Canon imagePRESS C7010VP vs. Others

[t-pat]

You get yours install yet? Ours just arrived today, still in the shrink wrap so Monday/Tuesday they'll get us up & running I suppose. I still have no new Macs though, and no software to get VDP jobs over to this machine. Guess we'll scramble & cross that bridge when we come to it eh?

ours is up and running, no news is good news. I don't operate it. Seems like it has a decent frontend. We had some funky shite with a job with transparency and had to do a workaround, and sending a non-4 color achievable spot as process did not work as well as sending it as spot and letting the operator tweak it. Xmpie output does not always do the best job on stuff like this due to it's black box postscript output.

[Slappy]

Well, we're all installed & running - I think. Got one live job that was supposed to go on the Indigo but the saledouche wants to be able to scream "FIRST!!!111" and have his job run on the Canon instead. Damned shame, I can't stand the look of anything I've seen come off of it so far honestly. For all of its faults, the Indigo is a MUCH better device. Oh well.

I have discovered that I have no way to send VDP files over, not even basic mailing pieces. The only software I've got that generates PPML is the HP plug-in, and it's not compatible with the Canon, so they'll be investing in something eventually.

My plan is to pre-impose anything I can in Preps & just throw 12x18 or 13x19 PDFs at this monster. We can't get it to publish Hot Folders out to the network that the Macs can see, so having custom impo folders I can drop PDFs into is also out for now. That's a limitation of the Creo running Windows XP, I'm hunting around for a PC MacLAN installer since I think that's the only/easiest way to resolve it.

[t-pat]

not shocked that the Indigo looks better, costs a lot more I'm sure.

[t-pat]

fwiw our VDP workflow is output to .ps from xmpie, then distill "press quality" and pray...

[boosted29]

I know I am bringing this back from the dead. But was curious on how the C7010VP is working for you.


I was wondering because we have a C7000VP ImagePress. We have had it for about 1.5 years and have around 3.2 million clicks on it. Before we had a Xerox Docucolor 8000 with a Docucolor 250 to supplement.

Well the Xerox service was terrible so we made the company-wide transition to Canon.

It hasn't been much better with Canon. Now I can say that when something goes wrong, the tech actually knows what the problem is and fixes it. Xerox techs were scratching their heads most of the time. But the problem with Canon is that our machine develops a problem, every single dayyyyyyyy. Whether it is because of faulty corona wires, bad transfer voltage, broken fuser gears or if it is just a pesky error code. Today we already have a call in because of a back-up issue. It usually holds registration surprisingly well. Not today.

We have a Fiery Rip and we do most of our pdf imposing in CWS and it works well. We have discovered transparency/flattening issues when PRINTING to the Fiery. So I usually print to a .ps , distill, and import the new pdf into CWS and work that way. Haven't had any issues using that technique.

Oh and we use InDesign for VDP, but most of our variable work isn't TOO crazy.

[Slappy]

I don't think we've been running our 7010VDP long enough (or hard enough) to say if it's going to be a good addition or not, unfortunately. They brought the thing in, have done NO marketing or promotions that I can see to have the Sales Team really go out & feed it, and we're still sending more jobs to the Indigo 5000 than the Canon. It was intimated at one point from Mgmt that they wanted every job possible going to the Canon, even reprints that originally ran on the Indigo. But the CSRs and Salespeople have pretty much ignored that mandate and I can't say I blame them. The quality on the Indigo is much better, and for clients who have come to expect it, arbitrarily switching them to Canon output is going to have jobs rejected & possibly business walking away.

Sorry, not the kind of input you came looking for, I know! What we have run on the machine I can say has been fairly painless. I've done a few mailings with Postnet barcodes, some booklets using the inline stitcher & face trimmer and the run-of-the-mill crap like postcards, biz cards, etc. It's fine for what it is, I'd like to push it & do some heavier VDP work but I have doubts about anybody in this place being able to sell that work.

[boosted29]

I really can't blame you guys. If we had an Indigo we would have the Canon on the back burner as well haha.

As far as running Indigo reprints off the Canon... 

Management makes only the best decisions.