365 users, would you sign up again?

[Glen Barrington]

I'm using the free trial right now and it seems fairly decent and reliable. But when I compare prices, especially to Google and to Amazon on line storage, it seems somewhat expensive even though it doesn't cost all THAT much. My problem is, I'm not sure what problems it was designed to solve. I'm having trouble seeing the big picture.

1. Does the ability to interface with it via the ACDSee program(s) add enough value in your eyes to make up for the difference in storage costs?
2. Is it your "Go to" online photo storage option or is it your 2nd or 3rd choice?
3. Have you had any reliability problems?
4. How do you personally use it? As a vanity or social photo sharing site? Do you use others like Flickr or Smugmug?
5. Do you use it for online back up? For me, 20 gig would not be enough for BU, and buying enough for that would get pretty expensive.
6. Do you use it as part of your marketing strategy? How?

[Glen Barrington]

After trying this out, I most definitely won't be extending the trial, I can't seem to upload ORF files at all, only jpgs and Tif Which is consistent with what other, less expensive online storage and display services offer. However, while dropbox and box.com may not display raw files, they DO allow them to be uploaded and stored, and then downloaded. They aren't any cheaper, than 365 but they do offer some level of raw service.

And today, I could log into the service via a web browser, but not through the ACDSee Ultimate interface. No error message displayed.

It seems to me, if ACDSee wants to claim a tight integration with their mainline products, and their mainline products support virtually ALL of the raw formats out there, then 365 needs to support those formats as well. Otherwise, that tight integration, isn't really all that tight in my opinion.

Plus the fact that no one has come forward to say how or why they use this product, or that they would sign up for it again in the ten or so days this thread has been in the forum tells me no one particularly cares about this product. Not even the people paying for it! At this point, it really doesn't offer anything I can't get for free at Flickr or 500px.

I'm still willing to listen if anyone is willing to defend this product, but at this point, I can't see myself using it.

[Ben_H]

I can upload RAW files to 365 from an ACDSee client. In ACDSee Ultimate 9, login in 365 then click Transfer. From the top right corner, select "Upload Original with associated data" then just drag and drop RAW files from your local machine to your online storage. I do not think you can upload RAW images from a browser since the browser cannot decode raw images. If you have trouble logging 365 from Ultimate 9, you may want to try delete your Internet Explorer cache from Control Panel | Internet Options. It could be a cookie issue. See if that help.

[paulg]

At the moment I have "ACDSee 365 is currently unavailable, update in progress" - no indication how long this is going to take.
I don't think the company is very serious about this service, I recently took out a standard ultimate plan and it didn't come with any form of trial for the storage, a company trying to promote this would have at least offered a gig or 2 just to try it.
As far as galleries are concerned, even going back a few years to the online service, I've never been sure if the photos uploaded are available in the public domain (ie indexed by search engines) or just for other ACDSee users

[Emil]

"ACDSee 365 is currently unavailable, update in progress"

I wouldn't even sign in! I must have a reliable server that's on line 99.99% a year. Any updates must be announced at least 48 hours before. That's why I spend 8 bucks a month for 500GB disk space, ftp server, on line gallery, my own cloud any many more on line stuff. Ok, this excludes a 50 Bucks upgrade of my AC, but why should I want ACu9 + ACp9 and AC19. Ridiculous.

[QuBe]

I have never done more than test 365.

However, I've also never used Flickr, 500px, Smugmug or even Instagram to any real extent.
I've never been into photo sharing.

I use Dropbox for transferring (large) files to clients.

If I had tons of relatives to share pix with, then I might have more of an interest in it...but, with things like Flickr offering 1 Tb for free, not sure why I'd pay for 365...

[etphoto]

I just signed up for a year of cloud storage. I had free 2 gigs of storage on ACDSeeonline.com for years and figured I'd give ACDsee 365 a shot. After buying a year of storage I discovered the only profile information you can have is your pic. That is kind of stupid. You got a few lines under your profile pic you can enter text into on the free ACDSeeoline but get nothing with the paid service. So, when you pay, you get less. lol I'll see if it changes over the next year and if it doesn't I probably will not re up my cloud service subscription.

[EdgyWillArt]

There is no way I would sign up again for this. If you ever hit any trouble cross your fingers that you get a reply, the customer 'support' that I have experienced has been awful. I won't make the same mistake again!

[etphoto]

There is no way I would sign up again for this. If you ever hit any trouble cross your fingers that you get a reply, the customer 'support' that I have experienced has been awful. I won't make the same mistake again!

Yeah, they must have like one employee at ACDsee. Just look at the responses in their community forum.

[johnjbloomfield]

Is the main attraction of the 365 packages that you get all the software with updates included and the 'storage' is just a little add on rather than the main product?

[Glen Barrington]

Is the main attraction of the 365 packages that you get all the software with updates included and the 'storage' is just a little add on rather than the main product?

Well even though 365 is included in the packages, and even some of the packages are named after 365, the online service is a separate product, and can be subscribed to, all by itself without the additional software.

Edit: It seems They've changed the name of the online storage service to SeeDrive and are now using the 365 for the package plans. There is some inconsistency in how the two are referred to in the software, they might want to consider reviewing how they refer to the products! Oldtimers might start to steer newbies wrong, despite the best of intentions!

http://www.365.acdsee.com/en/acdsee_web_with_seedrive

[GusPanella]

Although off-topic... I am welcoming the condensing of some of the productization of the tools. All the Family packs, 365 versions, stand-alone options balanced against tool names that seemed to focus on super-sets was always a bit confusing. It was almost like they were trying to be too many things to too many people. This confused both product targets and pricing. My votes would be for ACD Base (no RAW), ACD Pro (RAW), ACD Ultimate (RAW + Layers), ACD Video (both edit and convert), and ACD Drive... with only two packs 365 Subscription or Standalone.

[Busywait]

Although off-topic... I am welcoming the condensing of some of the productization of the tools. All the Family packs, 365 versions, stand-alone options balanced against tool names that seemed to focus on super-sets was always a bit confusing. It was almost like they were trying to be too many things to too many people. This confused both product targets and pricing. My votes would be for ACD Base (no RAW), ACD Pro (RAW), ACD Ultimate (RAW + Layers), ACD Video (both edit and convert), and ACD Drive... with only two packs 365 Subscription or Standalone.

If a product is claiming to do photo's better than the OS you've got to do raw, in my opinion. I notice that Adobe Elements has started advertising better raw workflows in Lightroom to me if I open a .raw file in Elements now, but it still opens the raw file. That plan backfired, because now I've discovered ACDSee - I prefer the Manager to Adobe Organizer, and the ACDSee workflow and batch operations are like oxygen - I can't believe I suffered without it for so long

For on-line services, as a customer I would look for good integration with existing services, and/or tools to help me get files off my local hard disk but still findable. Does the OneDrive integration in Ultimate do anything except offer a pretty icon? I was hoping that it would show me the pictures that I have excluded from syncing on my local drive, but it doesn't seem to.

[Glen Barrington]

I think ACDSee Systems needs to reevaluate its position in the mobile and online environments if they want to thrive in the future. The level of integration with 365 is not adequate for serious enthusiasts and professional photographers. And It is virtually non existent with other online storage services. No One has really come up with an online storage service that is really useful for photographers. There are lots of options for people who shoot nothing but smartphone jpgs, but nothing for people who see themselves as photographers.

Ignoring the Android tablet and Chromebook market is a big mistake in my opinion. It is a HUGE market that is grossly underserved. Considering Chromebook's penetration in the education market, failure to capture the hearts and minds of the young is . . . well, shortsighted at the least.

[DaveT]

I suppose I could toss my 2¢ in ...

I didn't care for the idea of "cloud storage" for my professional work and see no need for using it for my semi-pro photo work. With the price of quality hard drives pretty low (1Tb drives for $60), it seems to make more sense to provide my own "cloud" under my control and ready access. Furthermore, since I support a web site through what I feel is a reputable company, I already pay for on-line back up should I choose to use it (unlimited storage, unlimited transfers at $8/mo). I've never activated 365 - I don't see what the product offers. Others may have a different opinion.

Even on the road, it's not a lot of trouble to carry a spare hard drive or two around ...

Don't get me wrong, I like the ACDSee Ultimate product. I've used ACDSee since it was 16-bit on Win3 and still consider it my primary - almost exclusively - photo processing tool - but what does 365 offer that perhaps I'm overlooking?

(You know, I find ACDSee comes in handy for non-photo file management as well)

I'm probably also missing something regarding product bundling, but if I have Ultimate, what do the other ACDSee products add to my tool set? I'd like to see the company stick with its main product photo processing and database management - and leave the "cloud" aspects to others ... maybe as a partnership is need be.

[Now that I dig into this, I notice that 365 has changed since I last paid attention - as Glen mentioned. I suppose $89/yr for 5 seats could be a bargain for some, but still, I don't need 5 seats and I don't know what benefit the other programs offer that Ultimate doesn't.]

(I don't use their service so this isn't a plug for the company, but Backblaze has quite a bit of info regarding empirical testing of hard drives in a cloud environment. One of many reports is at http://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-lo...k-drives-last/).