Version 1.0 and 2.0 file compatibility

bigsneeze wrote on 11/6/2001, 7:14 PM

I'd tried making a short project using version 2.0 and then openning it on another computer running version 1.0. I got an error message that said, "the file is an unsupported format". I'd like to give the version 1.0 program to my dad so that we can create a project together, but version 2.0 files don't seem to be backwards compatible with version 1.0.
Anybody know something about this? - John

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 11/6/2001, 10:31 PM

This is very typical of *most* software, not just VideoFactory. Usually
when a new version comes out, it adds features that didn't exist in the
old version. These features of course get saved in the file you create
with the new version, and the older version doesn't know what to do
with them. Even if you don't use the newer features, the files are often
still saved in a different format for a variety of reasons. Version 2.0 can
of course open 1.0 files because it "knows" how those files are structured.
But version 1.0 has no such foreknowledge of what 2.0 files would be like.

bigsneeze wrote on 11/7/2001, 5:07 AM

Thanks for your reply. I was hoping that since the file extensions were the same, that I was overlooking something, but what you say sounds right. - John

Chienworks wrote on 11/7/2001, 7:01 AM

Microsoft is famous for this as a marketing method. Each new version of
Office has it's own unique internal file types. Once the first person in
your organization upgrades to the new version, everyone else has to
follow suit (and spend lots of money) or they won't be able to share
files anymore.

On the other hand Sonic Foundry is truly adding new useful features
rather than just being greedy ;-) Note how delightfully low their upgrade
pricing is compared to Microsoft.

Market pressures did force Microsoft to add previous versions' file types
to the "Save As:" menu. That way an Office 2000 user could save files
in an Office 97 format, although at the risk of losing some of the newer
formatting features. Maybe Sonic Foundry could release a patch that
would enable the same thing.