Opinions from S6 users

[randyf]

While I've been tinkering with S5 for quite a while, my show currently runs on a dedicated machine with S4 (several things got in my way of moving upward).  I was intending, though, to move to S5 this year, and have pretty much been preparing with a couple of new sequences and tuning my layouts for the migration.  My investment into S5 so far, though, is that layout and a couple of sequences.

With S6 now available, I would like opinions from the early users to the question of:

    Continue to S5, or skip it and move directly to S6.

Best I can tell, what I've done in S5 will move fairly easily, but there may be issues in S6 or it might be more practical to convert to S5 and then S6 later.

Any thoughts or opinions?  Might also be worthwhile for others preparing a migration to S6.

[PhilMassey]

Whatever you have done in S5 will translate directly into S6. If you are leary of new updates or don't want to pay the upgrade right now you will be fine in S5 and upgrade when you are ready. You have a Pro license so the most the upgrade to S6 will cost is $30.

If you use pixels S5 will be a huge improvement, and S6 is essentially the same as far as the Sequencer goes.

You should be able to import your old LMS files into S5 or S6 if you wish, but have a good working Preview built first.

If you stay with S5, I recommend the highest, last, version, 5.6.8 to get the best experience. 

[k6ccc]

Unless a specific reason to go to S5, I would skip S5 and go straight to S6.  As Phil said, everything you did in S5 will almost seamlessly migrate to S6.

 

[PlanetChrismas]

If you're thinking about RGB pixels then moving to S5 or S6 is the only way to go.  I'll admit it's a bit of a mindbender if you're on S4 or earlier but the transition is sooooooo worth it.

As for S5 or S6?  The Sequence Editor is basically the same but how you build, control and play the shows has stepped into the 21st century with S6.

S6 is the future and it's well worth the effort to get there.

 

[dgrant]

I think the 6.1 version of LOR is very, very nice. They put a lot of thought into it and it brings everything into one place. There were enhancements made and frankly, no way would I back up to S5. One thing to note, there is zero lag of playing an S6 sequence. There were delays with S5. S6 also brings with it, the capability of changing your show with a cell phone. Also, seeing your networked controllers live in that you know they are connected or not. What still did not come back for S5 or S6 was the S4 Visualizer, although I'm told that its on the list of coming enhancements to S6.

Bottom line, S6 is good and easily worth the upgrade. Everything all in one place.

[randyf]

Thanks for the replies; all of them, as well as reading the S6 forum has been useful.

Moving to at least S5 was a given, but from reading replies here and other threads in the forum, migrating to S6 is a good choice vs. taking a short stop at S5 (there doesn't seem to be a specific reason to stop at S5, and the cost isn't a big deal).

Further, it seems as it is a good idea to have sequences in their own folder, even for S5, to accommodate the plethora of extra files that might be generated.

Might there be other tips/tricks to share (maybe use this thread for that, possibly start a new one).

 

I'll happily report back on my migration.

[k6ccc]

1 hour ago, randyf said:

Might there be other tips/tricks to share (maybe use this thread for that, possibly start a new one).

The absolute first tip when moving from S4 to S5 or S6 is make SURE you have a properly built and accurate preview.

 

[randyf]

19 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

The absolute first tip when moving from S4 to S5 or S6 is make SURE you have a properly built and accurate preview.

 

FWIW, this one I had heard; probably from you.  It primarily was what held up my migration last year as I had recently moved and was dealing with a whole new layout.  Seemed a bit easier to work that into a new S4 preview, and then move up later.  So I have had a plenty of time and effort making the S5 preview match the S4 preview.

[Vince4xmas]

I will not move to S6 until this years displays are ran. Staying with S5 until January.

 

[Steven]

On 9/21/2022 at 12:58 PM, randyf said:

Further, it seems as it is a good idea to have sequences in their own folder, even for S5, to accommodate the plethora of extra files that might be generated.

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Aside from the backup file, which starts with the same name as the sequence file, the only extra files created will be an SS*.avi file for each SuperStar event in the sequence.