Now that Kodak has bought up Creo/Scitex it has begun re-branding or retreading the computer to plate devices as its own. In September Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group introduced it's retread of Scitex Lotem, calling it the Magnus 400 computer-to-plate (CTP) imaging device. Kodak calling this the next generation of 4-page computer-to-plate (CTP) devices, but it really looks like a last generation device with a new purple hood.

Recently at Print 05, the graphic arts industry's largest trade show in North America Kodak was showing the devices. The Magnus 400 CTP device and MAGNUS 400 Quantum CTP device are 4-page CTP devices for smaller commercial printers, and part of a complete prepress solution, including Kodak workflow and plates. It is important to note that their devices will still work with Fuji plates, you don't have to use Kodak's plates.

The Magnus 400 CTP (purple lotem) device is modular, and offers advanced automation with various loading, imaging, and speed options. Fully-automated, the MAGNUS 400 Quantum CTP device has plate throughput at up to 28 plates per hour. The Magnus 400 CTP platesetter has a large drum size. It images an extensive range of plate sizes at up to 21 plates/hour. The Magnus 400 CTP device offers up to 250 lpi and Staccato screening, yet another name for stochastic.

Kodak Claims the Magnus 400 CTP device is part of the Kodak All-in-One CTP Package, 4-page CTP prepress solution. They say it can include the Prinergy Evo PDF processor, Prinergy or Brisque workflow, and plates.

But, as myself and many other current Brisque users know, Kodak has put us all on notice that Brisque is being discontinued. Kodak has decided to kill off support of Brisque and try and force Brisque users to buy a Prinergy system. The Magnus 400 Quantum CTP device, featuring the old Creo squarespot quantum head, same as Creo's trendsetter. Kodak seems to be trying to use hardware to solidify it's position in consumables. Why would 5000 pissed off Brisque users help sell more plates? Seems like a bad idea to me?

my $.02
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JoePostscript -- support administrator

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Wind Turbine Buyer's Guide


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Hi Joe, long time no hear... I've been busy as all heck, but that's good news.

I'm personally surprised that it has taken Big Yellow this long to re-brand the Creo stuff. But who knows, with various agreements and laws governing mergers and acquisitions, maybe they couldn't get this done any sooner.

I kind of figured that Kodak would do something like this, I'm sure it's part of the overall plan to battle Agfa and Fuji. Think about it, that's (part of) how Agfa and Fuji drive consumables. If you don't have a complete solution from front to back, you are left out in the cold. This is my own conjecture here, but I get the feeling that maybe Screen wasn't interested in becoming a part of Kodak. It may be one thing to partner with them, another to be owned or bound to them.

BTW, I thought that Brisque was nearing the end of the line. When we were pitched by Creo reps, they only mentioned Brisque once, otherwise they were interested in pushing Prinergy. Killing off Brisque would allow them to work on marketing Prinergy more, with out having to spend $$'s supporting it. The sooner they can kill Brisque off, the sooner they don't have to support it.

Besides, I'm sure they're hoping to convert all 5,000 p*ssed off Brisque users to Kodak plate customers. They're as close to a captive audience right now as they probably will ever see. Eventually, you will have to get tech support for the software/hardware combination, and you will have to get it from Kodak. It's not that far a reach to start sending in plate sales reps pushing the latest/greatest... I'm willing to bet your Kodak dealer will be coming to you soon with an offer to upgrade to Prinergy and Sword Excel (or the whatever plate suits your needs) for an attractive 'bundle' price...

I have always had good relations with my Kodak dealers and gotten good tech support. Since I'm not a Creo hardware user I'm in no position to comment on their service. I don't mean this disparagingly (to Kodak), but it remains to be seen how much of the current service organization(s) will remain after the mergers. And it remains to be seen how well the Creo hardware customers will be treated. I'm personally hoping for the best. They would be out of their collective minds to treat such a (potentially large market) body of users poorly.

Just my $0.42. Your mileage may vary. I know mine did
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George/Spectrum Graphics

reading this was a blast of kodaks recent run over the last year. kodak has lost so many brisque users by the hundreds that knew how badly the service declined after kodak bought out creo like a bunch of post civil war carpet baggers. kodak has changed all the service channels actually trying to merge creo support with their digimaster support, what a tragic ignorant mistake IMO. kodak had to reverse that after customers were complaining and leaving in droves. for any creo customer the word that i was getting was that it all went to pot as soon as kodak came in.

but none of this post really matters anyway as everyone knows that both heidelberg and ds screen devices are so much better than kodak magnus, kodak lotem, whatever they call it. that single laser design is dead and anyone buys into that is ill-informed. the square spot that they brag about is actually the worst problem with that device. nice way to repackage a rough ugly jagged dot coming from a single laser. can you say diversion? redirection?
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peace bro, snoop_cat . . .

interests are: prepress forums, graphic design, computer graphic design, graphic arts design, graphic design artist, graphic design schools, web site graphic design, graphic design services

Greetings!

I am glad I found this place surfing the net looking for information on Creo. (Eh more likely a demo of Prinergy but no luck . ) But, I couldn't help but stop by this post of the Magnus 400.

I work at a small print shop here in Louisville, Ky. Before I signed on about (4-5 months ago), they just bought one of these Magnus. When my friend told me about the job opening and the new Magnus they had, I thought it was a cool opertunity to jump into the print field. So I got an interview and got the job.

But after working with the Magnus for these past 4-5 months, I'll have to say its a love-hate relationship. More like hate . So far we have had at least... The chiller unit, a sensor, and one other part that slips me at the moment go out in it. Ooo, and I forgot right now we're using the Kodak Themral plates for the ABDick and Speedmaster 74 Press, and we can't get the plates to last long. We just ran a job that was for around I think 120,000 impressions and we only got 30,000.

Its really gotten the point where I think my bosses have more patience with Kodak then I do. Main problem I have is that Kodak seems to beat around the bush instead of helping us solve the problem.

But its been a learning experience.

One thing I am starting to feel is one of the main issues that its in fact a chemicaless system. Now I'll admit, I am still brand new to printing and don't know much. It just seems like Kodak hasn't figure how to make the plates last.

I've been kind of poking my bosses on hoping maybe we can switch to another system...but I seriously doubt they will considering the amount of money they have invested in the current system. And in their defence, I really can't blame them. I know my bosses already know this, but it seems that we're loosing more money staying with Kodak then we would looking for another system.

Eh... I don't mean to turn this in to a rant. I just wanted to share some of the experiences I've been having with the Magnus. But I do have one question for anyone has worked with this. Does Kodak force anyone else to have their Magnus connected to a 56k modem for support access? I still dont' get why they don't want to use network/ethernet. - ThePrepressDude

Hi Dude,

Yes, Kodak wants all the machines on a modem and it's really a pain in the but. However, they will go over ethernet and terminal access if they must. We pulled the modem and they started coming in that way. We had them accessing our Creo/Scitex Brisque and Trendsetter that way. Your processless plates are bleeding edge technology that's really first generation. Since they last for shit and you need twice as many for a job, when you add the spoilage and downtime it costs you much more money. That's why Kodak and all the plate companies are pushing them. The LH-pj can go over a million and I probably pay less per sq/ft including the chemistry.

In comparison, Kodak makes a Sword Excel plate that's WAY better. Fuji makes an LH-pj that's the best plate, both will run through that "scrotum" clone. Yes, you're stuck with that imager but the plates you may be able to do something about. There may be contracts locking your company in, kodak and others love that. Most agreements are for 2 years on plates but I never sign up for more than a year myself. Geat to hear from you and get that report on the magnus 400. Another member said he's jamming with slip sheets all day long. Is yours auto feeding or hand fed? Having any issues with slip sheet removal?
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JoePostscript -- support administrator

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Wind Turbine Buyer's Guide


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Looks like I'll be getting more aquainted with the Kodak tech support real soon then. I wonder if they play WoW.


Err... anyways.. I'll have to mention something about the LH-pj. Yeah, some of these Kodak reps from a local company in all honest just creep me out. Everytime this one is in my work area, I go take a break because I don't feel comfortable around him. I get this "sleezy" feeling and I just feel really ill.

But as for the slip sheeting, I don't think we do. We have the manual feed which is a pain because we have to feed one plate at a time. But as for the jamming, I am curious, does this person have maintenance done to his Magnus? Kodak told us we have to do it every two weeks to keep it from happening. And in all honesty, I really starting to doubt that for the main reason I have several ABDick plates jam on me this week. A count, eh I say 5-8 out of 30 per day. Today it behaved but then again I was more worried about a job I messed up. =\

The jamming I feel is coming from the air it gets from the compressor. Recently its sounds like ours is loosing more air then it should. Sounds like more like a vaccum cleaner with a hole in the bag. But being just a new prepress person, I can't really just take the machine apart to find the problem. And the drive motor switched failed in the hardware software about three times yesterday and I couldn't figure out what was causing it. And I was trying to avoid talking to any Kodak techs because I wasn't in the mood to deal with their "abrutiveness."

I am willing to solve a problem with no questions asked. Willing to go out of my way to get something to work, but when you have techs who just talk down to you (not all, but several from Kodak itself), it just gets old. Now after saying that, I do have one I do like working with because hes very patient with me.

But I wonder how many other shops they're hurting with their "first generation" equipment. I know its hurting ours but no one is talking.

Here's my 2 cents.
I have worked with a Trendsetter 3244 and a Screen 4300. I would take a Screen device hands down any day of the week after seeing the machine run constantly with very, very few problems.
As far as RIP's go, I haven't been around Prinergy or Brisque, but I have seen ApogeeX, Xitron Xenith, and a couple Harlequin's. Xenith is pretty cool for a budget, but ApogeeX is about the best I've ever worked with. All the way down to the ripped preview, I love it. The shop that ran ApogeeX had a small daily newspaper that was always a similar format, and within five minutes of receiving the PDF's from the customer, I was ouputing plates, everyday. I'm not sure about Prinergy or Brisque, but ApogeeX was preflighting, normalizing, sending proofs to a printer, sending soft proofs to the pressroom floor, trapping, imposing, and sending files to the CTP all with no user intervention. If that is not as close to pushing the "Easy Button" I don't know what is.

I don't mean to stear the topic off subject a ltitle...

But does Creo have a prinergy client/server demo I can use to practice with? I want to experiment with various things and its obvious my work won't let me. I dont' blame them.

But I really want to learn this software.

And maybe learn the Magnus inside and out so when it breaks, I can say "I can fix it in four weeks, but I know you don't have four weeks. So I'll fix it for ya in two." - ThePrepressDude

quote:

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Originally posted by ThePrepressDude:
But I wonder how many other shops they're hurting with their "first generation" equipment. I know its hurting ours but no one is talking.

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Wind Turbine Buyer's Guide

I have been in prepress for 17 years and for the first ten used AGFA only (RIP's, Imiagesetters, etc....) In late 1999 I started using Creo Prinergy (one of the first) and I think it is one of the best systems out there. I moved to an all agfa shop a few years later that was running Apogee Series 3. What a joke!!! Trapping that took hours, 5 RIPs connected to that system and they would all come to a crawl when you were busy; not because of RIP time but because Apogee Print Drive used the internal network card as a flow control device. It would become saturated and the RIPs would timeout waiting. Agfa Apogee couldn't use more than one network card either, so on your peak load days is when the system was at it's worst. Agfa sold this company a bill of goods by adding RIP's to a system which was being saturated by the RIP's they already had. Agfa came in trying to sell Apogee X after all of this, after one of our sister companies had it for over a year and had nothing but trouble. Yes, this was early on in Apogee X days and I'm sure it's better now, but I look at Agfa's track record and know that they do not have my best interest in mind. I could rant for hours about the last 17 years using Agfa in 3 different shops, but I won't.

If your looking for a long term prepress partner, I would stay away from Agfa. Find someone who's products work for you and that your comfortable dealing with, then invest. Stay away from the snake oil salesman who always has a cure to your problems for just a few thousand dollars. Then if you upgrade to our latest (whatever)... Yeah I've heard it all before. I always wanted to know why I had to pay for an "upgrade" to fix something that never worked in the previous version, but I had already paid for? That always seemed like I was paying for the same functionality over, and over again, and it never seemed to quite work the way it was supposed to. But if I just buy one more upgrade from Agfa it'll work this time for sure. Yeah!!! and my name is Mickey Mouse. If you want to move away from Kodak, go ahead, but be careful where your jumping to, it may be worse, much worse.