get a manual. Bully for you. If you print your .pdf file out on your laser printer, then you have just racked up the cost for a manual by using your ink and your paper. How did you benefit? You did not ... but Eovia did. It is all in the marketing, you THINK you got a good deal, but the first time you print the .pdf file out or go the the bookstore and buy an aftermarket pub then the deal was not so good.

Charlesb ... the price of the product is not cheaper if the customer goes to buy the manual from Eovia or another aftermarket pub from a bookstore. Don't even try to act like Eovia has done anyone a favor. They have not! Eovia has just Wal-Marted Carrara!

Message edited on: 01/08/2006 08:07

I take it Charles that you work for Eovia. It might be "stupid" if everyone who bought C5 was an "experienced" user. However, there will be quite a few "new" users who do not have a clue about C5. The new users get the pleasure of trying to find a C5 aftermarket pub that will cost them from $25 to $49 dollars as a rule. If it cost $10 dollars for Eovia to produce an accurate manual to include with C5, I would have gladly paid that extra $10 dollars instead of what it will cost me to buy a commercial pub from a bookstore. So instead of coming down $50 dollars on the price, Eovia could have come down $40 dollars. Actually, Eovia could have kept the original price, included a manual and they still would have sold just as many copyies and made more money. I have two monitors on my system, yes I can put a .pdf up on one monitor, but when I make notes on the crt with my pen, it makes it difficult for me to read the .pdf manual. At least with a paper copy I can write in the manual any notes that I care to. Not trying to be ugly about this Charles, but Eovia will be hard pressed to prove to me and many others that they made the right decision by not including a manual. Simply because other software companies are dropping the manual does not mean that Eovia needs to follow suite. I suppose that when C6 comes Eovia will begin using that well known fast talking telemarketing technique that DAZ uses.

All I have heard is that the commercial book for Carrara 5 will follow shortly after the release of C5.

The problem with this is that the book is likely to have been produced hurridly and will most probably be rift with errors. My experience with commercial pubs is that if they come out less than 8 or 10 months after the software release, then they are apt to be inaccurate.

There was a time that software houses kept a writing team on board, as employees or as freelance contractors that followed the production of the software. This meant that when the software was published it came with a printed manual that was highly accurate.

This is seldom the case anymore. Companies no longer want the employee expense and the freelance people are too hurried to meet release dates to be able to put out a good manual. I will venture a guess that the .pdf that comes with C5 is inacurrate.

I have been told by one company, I do not care to mention who, that the average cost of a quality manual ran between 20 and 40 US dollars. This was the setup, printing and shipping costs per manual. This did not include the employeefreelance author expense.

At any rate, the consusmer is buying what I consider to be an incomplete product. After all, would you buy an automobile and then go to the bookstore and buy a users manual for it?

Think about it.

Message edited on: 01/07/2006 14:47

My newsletter originally said the 6 of jan, so Eovia must have extended the offer. Yes, Eovia and others continue to screw their customer base by not including a high quality printed manual. They tell you to print the included .pdf file or buy an after market publication. This would be tolerable if they would lower the price of their software, but the companies do not do that. Now all the banner wavers for eovia and other companies will now jump up and say what a great bargain Carrara is or such and such software is,but that is beside the point. These companies have stopped including the manual for the sake of profit. They then leave the customer to spend extra monies to secure printed instructions.

I ordered the box version on 31 Dec. I did email Eovia support on 2 Jan asking if I could by chance get a download link for a 'full' copy of C5P. Only afterwards did I stop to think that if they did give me a link, then I would end up with 2 copies, both with keys. I don't expect to get a link. :)

I have had no problem with Opera 8.51 or IE 6 - Sounds like you have an issue with your browser settings. BabaLouie

Pinklet .. good points there .. MS does actually have a 64bit version available and linux has 64 bit available. As always the key are the drivers. You must have drivers for all your hardware and software. 64 bit is more than memory allocation it is also pipeline/bandwidth and when tied into a properly running cpu it is quite a pleasant surprise.

Hardware and software drive each other. You can put two, dual core amd64 cpus' into a system but what software will take advantge of 4 cores. Little to none. Most cad programs use only a single thread. Rendering and 3d software will do a better job, but I would bet that as of now, they are not able to take advantage of 4 cores. Such as it is.

I have always been one of those that stays on the bleeding edge of technology. This laptop will one day soon be replaced by a dual optron system. This is a hardware path for me you see. For me the hardware encourages the OS and the drivers, and then the OS and drivers encourages the applications. I will venture a guess that MS will really push their 64bit os (WinXP 64) in the Christmas season and by mid 2006 Vista will be knocking on our doors for that back to school push.

Attached Link: http://zv6000forums.com

If you go the the zv6000forums.com site, you will find plenty of folks who are using 64bit windows or linux. There are several good sites that cater to AMD64 and drivers, can't find my links for them though.

64 bit is the very near future, in my view AMD has the better product, and that is coming from someone who has used Intel chips for years.

I was only letting you know that dual channel memory had been hobbled on the HP DTR laptops. I am very satisfied with my laptop and I will be going to 64bit Windows when it is feasable.

Dollar for dollar, or perhaps Euros for Euros, the HP zv6000 and r4000 are hard to beat. Most buyers are able to get a good setup for sub US $1000.00. If you are in the U.S., check Staples, Best Buys, Circuit City and even HP. A lot of people have gotten very good bargains from HP. If you are ordering a custom zv6000, it seemed to me that HP was delivering there orders slightly quicker than one of the brick and mortar outlets.

Be certain to go the the aforementioned forum, you will find all the answers for all your questions. :)

Louis

Personally, I would stay away from the 64 bit side until much more drivers are made available. Drivers can be found, but many are not quite up to speed. I should mention that the HP ZV6000 weighs about 9 pounds and makes an excellent DTR, but at this weight it is quite a bit to be carrying around. If you are looking for a quite and cool running laptop as a desk top replacement, the ZV might do quite well for you.

Be Warned !! The AMD64 implementation on the HP laptops, Zv6000 and the Compac equiv, the R4000 have one channel of memory disabled. In short, they do not use the dual channel memory configuration. It is not fixable and causes about a 10 to 17 percent loss of productivity. Also know that the laptop, despite what some hero's will tell you, only runs pc2700 memory reliably. It will NOT run PC3200 memory very well. There is a websit, zv6000forums.com that is devoted to the zv6000/r4000 laptop and is a very good site for information. I have a ZV6000 with the 3500+ AMD64 and am quite happy with it. This laptop, with only one memory channel still renders Carrara and Terragen almost twice as fast my P4 2.6 gig system. HP has a system now with the Turion core, I do not know if dual channel memory has been crippled on it or not.

Very, Very impressive. Recently bought Carrara 4 Pro, your ani makes me want to hurry up and learn quicker. :)

Thanks everyone for your help, I had been curious about after-market books and the such. I did download the current issue from 3dxtract and was wondering about their cd. Now I know that I should get the cd. :) I am going to order the boxed version via Element5. Yeah, I am one of those that likes to hold the box in my hand and dream. Sort of like an early Christmas. :) Anyone have an opinion of the training cd offered by Eovia? thanks, Louis