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Topic: My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6 (Read 4897 times) previous topic - next topic
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My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Ok, to put a long story short, in this topic I'm making room for my frustration regarding Nero. The software and the company behind it.

  As a Nero user, I'm concerned about it's quality. And because there are some issues that worry me for some time, and didn't change with the v6 release, I have decided to send a mail to Ahead.
  This is what I wrote:

Code: [Select]
Hi!

Nero is great... blah, blah... you know all that so I won't bother :-).

But there are three things that drive my mad:
1 - An option for default 0 sec pauses between audio tracks.
2 - Choosing between "start multisession" "continue" and "no
multisession" doesn't change correctly in the "Burn/Action" tab. Yes,
I'm talking about the checking/unchecking "Finalize CD" and choosing the
correct writing method. :)
3 - That gay volume label naming system. I change the name in the
complilation and only the Joliet name gets changed, the ISO doesn't get
changed.

I hope you can do something about it, it shouldn't be that difficult.
;-)

Oh, and it would be nice if the updates would be REALLY updates - that
means a couple of MB and not the whole 20MB release. It's not a problem
for me but I know there are some (actually a lot of) people that find it
a bit painfull to download the whole release on a 56k modem.;-)

Thanks for all your hard work, Regards - Matus "Gambit" Vojtek

P.S. - I recommend you to visit the great boards at
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/ . A lot of Nero discussion happens there.


And the response I got:

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Dear valued customer,

thank you for your email.

1) a) You get a very short pause if you don't split the wav-file correctly.
The separation should be at a sample position which is divisible by (2352/4). If not you can get a pause of 1/75s. Please take a
look (e.g. with CoolEdit) at the end of the sample you write and delete the silent section of the wav-file.

b) This can also be caused by a poor read from the source drive used to extract the song from an Audio CD, before writing to the CD.
To avoid this, use your recorder as both source and destination for the extraction and write process.

c) And this can be caused by corrupted audio files. Use Nero’s WAV Editor to clean up the ending of the song.


Also:

Please visit our website at www.nero.com for step by step directions on how to remove the 2 second pause or Pregap

Use the below link to go to the exact location where our How To guides are located:
http://www.nero.com/en/index.html#c1034059030144

And look under 'create an Audio CD' .

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 or later to open these files. You can download this for free from Adobe's website at http://www.adobe.com

2) launch Nero and then you can choose between these options, and Nero identify if there is a multisession disk on the drive.

3) that is ISO, that means under standard, you only copy the files with his name, he doesn´t make changes between copied and basic files.

But special thanks for your effort, this is great how you want to help us. We need feedback from our customers for improve our
product.

Should you have any other request or wish more information please do not hestitate to contact us.

best regards

Alphan Cakir
Support

Ahead Software AG
Im Stoeckmaedle 18
76307 Karlsbad
Germany
Fax : ++49 (0)7248 911 888
http://www.nero.com
______________________________


We highly value your opinion. Please click the link below to enter our Customer Satisfaction voting page:
Vote: http://213.144.20.201/CrmQm/Customer.php?f_sData=YT0xJm09MTAwMjY4JnU9MzQmbD0y


I think you can guess, that I was not very happy with this answer, so I mailed them again:

Code: [Select]
wtf is this? it completely misses the point of my mail!!!
Gambit


And the reply:

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Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email.

Please uninstall the existing version of Nero/install Nero 5.5.10.42(not Nero 6) by doing the following…it may address your issues.
The entire process will not cost you anything.
First make sure you have your Nero 5 serial key to install Nero/Nero Express with. It should look like 15xx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxx. It should be located on the inside of the Nero Jewel case, or on the back of the paper sleeve the Nero CD came in. You can also go into your Registry, and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and under SOFTWARE_AHEAD_NERO BURNING-ROM_INFO obtain your Nero 5 serial key from here.

Then download NeroClean Tool from ftp://ftp9.nero.com/attach/Nero-CleanTool.zip
to your desktop. Unzip the file and then double click on the EXE file to run. Select 'Clean All' option and then click on the 'Clean' button to Uninstall all Nero products. And then reboot your system. It will clean the registry and remove all Nero entries.
After that download and install Nero 5.5.10.42 from our website at www.nero.com <http://www.nero.com>. Click on the “downloads” drop down menu, on the left side, click on “updates>previous versions”. On the right side, click on “Previous versions of Nero”. This will bring you to the “download page” showing “Nero551042.exe” to download. Use your Nero 5 serial key to unlock from Demo mode.


Best regards
Al Valerio

Ahead  Support Team
_________________________________________________________
Office hours are from Monday to Friday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm PST

Ahead Software Inc.
Glendale, CA 91203
FAX: (818) 956 7094
______________________________


We highly value your opinion. Please click the link below to enter our Customer Satisfaction voting page:
X-Vote: http://213.144.20.201/CrmQm/Customer.php?f_sData=YT0xJm09MTA1OTUzJnU9MzImbD0y


Hmm, yeah you guess it, still not it. So another mail went on it's way to Ahead...

Code: [Select]
I have to admit, at first I was really pissed off by your response, but it's getting really ridiculous now.
I'm eager to see what comes next;-)
Gambit


As usual, a week later a reply was in my mail box:

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Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email.

Please give us a call at 888-309-4212  so we can further assist you with your problem. Mon-Fri 8am-5pm PST California, USA.


Best regards
Al Valerio

Ahead  Support Team
_________________________________________________________
Office hours are from Monday to Friday 9:00 am to 5:00 pm PST

Ahead Software Inc.
Glendale, CA 91203
FAX: (818) 956 7094
______________________________


Vote:
X-Vote: http://213.144.20.201/CrmQm/Customer.php?f_sData=YT0xJm09MTEyNDU0JnU9MzImbD0y


And still, no real reply to my mail... Of course I ain't going to waste my money to call somebody in the USA who, for sure, won't be able to help me.

  So I decided to at least post it her for your amusement. Your comments are welcome.

  P.S.: One last thing. Looking back at Nero 6, I realize how rushed this release was. The amount of bugs (I think I don't have to start listing them, everybody reading this forum knows about them), the delay of NeroDigital etc. make me think of the "release buggy app fast vs release stable app slow" issue.
  Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you, and maybe, but just maybe, finally hope for an answer...

[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']  And because this is Off-Topic... I do it TRL style: Hi, I wanna give a shout out to all the sick and horny nerds in the IRC channel that helped my with this :B [/span]

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #1
Whether or not you got the responses you wanted, your responses in turn were hardly tactful.  In fact, reading the follow ups from Ahead, I'm surprised they weren't condescending in their responses to you.

As for calling that number, I'm not sure if it's the same for incoming international calls, but 888 numbers are just like 800 numbers in that they are toll free to the caller.

Finally, I don't think you'll get very far in getting a response you want by coming to HA and trashing Ahead.  Personally, I'm getting a little tired of the more childish ranting and complaints about the company that some people have been espousing here lately.  I'm also surprised to see a lack of appreciation for the interest the company has been showing in communities like Hydrogenaudio as far as trying to address our needs, which is something not many companies would do.  Think FAAD2 AAC-HE support for one, or gapless AAC support for another, and these are just 2 examples.

Quote
And because this is Off-Topic... I do it TRL style: Hi, I wanna give a shout out to all the sick and horny nerds in the IRC channel that helped my with this :B


Heh.  What exactly did they help you with?  Coming up with a more clever rant?

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #2
Actually sounds like a typical tech support response to me

No matter which company I usually get a reply from support that has almost nothing to do with the problem. Maybe it is because support people don't carefully read the whole description are too quick performing a copy+paste of the answer to a similar problem in their top 10 customer problems (which explains the n00b answer to a question that was not asked). I dread the next time I have to contact customer support for any computer issue since customer support people are not qualified enough to answer the questions I ask.
"Something bothering you, Mister Spock?"

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #3
Quote
This is what I wrote:

Code: [Select]
P.S. - I recommend you to visit the great boards at
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/ . A lot of Nero discussion happens there.

no offence, Gambit, but can anyone please tell me since when HA had become a forum to discuss NERO ?!
come on, there are much too many threads about Nero in this forum, and this is becoming a real absurd.

among Nero's developers, there are two valued members of this forum, and lots of us are interested in the work of menno and ivan. but, frankly, I don't give a sh*t about nero! i still use win98 with easycd 3.
this is a forum to discuss AUDIO, and imho, the only relevant discussion about nero should target the mp4 plugins and multimedia stuff..

i believe that even Menno would agree with me..
Quote
Quote
After I installed Nero Media Player on my system, Nero Burning Rom now crashes and/or gives errors when trying to burn CDs. It worked right up until the time I installed the Nero Media Player. Something must have gotten clobbered by the Nero Media PLayer install. I had to remove all my Nero programs from my PC and reinstall from the Nero 6 Ultra CD and update them to the latest versions. Now I can burn CDs again... I think I'll stay away from the Nero Media Player and the new updated codec until all the bugs are worked out.

You'd better mail about this problem with Nero directly instead of posting it here (or besides posting it here).
That's of much more use.

Menno


to conclude,
imho, and again - only imHo, it seems like the off-topic section of this board is getting far too large.

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #4
Nero discussion is fine as long as it takes place within the CD Hardware/Software forum.  An outlet for discussion of CD-R software is one of the purposes of that forum even.

Seriously, HA has really expanded beyond just audio codecs and traditional multimedia.  Audio hardware and related software discussion is a critical part of this place now too, and has been for awhile I think.

That having been said, tech support related problems for Nero should be directed at Nero tech support at the very least.  I don't see much of a problem in people discussing this kind of stuff here, but this place was not designed to really support that kind of process.

This kind of discussion shouldn't really be in the off-topic forums here either.  I don't think this thread is representative of the typical types of discussions that take place here either.  It would seem that the starter of this thread posted this to the off topic section though because he was more interested in ranting than in actually having a useful discussion about a piece of audio related software...

With the exception of music related topics (which may eventually go in a seperate music forum), I think that most of the stuff in the off-topic forum actually does fit here.  I can't exactly regulate what kinds of things people post here either, beyond simply saying that audio topics which should go in another forum on HA, shouldn't be here.  If I put more restrictions on it, then it wouldn't really be "off-topic" anymore, but "certain other topics."

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #5
These answers from Nero are entertaining 

Yes, this is typical from a level-1 tech support, that usually deal with people asking why their screen doesn't work when there are lighnings, or why the CD is empty when they open the file explorer and click burn without dragging the desired files.
Your requests are directed to the development team, above the level-2 support. If they don't have a "feature requests" section, it will be long to reach them. You'll  have to answer that your problems are not solved each time they answer something new. When they don't know how to answer anymore, the question will pass at the above level.

About point 2 : always choose "No multisession". The other choices enables some weird feature of Nero for tracking your data backups. If you just want a multisession CD, choose "no multisession", and don't close the CD.

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #6
Gambit: don`t expect too much from "evil corporate and money-making-not-customer-care-oriented" Ahead 

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #7
Quote
2 - Choosing between "start multisession" "continue" and "no
multisession" doesn't change correctly in the "Burn/Action" tab. Yes,
I'm talking about the checking/unchecking "Finalize CD" and choosing the
correct writing method

Nero's inability to finalize any CD regardless of what's checked in the settings is what made me not use the software. Not one downloaded version, nor the version that came with my CD-RW drive was able to finalize. Little did I know that only a retail boxed version would work properly as it was stated in a document on the Nero installation CD that came with my CD-RW drive.

I think instead of ranting about Nero's bug's, etc., just choose another CD writing software that does exactly what you want - that's what I did.

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #8
Quote
Nero's inability to finalize any CD regardless of what's checked in the settings is what made me not use the software. Not one downloaded version, nor the version that came with my CD-RW drive was able to finalize. Little did I know that only a retail boxed version would work properly as it was stated in a document on the Nero installation CD that came with my CD-RW drive.

I think instead of ranting about Nero's bug's, etc., just choose another CD writing software that does exactly what you want - that's what I did.


What you wrote does only relate to multisession-discs?! That could clear up some problems I had on that few occasions where I wanted to burn multisession discs. On other burn methods finalization works of course.

Regards, David.

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #9
OK, so the 1st level support may be trained to give you the stock answer corresponding to what appears to be the "key word" in the complaint.

They should also have some training in how to deal with folks who appear to be abusive, or who turn out to be developers of competing software (or both).  Generally that would mean not spending a lot of effort on your complaint.

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #10
Quote
What you wrote does only relate to multisession-discs?! That could clear up some problems I had on that few occasions where I wanted to burn multisession discs. On other burn methods finalization works of course.

Nero's inability to finalize any CD regardless of what's checked in the settings

No it isn't just multisesson discs - and that was stated in a document on the Nero install CD that said something to the tone of only a retail purchased (box) version could finalize a disc, so supposedly even if it is purchased online users are shit out of luck. I don't know exactly what document it was, it could have been the license or readme file I just remember reading it when I was browsing the installation CD.

This really bothered me because the install CD that shipped with my CD-RW drive is not the retail version it is a special build that is made only to work with that drive, nontheless it isn't considered a retail version.

The failure to finalize is in all methods of writing, and no settings I fiddled with worked. I was never able to get Nero to finalize any disc and had to use a different CD writing program to finalize those few discs that Nero wouldn't, even though the option was set. If those discs had been audio CD's I would have probably had to redo them.

Hell its such a big deal for me that I'm wondering why drive manufactures don't just get permission or even pay to include burnatonce, it would solve alot of the corporate bullshit about what's retail and what's non-retail.

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #11
Andavari

I only had problems with multisession-discs untill now. Audio CDs and Data CDs never made any problems... The version of Nero that I use came with my CD-RW-Drive and got updated with the download version from Ahead's website.

My e-mail affair with Ahead regarding Nero 6

Reply #12
Quote
Gambit: don`t expect too much from "evil corporate and money-making-not-customer-care-oriented" Ahead 

You've been warned about trolling like this numerous times in the past, though I guess you didn't learn your lesson, even from having been on the verge of banishment on several occassions.  I won't bother writing up some sort of detailed response since I've already done that for you in the past, and also because you seemed to have totally ignored the post I made earlier in this thread.

Your account has been suspended for 30 days.

Thread closed.