Viewing stations and printing on site

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Archive 2008 · Viewing stations and printing on site

mmetzing
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p.1 #1 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I have read in other posts within these forums about "viewing stations" for parents to view their proofs at sporting events. I am a sports photographer and not a GWC (as you all call it) I have been shooting sports in tis area for about 10 years and for the last few years I have offered my print on site services. My question is what are others doing to have viewing stations on site. I dont get much response from the on line sales after the event so I stick with on site only most of the time. I have noticed sales going way down and you must be tournament savy and know what type of events to shoot. I print proofs on location and as you know this can get expensive even printing with a laser printer and using gloss paper with wallet sized proofs. If the sales arent there then this is costly.

Dec 10, 2008 at 04:58 PM

dewaynechapman
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p.1 #2 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I have an 8 display viewing setup. I currently use 3 XP PCs. Two of the PCs each contain an nComputing Xtenda 300 display card. This allows me to get 4 viewing stations per PC. The other PC operates as the Server. I use 5minutephoto software for the server and viewing stations.

Dec 11, 2008 at 06:21 PM

waynedsargent
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p.1 #3 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I have up to 18 viewing stations now. I did the proof setup for a while but quickly saw that viewing stations made me more money. If you need some CPU's I have 12 dells for sale and 6 Ibm's as well. I use PhotoParata for a program works great!

Dec 12, 2008 at 02:27 AM

mmetzing
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p.1 #4 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I currently use Express Digital software and they tell me I need a "dongle" for each station. I dont know if anyone has priced that before but it cost a couple thousand (at the time) to purchase each dongle and their support sucks big time ($50 an hour just to ask a question) I'm still not sure how to make the multiple computers work plus I have noticed A LOT LESS PARTICIPATION by the parents (purchases) I dont want to spend a lot of money that wont come back for a long time. I am interested in the above computers but only after I figure out how it all works. (viewing stations) Feel free to email me if you feel more comfortable with details and / or helping me figure out what I actually want or need. mike@picturedevents.com

Dec 12, 2008 at 01:21 PM

timd14
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p.1 #5 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I too use the Xtenda 300's. I have to cards in one PC running XP giving me 7 stations. I also am using 5 Minutephoto software. Definitely viewing stations are the way to go. Best of luck when you transition!

Tim

Dec 12, 2008 at 03:07 PM

cpurves
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p.1 #6 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I use 5 Minute Photo
It works off XP or XP Pro. It uses the .NET framework.
It is not a lot of money and has worked well for me.

Cheers
Chris

Dec 12, 2008 at 05:51 PM

redal
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p.1 #7 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I think "Hammy" and "Luketrot" are the guys to ask, from my understanding Hammy is at the larger end of the market and does no printing on site , just viewing and selling .

Dec 13, 2008 at 01:36 AM

Ariel Bravy
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p.1 #8 · Viewing stations and printing on site

Yeah, I know Hammy doesn't. 2 other companies I shoot for who do on-site sales also don't do on-site printing.

They'll take all the orders on-site, but do all the printing afterwards when stress levels are lower.

I've spoken with a woman who did do on-site printing and she really liked how the photos were being shared with other parents during the show itself and that in and of itself was a great marketing device, bringing in even more customers.

I guess you gotta ask yourself if the potential increase in sales by doing on-site printing would be worth the hassle and cost doing so.

Dec 13, 2008 at 08:11 AM

David Kenney
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p.1 #9 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I haven’t looked at the latest offerings from Express Digital and I am still so pissed at them for their outright arrogance I will most likely never renew my service contract with them again. Last year I was prepared to purchase a second dongle for my needed second on site print station, I was told I would have to purchase 8 additional dongles for my networked viewing stations which reluctantly I would agree to. I ask about having them write me a custom action so people could swipe their on credit cards at the viewing station for security and to expedite order processing, I was told that Express Digital could do that for me but the cost would be a flat 20K to write the custom action for me. I then ask if I could remove the Express Digital logo from the software at the viewing stations and I got a resounding no from them. I explained that I did not want my viewing stations to be an advertisement for their product. The thing that really pissed me off was that I would be footing the bill to write a custom action, Express Digital could then market the action as they saw fit and not compensate me in any manner. My cost to Express Digital last year would have been 35K, after spending 35K I would still be required to spend 8K per year for support and upgrades. NO THANK YOU EXCESS DIGITAL!
I print on site using Kodak 9810 dye sub printers which give me great results and give my clients instant gratification.

Dec 13, 2008 at 09:06 AM

mmetzing
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p.1 #10 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I need to know more about Xtenda 300's. What is this and how does it help with viewing stations?

Dec 13, 2008 at 01:02 PM

bstep1
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p.1 #11 · Viewing stations and printing on site

Tim,

Can you elaborate a little on how you have the computer setup? XP version, RAM, etc? I also run the xtenda and tried with 2 cards in one computer, but was unable to get more than 4-5 to work consistently out of the 7.

Thanks!
Barry

Dec 15, 2008 at 04:44 PM

njw
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p.1 #12 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I've been using EPS 2 from eventphotosystems.com for the last 2 seasons with awesome results. The software is very affordable and you only pay for a sinlge license for your server, and then can add as many viewing stations running the softwaere as you need at no extra costs. He's working on the next version this winter, and I had some excellent dealings with him when I got my first Vista machine this past season as a result of my main machine failing. I run 5 laptops (one as server running Vista 64 Bit and 4 as stations running XP). Most of my viewing stations I've picked up used and for next to nothing. Only the main/server laptop is new. Also have an external drive connected to the main which records backups of all images.

I tried printing on site, but found that not offering on-site printing actually streamlined processing and got more people in front of stations, so our sales increased even though we were no longer handing them prints. I print when I get back to the office and ship them out via mail. So far, it works very well this way. Also, training a booth operator for printing is a lot more hassle than just sorting and taking orders.

Cheers!
njw

Edited on Dec 15, 2008 at 05:03 PM · View previous versions

Dec 15, 2008 at 05:02 PM

timd14
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p.1 #13 · Viewing stations and printing on site

Barry,

My system: Dell Mini Tower Vostro 200, Duo Core (not sure of the speed), 2 GB RAM, XP Pro. I you are not running XP Pro- this may be your problem as I believe XP home will not allow 7 users to be logged on at once.

Call NComputing customer service if you continue to have problems- give them your computer specs and they should be able to help you out.

Hope this helps!

Dec 15, 2008 at 05:03 PM

jetmutant
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p.1 #14 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I use 5 Minute Photo as well with 6 view stations I print on site with Mitsubishi 9550 printers to 5X7 anything larger I print at my office & mail out.

I am considering the thin clients (X300's) I did see a reviewer said he could not use with LCD screens? sounds like BS to me but anyone else have this issue?

Dec 15, 2008 at 05:36 PM

Hammy
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p.1 #15 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I plead the 5th

There are several ways to expand one computer to many:
- BeTwin by Thinsoft
- Xtenda by nComputing
- Aplica
- maybe more out there?
Where a mixture of software and hardware get multiple desktops from one PC - saving space, power, setup, cabling, etc... but with the caveat that if that one box goes down - so do that many viewstations.

What software one chooses is a matter of preferences, capability, cost, efficiency and scalability.

Printing on site - NJW said exactly what I've been through.

Hardware - doesn't really matter - as long as you have enough of it and it gets the job done in a timely manner such that your workflow is a step ahead of your customer flow. I can however, highly recommend at least one backup for every component - because when (not if) a sole piece of equipment goes down - sales will suffer (if not die) and professionalism of your company will be gone.

Hammy.

Dec 15, 2008 at 11:07 PM

Nathan Whitchu
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p.1 #16 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I have 5 minute photo and it's ok. At the time that I bought it there wasn't anything else cheaper. I found another event viewing software that was not too much more expensive, and was an HTML based program which looked good, but I already purchased 5 minute photo. If you are just starting out and have under 10 stations, 5 minute photo will do the job good enough, and not break the bank. but after 10 stations you're going to need to look for something else.

Dec 16, 2008 at 02:01 PM

bstep1
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p.1 #17 · Viewing stations and printing on site

Tim,

Thanks. I am running Xp Pro. I think the most I tried was 6 and would lose 1 or 2 intermittently. I ended up adding a second viewer computer and split the ncomputing cards. Worked great then, but more equipment to haul and provide power for. On the plus side, it did provide backup in the event one of the computer fails.

Barry

Dec 16, 2008 at 05:35 PM

timd14
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p.1 #18 · Viewing stations and printing on site

The biggest problem I found was the delay in the thumbnails to populate on the viewing stations- this was do to standard network speeds. I remedied this by placing the 5 Minute photo viewing files directly on the hard drive hosting the view stations. Of course, I had to set up the viewing software to look for that computer regarding the server name. Also, even though the host is not reading from another computer it does need to connect to a network, for me connecting it to a router does the job. If you are using the Pro version and wish to use and integrate the whole order process as the customer can utilize the shopping cart, my described technique will not work for you.

Dec 16, 2008 at 07:24 PM

Willy Johnson
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p.1 #19 · Viewing stations and printing on site

With any of these viewing/ordering stations does the customer have the ability to crop image for their final print? I know the benefit of on-site printing to sales can be great for the impulse purchases but sure like to print afterwards if I can find a system that the customers can use to get a good idea of the final look of the print.

Dec 17, 2008 at 03:55 PM

ppayne
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p.1 #20 · Viewing stations and printing on site

I also run 5minutephoto here in the UK. We currently run between 4 and 9 viewing stations on Windows XP. Some times we just take orders on the day and send the prints out post free but we have had good results offering large prints and CDs on the day. If they want to go home with a print or image, they purchase the images on CD or the largest print we do ourselves. Not only is the Mitsubishi 3800 smaller than the 9550, it also works out cheaper as we only have to send out the smaller stuff. The large prints in large clear carrier bags are always a good talking point too. I see this as the best of both worlds. When they order a large print or a CD they are given a ticket. I do prints and CDs at several points during the day. They are given an approximate time to collect and everyone is happy.

Dec 17, 2008 at 06:40 PM

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