Hi Karen, I switched in 2004 after being with Stenograph for 20 years and am very happy with Eclipse. The one mistake I made is thinking that it would be super easy. After all, how different could it be? It's more different than I thought and I needed to take some training and it took a few months before I was up to the editing speed I was at on Case. It was well worth the effort.
Since I switched, I have not cried once over a software glitch (I was frustrated to the point of crying a lot back then on Case). There are very few problems with Eclipse and when they do occur, they are minor. I couldn't imagine ever going back and was happy with my decision and have never regretted it. Case Catalyst at that time did not work well for me at all. Eclipse has a great support team and a great network of reporters on their forum who will help you with anything if they can. I also like the fact that their development version is available for download if you like to play with new features and give feedback. If something glitches and it needs fixing, the fix is out very quickly and available for download.
Since I have not done business with Stenograph for 5 years now, I have no idea what doing business with them is like now so I can't give you any feedback about that. I know that at the time that I switched, all the realtimers I knew used Eclipse so that's where I went because I like technology and being able to tweak the software to do what I want it to do. Eclipse is very versatile this way. I am always finding new ways to use it on the Eclipse forum and on this forum.
I hope this helps you to make your decision. I'd be happy to answer anything more specific.
Jump in with both feet and you will never regret it. I have been on Cimarron, ProCAT, Aristocrap -- er, cat, Case Catalyst, and finally, finally Eclipse. The learning curve is a PITA for about a month, but you will never regret it once you finally do it. And you can easily program ANY, and I mean ANY key on the keyboard to do whatever you want -- so I made most of my keys emulate what I knew already, which made it easier to switch. You cannot beat the support. I swore I would never deal with Stenograph again. Gotta run for now but don't be afraid! Anything you can do in five steps on Case Cat you can usually do in one or two on Eclipse!
I'm a new reporter and was on Eclipse as a student version. We learned Case at my school, and between the learning curve of trying to catch on with Eclipse and the major glitches I had working on Vista, I purchased Case for my professional.
I think I may go back to Eclipse someday, but I just couldn't imagine being a new reporter and having to call support every day to get something fixed. Most of the problems I had were "macro errors." When I called support, the conversation would always be, "We've never heard of that." and "Reinstall."
I haven't worked on it in a while, so I hope they have worked out the bugs with Vista.
There are a few things about Case that make me miss Eclipse, so I think I'll switch back eventually. Just wanted to put in my two cents. I would set up a demonstration with a sales person, and if you're running on Vista or Windows 7, make sure they've worked out the problems with the user account controls.
GLUK
I'd be willing to bet big bucks it was a Windows Vista problem. I am still on XP, absolutely refused to buy Vista because it was nothing but bugs and problems. I have bought two computers since Vista came out but STILL bought them with XP installed. From what I hear, 7 is a big improvement, but I'm waiting until it's out a while. In eight years on Eclipse, I've never had anything called a "macro error." Sorry you had a bad experience. Being a new reporter is so overwhelming already without trying to learn software and having issues! I got lucky because I worked doing scoping in house for an agency for the last nine months I was in school. I highly recommend that for any student. They were using Cimarron (precursor to Case) and when I decided to buy my own system, Stenograph wouldn't sell me the software unless I bought a computer from them. They lost a customer then because I already had a computer -- why should I buy another one? Anyway, won't bore you with the rest of my software story, haha! Good luck to both of you.
Permalink Reply by Judy on December 20, 2009 at 6:24
I've had Eclipse on Vista for about nine months and have never even had a hiccup. I believe I was instructed by tech support (the GREATEST tech support guy helped me set everything up on my new 'puter even though he was already scheduled to go home! Stayed on the phone with me for almost an hour making sure everything was fine-tuned) to turn something off in the User Account settings and that was it.
I've been on Eclipse since 1991, and I would not want to use another software. I have not had many issues over the years, but when I did have an issue, I found the tech support people to be intelligent and responsive, and they have great followup. I think they're the best.