I have used Wasatch for the Seiko, only when our ONYX RIP PC died and we needed it replaced. We ran all other printers through WASATCH.

What did you need to know?

Ok well it’s been about a year and a half since I’ve used a Wasatch RIP, so I’ll just try and remember! I know one thing, I’m not going to say “hey, ONYX is way better than WASATCH, coz it simply aint true! It isn’t that black and white.

 Overall, I never had a preference that really stood out, I find them both user friendly. They are just different, but I’ll just try and point out a few differences that I have noticed.

 When nesting your prints in Wasatch, you have the freedom to move the prints around wherever you like. You will be presented with a red warning box if prints are overlapping so you don’t get any nasty surprises, however you don’t have that option in Onyx. It automatically nests them for you. However there are different nesting options available.

 Once a file is ripped in Onyx, you can always go back to the original Postscript file settings and re-rip.

 One thing that really annoys me about Onyx is that it tends flush print files if a you send a file to print whilst another file is ripping, especially if it is a memory intensive file is being processed. It’s best to start printing before ripping any file.

 I have run multiple printers from Wasatch and ripped and printed from this software all at once without any major problems. I cannot say how stable Onyx is for this, as I only run one machine from it. (A Seiko 64S) We are about to procure a 100S, so I guess that question will be answered in due time. But from what I just outlined in the previous paragraph, I’m a little dubious! We have just updated to version 6.5, and so far, this has not happened. So maybe that glitch has been ironed out.

 Something I really like about Onyx is it really is quite logical; to quote the ONYX quick start guide “you must set the media and page size settings in RIP queue to match the media and page size that is currently loaded in the printer.” It simply won’t print if the settings are not right.

 At the end of the day, with a SEIKO, the preferred RIP software is ONYX. You buy this software when you purchase the machine. They don’t offer you WASATCH. I think they have done the tests and found that this works the best.

 I could crap on and on and on about the pros and con’s, but this is what I can remember off the top of my head. If you have any specific questions, I will be happy to answer them

(if I can!)

Seattle, in answer to one of your questions, I don't know a RIP that can rotate after ripping anyway. If anyone has any ideas I'd be very happy to hear them. Certainly Onyx can't, neither can the Vutek RIP.

That would be a nice thing for them to add to future software dont you think? It cant be very hard to add.

CJM.. Actually we bought our printer about a year and a half ago and the ONLY software our distributer offered was Wasatch. So yes we did buy them together.

But it does seen that ONYX ain't much better.

Thanks for the input.