Digital Blue - LEGO Stop Animation Suite

[stephensavage1986]

Hi all,

 

One of my schools have recently purchased a set of the new LEGO cameras (made by Digital Blue) with The LEGO Stop Animation suite 1.0.0. After installation of the software onto a networked machine, I plug the camera into the PC and the software asks me if I want to transfer the contents from the camera to the PC. I say 'Yes' and it appears to be transfering but errors. The content is, however, transfered into my documents. It would appear that the software is not able to read this 'My Documents location. If I install the software on a local machine and do the same method it works ok and the files are displayed within the software but it would appear that on a network machine where the my documents points to a UNC path it cannot read it. The same happens when I save an animation, it says it cannont save the file it but it does, again to 'My Documents'. Also the update feature does not work and it says that there is no internet connection, which there is. I contacted Digital Blue about these issues and there response was simply 'We do not support this product for netoworked machines and we have no intentions of releasing any updates in the future to support this.' Now maybe it's just me but I'm thinking that they are being a bit silly since 90% of the schools I work in have the now outphased DigiBlue cameras and they appear to be phasing themselves out of the market. (My Opinion) Any ideas would be gratefully received.

 

Thanks

[synaesthesia]

Digital Blue are doing a good job of putting themselves out of business with a god-awful support system, no desire to develop a product that actually works and some of the worst software I've seen in the market. I've been fighting with the V3 cameras for a little while - the cams themselves are "fine" (despite the fact you can buy something 10x better for half the money, as long as you can teach the kids to use them) the software just refuses to work half sharp. Like yourself most of the problem comes after it transfers whats on the camera then decides to crash out or fail to work any more, saying it can't find filters or some other various messages. Digital Blue tell us to reinstall drivers and a load of other complete tosh; tosh because they work perfectly in other software such as Amcap or Windows Movie Maker.

I wouldn't mind but this was using specially purchased CC3 packages!

The favoured option for schools round here appears to be (and I agree with them!) buying cheap but functional normal digital cameras. Most kid's families have them anyway and they can use them just fine. 40 quid gets you a 10mp camera from the likes of Samsung, with decent memory included and does everything the DBs do, without the rubbish software. Shame though because that software is a lot more child-friendly.

 

Sorry, not much help I know, just sharing your pain :|

[ajs]

I've recently managed to convince a suite of 15 computers that they want to run both version 2 and 3 of the Digi Blue software. Biggest problem I came across (apart from an incredibly badly-built custom package for version 2) was that version 3 seems to want you to wait at least 15-20 seconds between plugging in the camera and loading the software (otherwise you get the errors about unable to find right filters)

 

If I hadn't already been going bald when I started then I certainly would have by the time I'd finished.

[Mr.Ben]

Give up with the Version 2 Software, it really is awful and only come with a single user licence.

 

Version 3 is a little better with signed drivers, but still has it's issues.

 

The following reg keys are what you need to edit:

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Digital Blue]

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Digital Blue\Digital Movie Creator 3.1]

"AdministratorMode"="No"

"NetworkMode"="No"

"InstallPath"="C:\\Program Files\\Digital Blue\\Digital Movie Creator 3\\"

"ScreenSaverDir"="C:\\Program Files\\Digital Blue\\Digital Movie Creator 3\\User Files\\Screen Saver"

"UserStock"="\\\\***********\\Applications\\Programs\\Digital Blue\\Digital Movie Creator 3\\user files"

"ScreenSaverTimeout"=dword:00000005

 

 

Administrator Mode - Setting this to no removes the admin options when you start the program

 

Network Mode - Setting this to no removes the network settings when you start the program

 

UserStock - This has to be a UNC Path to a shared drive

 

You cannot redirect DMC3 to a particular folder for a particular user, and it doesn't work if you redirect it to a drive letter rather than a UNC path. It will not set any security settings.

 

What it will do is create a folder underneath the user stock folder with the name of the logged in user. You have no control over this though. It will transfer the photo's and videos into this folder.

 

I've not found many students that need access to the UNC path folder - the movies are stored in there own propriatory format, and you cannot set file associations on them for them to open in DMC3, DMC3 always has to be open first. Transferring pictures is a pain though

Edited May 28, 2010 by Mr.Ben