When will we see a significant upgrade to WATCHOUT

[mindopera]

As a power user of WATCHOUT software I am wondering when Dataton will be releasing a version 7 that has significant upgrades.  It seems to me that the competition is not only gaining on WO but has surpassed it in many ways.    Some communication from Dataton would be appreciated and I think much needed right now.  I see the competition having webinars, instructional videos and engaging with it's users for feedback.   Can you please communicate with us on the status of a serious upgrade?

Thank you

[paulgfx]

Following.

[Magnus Broeders]

Hi!
We are constantly developing our products and can not say exactly when the shift to the next big major for WATCHOUT will be. Even in these times when companies in our industry tend to go to a full stop, Dataton invests in the future, having a team of developers working fulltime on the design of the next WATCHOUT version. We know we've come a long way with WATCHOUT 6, and it is still a strong product on the market. So we are now focusing on getting as many WATCHOUT users as possible to that platform, making sure people are ready for what's coming in the future. (You might have seen the promo campaign we're running, if not check it out here: https://www.dataton.com/watchout-licenses-and-upgrades-promo) We've also put a lot of effort into our server series WATCHPAX, making sure they run WATCHOUT flawless both now and in the future.

Regarding feedback, we do believe that our wide range of users and broad community is of great value for WATCHOUT and it's development, why customer feedback is an essential tool for us. Earlier this year, we did a first round of collecting feedback in a new way, and we will continue further with this during the year. If you're interested in being in the loop, feel free to DM or connect on LinkedIn.

Stay safe, and thank's for using WATCHOUT
/ Dataton Crew with
Magnus Broeders, Development Manager

[nikolai]

Agreed. I have a feeling they are forced to do a pretty large re-write to get to 64 bit.
And this will require lots of internal testing before we see anything like a public beta.
Once we do, It will be interesting to see if the product has actually gained significant features and improvements matching the competition, the todo-list is getting pretty long

Have to say Disguise did a pretty good job of dazzeling us with all sorts of webinars during this shutdown.

As I have said for years. i think a road map or at least something like uservoice.com, or maybe just a trello board would be fair, when you ask your customers to invest a significant amount of money and education/time in a product.   

[Johnny]

I personally don't care much for major fancy features like 3D, but I'm looking into alternatives to Watchout because it really isn't helpful. It can do the thing, but you need to have a few tricks up your sleeve for even pretty basic stuff like this:

So far it has never actually been helpful to me, although it has enabled me to do my job. Just something as simple as a popup saying "You won't be able to play this file" or not having to wade through heaps of windows when working on a smaller screen would be great.

And being able to tween generic inputs. Come on.

[mindopera]

I asked this question two years ago and I'm wondering if there is any news that Dataton can share in terms of a significant upgrade to WATCHOUT?  As invested as I am in the software I'm disappointed that there has been no communication about what's next.  I do realize that the next step in the evolution of the WO software is a big challenge and I think the user community would support your effort and understand that an exact release date (provided there is a new version in the works) is not always easy to pinpoint, so a little information about new features and improvements would probably help ease some worries.

Thanks

[Steve Farris]

I have also been a faithful cheerleader of WO (since version 1).  And I have to say, disguise has really been hitting my inbox during the pandemic with free seminars and tutorials.  I still feel like I can do most anything asked of me with Watchout, just interested in where we go from here.

Steve

[Eric Sambell]

Hello,

I have the same question, our current installations use Watchout, however it is difficult to consider using it going forward considering how little evolution there has been in the product in the last few years. For us the feature set is great, but stability and bugs have been known issues don't seem to be addressed. The specific ones that affect us are issues with doing seamless loops (both audio and video), limitations on the number of simultaneous audio files that can be rendered and incompatibility with the RedNet Dante cards. While there may be a new major release in the works, if these little nuisances aren't addressed there will be no one around to buy it if maintenance on the current version is not improved. Although I believe Watchout is still a great fit for our work there are new entrants to the market who can compete, and it is getting harder to explain away all the little things that any system should do, especially one that is this mature, that just don't quite work right.