Digital Printer RIPs - What are you using

[Ear]

We are currently looking into Digital Tabloid size printers. Xerox, Konica and Oki. They are all pitching EFI Firey for the RIP. We have Web and Sheetfed offset presses but are new to the digital/variable data game and I would like to know what to expect, form the prepress end of things.

We already have a full Xitron Sierra (Fuji XMF) workflow for CTP and I would love to save some $$ and hassle by adding it to an export module to my Sierra workflow.

Is anyone running a digital press, as well as CTP from their main workflow? Pros and cons? Any info is appreciated.

[Slappy]

Xerox Command Workstation on all the Big X devices - iGen4, XC1000 & DocuColor 260. We have minimal interaction with it from the prepress side, DI Operators do all of the imposing/bitching about it in back. I know there's some sort of integration for our Heidelberg RIPs but it's so expensive and has very little upside we haven't really looked into it.

[Tracy]

We have a copy dept, we use Fiery, and I have Command Workstation on one of my computers
I can see the copier, print etc..

But I do not use XMF for the copiers, except for the rare layout I need to do and create a pdf for it.

Were kind of behind the times in that area tho, I'm sure There is more you can do.

[Ear]

Thanks guys.

[wonderings]

Using Fiery with Command Workstation for our Versant 2100. I think most are using this for digital machines. Works well, and with hot folders you can save a lot of time for those repeat jobs, or things like business cards. Just drop it in the hot folder and print.

[Ear]

Yep, the more I research it the more it seems like a lot of them have EFI Firey integrated into the interface. Which is fine... there are definite cons to trying to run everything from a single workflow. All of my other devices have their own front-end.

[Made in Taiwan]

We have a Konica C7000 with the integrated Konica IC-601 RIP. No color management here, so I cannot tell you much about that, but as far as I know the IC-601 is MUCH cheaper than the Fiery or Creo, as it is the basic RIP for the machine. And it works quite stable, by the way.

[David]

Fiery here as well with Command workstation.

[mwc]

We have a Fiery front end for our Ricoh/Heidelberg 901/Linoprint.
Fiery drives 'most' devices it seem these days...
Although we use a version/license for Prinect called DPM (Digital Print Manager) that preflights/imposes/color manages the device...

[Joe]

Fiery here as well with Command workstation.

ditto.

[GinsTonic]

We use Fiery with Command Workstation as well, but for a while we also had an older Konica driven by a Creo rip. It was handy having choices as we noticed they processed jobs differently. For example certain transparency issues would cause the Fiery RIP to fall over whereas Creo handled it just fine, and vise versa.

By and large they were pretty much the same but Fiery had the edge as it is more widely distributed and IMO easier to use.

[wagsgraphx]

We use Fiery with Command Workstation as well as XMF. We are running CTP, epson & hp wide formats for proofing offset and a Xerox 800 color press. I impose everything for the 800 in XMF and send imposed PDF's to the 800. Fiery's Pantone library sucks, especially for uncoated colors. I utilize XMF's conversion for jobs going to the 800 or utilize my own custom library for difficult builds.

[Ear]

More good info. Thanks guys!

[Ear]

So we went with the OKI C931e with the EFI Fiery RIP. Seems pretty straightforward. Had zero support on install and training but I got it up and running and am producing on it.


It's funny... when speaking to the sales people, I kept referring to the EFI as a "baby RIP". The tech girl from one of the vendors acted slightly insulted and informed me that the EFI Fiery was top-of-the-line, robust RIP. Second day of using it and I already made it choke on a file that my Sierra (XMF) made short work of. Puppies.



It's not bad for easy jobs... but giving me a light RIP is like letting Lennie tend the rabbits.

[Joe]

So we went with the OKI C931e with the EFI Fiery RIP. Seems pretty straightforward. Had zero support on install and training but I got it up and running and am producing on it.


It's funny... when speaking to the sales people, I kept referring to the EFI as a "baby RIP". The tech girl from one of the vendors acted slightly insulted and informed me that the EFI Fiery was top-of-the-line, robust RIP. Second day of using it and I already made it choke on a file that my Sierra (XMF) made short work of. Puppies.



It's not bad for easy jobs... but giving me a light RIP is like letting Lennie tend the rabbits.

Baby RIP is being nice. I usually refer to mine as "that piece of shit". That probably would have really offended her.