This post - although before it got removed was supported by others with the same issues got me banned from the forums: see what you think.

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Ok, I have to be very careful how I word this as I really want to be as diplomatic as I can, I also need to say that my play libraries are absoloubtly invaluable in my work, there is no competition for the expression range of emotion I have at my fingertips when I have a couple of instances of PLAY loaded into my template. That said, I find myself a little annoyed while writing this. Doug’s development update was very welcome, nice to have some rough time scales, I still however have some concerns.

There were 6 pages of suggestions, and gripes regarding PLAY voiced by a wide range of paying customers, many of whom rely on PLAY for their everyday work and this was deleted by admin. While I understand that they do want to avoid certain types of threads, I was a little disappointed. It did feel like a two fingers up to all those who have been struggling through technical difficulties, working around problems and faithfully waiting for an update.

Doug says that PLAY works for most people. Play does work, however I’m finding more and more that its the cause of most of my instability when it has to co-exist with other plugins in a project. Both EWQL, MOTU and Vienna have looked extensively into my crash reports and the only way around this instability is to ether put up with it (things have got a lot more tolerable with other manufacturers updates) or work around it.

DP has issues with a small handful of plugins, Halion being one… the work around for me is simple, put halion in an instance of VE Pro and once set up, it will load up with my project seamlessly every time I load it. Any incompatibilities with DP or any other plugin I have within the DP project will be sorted.

After looking deeply into certain projects and crash reports from my system, MOTU identified PLAY as one of the main issues and suggested running it in VE Pro to work around the problems while they communicated with EWQL regarding the issues. I WISH I could, doing this would solve so many problems for a lot of people and I would love for EWQL to simply acknowledge that this is a very important point.

When I’m spending a day troubleshooting a project that has suddenly decided to crash at a certain point every playback, I systematically remove all other plugins, and I’m left with PLAY and VE Pro. Only removing one or the other allows for crash free playback. This is a huge problem.

I understand that EWQL are not keen in resolving issues with VE pro as their own alternative product is iminant. But the fact of the matter is that VE Pro is out and being used widely now. EWQL’s product is not.

I now only have one major plugin that is confined to DP in terms of hosting and memory usage. It has come to the point where I try to find alternatives, even if they are not as good because I know that adding a couple of instances of PLAY to my template creates all kinds of intermittent instabilities.

I know I’m not the only person out there with these issues, and I know that they will settle down…. but as a paying customer, I feel that simply deleting the comments of anyone who expresses this opinion is not only rude, but indicative of the wrong attitude. I get the feeling that these issues are not being acknowledged by devs, and in not being acknowledged they will never improve. This makes me a sad panda.

There have been 7 updates to VE Pro since the last PLAY update. And from being problematic when I 1st started using it, it is very close to being rock solid now. This frequncy of fix releases and updates is something that really is required at the moment. Example: PLAY cannot co-exist with VE Pro in a DP project without causing serious instabilities (albeit intermittent). Tech support informed me that this issue was known and had been fixed. The fix would be implemented in the ‘imminent’ play update. This was back in 2009. Had there been a hotfix or patch available it would have saved me hours of my life!

So where am I now, I use PLAY for most every project I work on, I try and bounce PLAY tracks early and remove the plugin from the equation as early as poss to ensure the stability of my project… and I don’t feel like I should have to do this.

I very much want to invest in more PLAY libraries, but I feel that I cannot until things improve, and a lot. The thing that worries me the most is that this post will probably deleted and no one will contact me to reassure me that issues are acknowledged and being taken seriously. A Dedicated Dev Blog would be nice - we have all invested time and energy into PLAY, especially those of us who adopted the product early so it would be nice to have something like this.

Anyway…. www.goodsounds.co.uk to see 3 clips from the film and hear the music.

Have we gone mad? it is the likes of MH we should be looking up to and listening to. It is this calibre of person that is able to lead and direct a nation. Ask people on the street who they would rather have as PM out of the two of them though and it would certainly be JSP - She talks utter ill informed rubbish, and she is listened to. Its just not right! I hate her! 

[RING RING… RING RING]

Me: Hello, Stuart Fox….
Caller: [silence] ….. Good afternoon can I speak to Mr or Mrs Fox please.
Me: Yes…
Caller: Hello, I am calling from the Legal Bureau and we are phoning round the local area to let people know about our free service for anyone who has had an accident.
Me: Good, I’ve had an accident I think!
Caller: Oh [sounding slightly surprised]… What happened?
Me: I’ve found a great big crack running down the middle of my bottom!
Caller: …. How did this happen?
Me: I just noticed it this morning. A Huge crack running right down the centre of my ass!
Caller: Thank you, have a nice day. Goodbye.
Me: Thank you.

Just look at the death, torture and suffering imposed upon humans by their fellows in the name of a so called all loving all forgiving deity.

Double standards, especially when created and upheld by governments are a great danger to the delicate equilibrium of any civilised society.

They are the main cause of racial tension, the Race Relations Act 1976 inadvertently created the preferential treatment of immigrants regarding housing by councils who were scared of falling foul of this law; this sparked off huge and unnecessary tensions and protests, and still legislation that promotes double standards and abuse of law and regulation is still upheld.

Near to me, agricultural land was bought by gypsies who have set up a permanent residence on this land which includes residential vehicular access in a dangerous place right on an accident black spot.

The council serve an order, but this is disputed and may be over turned because residents on so called gypsy sites have rights that we do not.

If I did the same, set up a permanent caravan with a brick wall, a driveway, electricity, phone, drainage etc without planning permission I would be ordered to tear it down right away, and for good reason.

The council is however powerless in this case and has been overruled on these matters before. Access could create a road safety issue, buildings could create a visual impact on an area of natural beauty, but an appeal is likely to allow them to stay simply because they call themselves gypsies.

It is preferential treatment, and considering the harsh nature of councils planning officers regarding legitimate restorations and extensions it is naturally angering to local residents, some of which have had to fight for years at large cost to have modest extensions built onto their houses.

We are not even allowed to mention the sudden spate of petty crime that was non existent before this site was there.

Bottom line - no one should have the right to be immune from any rules and regulations that the rest of us have to abide by… The End!

Any legislation that promotes double standards is bound to build social divides and anger.

So Say I!

The timing of the goodsounds.co.uk attack was perfect - just before Google spidered and updated thier search results. For a while Google thought the front page of www.goodsounds.co.uk was just a blank page - I disappeared from search results overnight.

The most annoying thing is that my hosting company don’t seem to care, or tell me anything about what happened and why! Its a big deal and they act as if nothing happened.

Finally this week www.goodsounds.co.ukis restored in the search listings… So where has this got the attacker? Is the fact my traffic has been slightly diminished for 2 weeks satisfying?

I just don’tunderstand the psychology. If I were a hacker which I am not, I would do this sort of thing for one of 2 reasons, revenge and monetary gain. To attack for any other reason is insanity.

I’ve been noticing that a fair few people who occupy lower paid jobs are barely able to communicate in the only language they know, some are intelligent but have been failed by the education system while others are genuinely incapable of thinking on any sort of advanced level and would have been exactly the same even with the best education. 

Standards at schools are at an all time low, yes we have statistics to prove that I’m not correct, but the statistics are only there to be manipulated in order to cover up the truth that we are generating the most unintelligent, uncivilised generations ever seen in this country!

Once to take A levels and have a chance at a university education you needed a broad understanding of all things, an education founded on the classics and a true lust for knowledge and advanced understanding of your subject.

These days we have literature undergraduates who are too impatient to even read, opting for the audio book on the iPod option. People feel it is their right to attend 3 years of university simply for the experience, they will oftern not even know which subject they wish to study until months before enrolment.

A university experience these days can often be interpreted accurately as 3 years of substance and alcohol abuse and as much random shagging as you can shake a stick at!

While a hard working, hard playing attitude is great for some people; to not be interested in the subject or the work and to simply want to go through university for the party is not what it should be about.

The fact that it is entirely possible to survive an entire education in the UK without needing to learn how to read, write or talk coupled with the current economic climate may have dire consequences; As we all know, it is perhaps more difficult today than it ever has been for young couples and families trying to start out with a career, house, etc.

Those with the ability to think things through will be more likely now to choose not to start a family in the near future. Those who simply don’t think about these things will… well simply not think about it.

These are the people who will reproduce and be responsible for a couple of generations at least of a generation that will single handedly force civilised society to regress.

We see it all around us now… Skilled labour is a thing of the past – we have well and truly turned into a consumer society. Nothing is repaired, just thrown out… even if we could be bothered to fix things and make do as our grandparents had to, many of the skills we need in order to do this have literally died out.

The answer? There is none, we’ve gone too far! We only have to wait now for a complete collapse of the UK economy, the breakdown of civilised society (this is already well on the way) and the resulting transfer of all governmental powers to Brussels! 

A Harsh prophecy? Perhaps. But if you really take a look around, the writing is on the wall in 10 foot high print!