best on site viewing software is 5minutephoto?

[rolland_elliott]

This has been talked about a LOT on this forum, but not recently and I want to make sure i"m not missing anything. What is currently the best onsite viewing software for use over a wireless network of computers?

the ONLY one I've found is 5minutephoto at $300 or so.

Peace, Rolland

[ChrisPurves]

HI Rolland:- I use 5 Minute for Dog shows. It fills that need nicely. I plan on using it in the studio when I set that up. I'll have two viewing stations in the lounge fed from the main computer in the work area.
I am changing the whole sytem over to wireless soon. My IT guy says it won't be a problem. He likes the way 5Minute works on a network.

Cheers
Chris

[Mike_Ehrmann]

I also use 5 Minute Photo and have been very happy with it.

Mike

[Paul_Smith]

I use 5 min and have had issues - esp with the loader failing. Also, I would have concerns with lots of view stations and large events as the images are only held on the server, and are not distributed in any way to the stations. Think of 30+ stations trying to access 5000+ images on a single server - and you have my concerns

[Claude_Ferron]

Originally Posted by rolland_elliott

over a wireless network of computers?

Not sure I understand here Rolland... Do you mean that your kiosks are wireless? Or do you mean that the camera shoot and transmit wirelessly the pictures to you main server?

Originally Posted by Paul_Smith

Think of 30+ stations trying to access 5000+ images on a single server

Well if you have a solid server (Apache for example) with pictures of the right size (80-120k / picts) and a good network hub (gigabytes port for server) and a fast hard drive, this should not be a problem. I'm sure you could push it to 60 stations.

I don't know if 5 minutes photo is the best around, but I can tell you there is something else available.

__________________
Claude Ferron, Owner / Photographer
www.subitophototo.net
Viewing System Solution - A proofing solution for event photography
Informations about the solution here (VSS)

[Cory_Klinkenberg]

I run 6 stationary and 1-2 roaming touch screen viewing stations at my events and typically shoot 8 - 10 000 images of anywhere from 160-250 participants a day. I use Picsphere's Metaflow (http://www.picsphere.com/) to run my whole workflow and because I have internet access at my venue I set the software to not only keep all the viewingstations updated but also my online storefront. A couple key differences with Picsphere offering over others is the ability for all the images to remain synced, meaning you can make changes (adjust, remove or edit) to any image and they are automatically updated on your onsite stations and online.

The other big problem the software address for me is the issue of having to upload full resolution version for the files I wanted to sell online. I typically have runs of 60+ days of strait events and I cannot spend hours each night hand selecting 6-8 shots for each of the participants then praying to the internet gods as I sleep that the gargantuan upload was successful. So with Picsphere's software it uploads real time throughout the day live on site to my web storefront and only uploads about 100k thumbnails of every image. Then and only when an image is sold does the online lab then pull the high res file. Much more efficient considering only about 10-15% of the images posted online are ever sold and now allows me to not have to limit what the present to customers online due to bandwidth and time concerns.

It's all about capturing emotional sales and there is no better way to rack them up than with well set-up view stations and an efficient workflow. I personally love using touch screens and have found the extra investment well worth it in the clean look of my set-up and lack of a mouse and keyboard. Picsphere's sales interface was designed to work with touch screens and my staff has found that they have very little need to hand hold any customers. For the roaming view stations I have the girls walk about the paddock with tablet PCs and this pro-active approach has been working well and look forward to seeing how far I can take this this summer.

[Ed_J_Szalajeski]

I use Miltonstreet Software's Photo Parata. The developer is Sam Carlton, a sportsshooter member.

I have run it with as many as 15 kiosks, and have been very happy with the workflow.

The version I am running has many of the features I required when I started looking at a solution, plus the developer is a shooter, who understands the market and reach we have.

Our job is to make people at events, quickly decided to make a purchase, or make selections so they can make a purchase later during the event.

What I truely like about this software, is that it is very thin in the requirements, and the kiosks connect to the to get the images served.

My old solution, was a failure, running viewing programs such as ASeeDSee, or PhotoMechanic esq products for customers to browse a network share.