| Pages in topic: [1 2 3 4 5] > | DVX versus MemoQ Thread poster: Wolfgang Jörissen
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Maybe this discussion from another thread should be continued here in a bit more detailed way. Kevin, I hope you do not mind me quoting you here.
Kevin Lossner wrote:
There are a few things in the current version of MemoQ which I find particularly advantageous. I like the subsegment concordancing, and the way the assembly feature works in v3.5 together with the hotkey match inserts let me work faster and better than my usual tool DVX (which is way better than Trados). The TM-driven segmentation is also useful for overcoming problems created by differences in the way some people handle manual segmentation in Trados. In a current project with about 250 little TTX files, I can have a much better overview of the progress and export selectively than I can with DVX and probably Trados. (I don't know my way around Synergy, so I'm hesitant to make a definitive statement for the current version.)
Actually, I have been a DV3/DVX groupy for years. But I have been observing MemoQ quite from the beginning and I must say that a few things in it appeal to me. What I like about it in particular:
- pretty subjective: I think the MemoQ interface is "sexier" than in DVX, fresher
- the possibility to produce Word files with Trados segmentation without even pre-segmenting them in Trados (yes, I know there might be segmentation issues, but aren't there loads of them between TagEditor and Word and even among Trados-produced Word files?)
- the Transit filter in the new version, which seems to be more mature than the user-invented workaround through the OpenOffice XML filter in DVX
- the fact that Kilgray seems to be inspired by Atril's old times support mentality
But... I would miss the row selector and the SQL flexibility. Unless...
For the benefit of all of us, I would like to collect some arguments for/against both tools. Could the experts come up with some comments, please?
| | | | | Too bad Jost Zetzsche doesn't hang out here (AFAIK) | May 7, 2009 |
I think he could probably do an excellent head-to-head comparison. He still works mostly with DVX, but I never got around to asking the reasons when we met in Budapest. There were more interesting things to talk about like Oregon, my favorite US state.
I don't have any particular feelings about the sexiness of the interface; moving the file navigator out of the work area is more functional in some ways, but I actually do miss it. I wouldn't mind having it as an interface option, exc... See more I think he could probably do an excellent head-to-head comparison. He still works mostly with DVX, but I never got around to asking the reasons when we met in Budapest. There were more interesting things to talk about like Oregon, my favorite US state.
I don't have any particular feelings about the sexiness of the interface; moving the file navigator out of the work area is more functional in some ways, but I actually do miss it. I wouldn't mind having it as an interface option, except I'd like it to really work, not collapse the view on me all the damned time and fail to show the file I'm currently working on. Like I said, the current project I am doing mostly in DVX really makes me appreciate the advantages of MemoQ. If I didn't need the comment tables I'd definitely blow DVX off for this one. And those are coming in v4 according to Kilgray.
You are very right about that Transit filter in MemoQ, though I haven't had a chance to test it in some of the partially pre-translated projects I've got in my archive. And it doesn't (yet) handle the terminology import, which is unfortunate. I hope that gets sorted out. However, compared with the way we now do Transit projects with DVX it sounds like a dream. Score another one for the Kilgray team.
Support is the big winner for Kilgray right now. But now Atril has made some unknown French company the banner carrier for sales and support in the German-speaking countries and some other EU countries... will this lead to victory or Waterloo? Whatever the result, I'm sure both will be ahead of SDL on this one.
Actually, I don't think Kilgray is all that keen on competing with Atril, at least not in the freelancer market. Several members of the management board remarked as much. There is a great deal of respect - real respect I think - for what Atril has done and the same wistful wish that many of us have that the company would get its act together and start challenging its competitors with the real innovation and super support we knew in the past.
I personally would prefer to see the two companies pull a double flanking maneuver on SDL. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Giles Watson 
Italy
Local time: 22:39
Italian to English
In memoriam | Nice scenario | May 7, 2009 |
Kevin Lossner wrote:
I personally would prefer to see the two companies pull a double flanking maneuver on SDL.
Whatever SDL's faults, they are way better than the Trados of old and seem to be making a genuine effort to improve both the product and support (not a tough call, I grant you).
Still, an Atril+Kilgray combo might put a bit of much-needed competitive pressure on SDL. As Kevin says, DVX has been on standby for a bit too long.
Giles
| | | | | Where the action is | May 7, 2009 |
Whatever SDL's faults, they are way better than the Trados of old and seem to be making a genuine effort to improve both the product and support (not a tough call, I grant you).
Well... maybe. From what I have observed after some recent acquisitions, though, I don't think the picture is quite so good. Support at Pass Engineering did not improve after SDL got its claws in. I keep thinking of the Borgs in that not-so-new Star Trek revival. No idea why....
The real battleground for hearts & minds will be with LSPs and enterprises. That's where Atril fumbled the ball and hasn't recovered it with the server version God-knows-how-overdue. The MemoQ server is very competitive when compared with SDL Trados and Across, and the LSPs and end customers I've talked to that use it (all familiar with Trados AFAIK) are rather happy with it.
Another thing I've noticed with Kilgray is that the company is moving toward a mature model of business with an annual fee to cover upgrades and support. Now a first reaction to this might be a reminder that most of us haven't paid a dime or even a euro cent for support or upgrades since we got our DVX licenses from Atril and... well... I guess we're getting what we pay for lately. I have felt bled and abused by the continual upgrade fees from Trados and later SDL Trados, not because it was a lot of money for me or because I object to these fees on principle. My objection was to the lack of support and the lack of useful innovation. A few fixes to buggy filters and not much more I could really use. BFD. At least with Kilgray I trust that the money will be put to good use for now delivering useful improvements.
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Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 22:39
Italian to English
In memoriam | The way forward | May 7, 2009 |
Kevin Lossner wrote:
The real battleground for hearts & minds will be with LSPs and enterprises.
That's always been the case. It's also a tad ironic, considering Atril - and later Wordfast and all the others - made their inroads into Trados' monopoly by focusing on the freelancers Trados so signally ignored. What goes around comes around, I suppose.
G.
| | | | | Other import filters in MemoQ ? | May 8, 2009 |
I have not tested MemoQ yet, but I don't know any other CAT tool which can import the 32 file formats you can select when importing files into DVX.
On the other hand I have to deal with Metatexis and OmegaT now because neither DVX nor Trados can handle Amharic/Tigrigna (=Ge'ez) Unicode characters (maybe PoEdit could do it too). It will be interesting to test MemoQ - as soon as I will have the time..
| | | | | File formats & Unicode | May 8, 2009 |
Harry Bornemann wrote:
... I don't know any other CAT tool which can import the 32 file formats you can select when importing files into DVX.
Some of those filters are pretty useless, however or require significant prep. Simple ones like RTF/DOC and the one for Word 2007, for example. That's why we have the CodeZapper macros and a bunch of stupid workarounds right now. That has really gotten old for me. I've been playing this game for years now with Word 2003 docs: c'mon, dammit, I just want to import the stupid file and translate it, not spend half an hour trying to clean the codes out of two lousy pages!
And don't get me started on the InDesign filter. I haven't had a chance to compare MemoQ's filter, but the last time I tried to use the DVX InDesign filter I thanked God that I had just bought the latest Trados upgrade - specifically because the buggy filter for InDesign in the previous version had been fixed to the point where it worked for the urgent project at hand.
I'm sure that I'll continue using DVX in many ways and filters might be part of that. I'll do what some already do: add an exchange workflow with MemoQ using the external views (Trados RTF or the tables, probably the former in my case since it's less work).
On the other hand I have to deal with Metatexis and OmegaT now because neither DVX nor Trados can handle Amharic/Tigrigna (=Ge'ez) Unicode characters (maybe PoEdit could do it too). It will be interesting to test MemoQ - as soon as I will have the time..
Interesting question. When you do the test, stay in close contact with the development/support group (they are very responsive) and let us know the results. I hadn't heard that OmegaT worked for that particular challenge, but I'm pleased to hear that it does. Would you mind sending me a note with details to share in this regard? There might be a few useful lessons for other languages.
| | | | | Import/export of TMs | May 8, 2009 |
Kevin Lossner wrote:
I'm sure that I'll continue using DVX in many ways and filters might be part of that. I'll do what some already do: add an exchange workflow with MemoQ using the external views (Trados RTF or the tables, probably the former in my case since it's less work).
How does MemoQ handle the import and export of TMs? Exporting a huge TM (let's say 500k entries) out of DVX seems to be an almost impossible task (unless you have a spare computer and a couple of days time - I will kiss everyone who prooves me wrong though). I assume your TMs in DVX are not on the small side either. How did/do you cope with the import/export issue?
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| Exporting TMs at the speed of light | May 8, 2009 |
No idea, Wolfgang. Couldn't be any slower than what we know from DVX right now. HOWEVER, when I have a bit of time I can make a very good comparison: I exported my entire DVX TM about a month ago and imported it into MemoQ. I forgot to time the import, but I don't think it was bad. I have the TMX, though, and I can run a stopwatch on it while I have a beer (or more like a cup of coffee in my case). But I can export from the big MemoQ TM and see how long it takes.
One thing I do reme... See more No idea, Wolfgang. Couldn't be any slower than what we know from DVX right now. HOWEVER, when I have a bit of time I can make a very good comparison: I exported my entire DVX TM about a month ago and imported it into MemoQ. I forgot to time the import, but I don't think it was bad. I have the TMX, though, and I can run a stopwatch on it while I have a beer (or more like a cup of coffee in my case). But I can export from the big MemoQ TM and see how long it takes.
One thing I do remember from my earlier tests (before I decided to use MQ for real work): TMX from both DV and Trados imports without fiddling. Bloody Trados isn't really standards-compliant as you know, and you can't pass a TMX back and forth between DVX & Trados without some adaptation. So I was grateful that the folks at Kilgray made my work a little easier there. Sometimes small things are important. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Direct access with Access | May 8, 2009 |
Wolfgang Jörissen wrote:
How did/do you cope with the import/export issue?
I know what you mean..
Do you have MS Access (2000)? I have a DVX-TM with 250k entries and can open the .dvmdb file in Access. Then it takes only a few queries to create a tab separated table which exports quickly from Access.
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Kevin Lossner wrote:
I hadn't heard that OmegaT worked for that particular challenge, but I'm pleased to hear that it does. Would you mind sending me a note with details to share in this regard? There might be a few useful lessons for other languages.
I started this topic in the thread CAT Tools for Amharic, where I will post any questions and answers as soon as they will emerge.
I learned that there are only 4 additional segment delimiters in Ge'ez. I have them in a Word file, but I cannot post them here because they would not display properly in a browser.
I did not yet have the time to fiddle with the segmentation rules in OmegaT or Metatexis either.
| | | | XX789 (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 22:39
English to Dutch
+ ...
The last time when I tested MemoQ, today that is, it couldn't even export a simple Dutch Word file with 1 font, 2 different font sizes and 2 different font types. The file could hardly have been any cleaner.
MemoQ definitely looks slick and awesome, and I see some real potential here. But as for now, it simply seems to be far less reliable. And in the end, I will opt for reliability, though I absolutely agree that DVX should let themselves get inspired a bit by MemoQ.
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| Very interesting | May 8, 2009 |
Loek van Kooten wrote:
The last time when I tested MemoQ, today that is, it couldn't even export a simple Dutch Word file with 1 font, 2 different font sizes and 2 different font types. The file could hardly have been any cleaner.
What version was that? I have been doing freaky press releases written by some guy who needs a serious lesson about font formatting, and have had no technical problems. The current build is 3.5.16.
Last night, however, I did notice some strange behavior when shift-clicking ranges of segments to lock and exclude them from a project. I don't recall this being a problem in earlier versions, and I'll have to look into it more, because that can be a real pain with some of the files I get.
| | | | XX789 (X)
Netherlands
Local time: 22:39
English to Dutch
+ ...
The newest version!
Also it seemed impossible to join segments from Excel files, even if they came from the very same cell (and no, they were not in a View). That was merely a minor annoyance though.
| | | | | Excel & project management | May 8, 2009 |
Hm. I would be personally annoyed about the Excel issue. I'll have to look at that, because I have a client who manages his product marketing data that way (horror!), and this would be a big inconvenience. That does, however, remind me of another point of comparison where I *think* DVX currently has the advantage. That is for managing multi-lingual projects (one source language, N target languages). I say "think", because I don't do this actively; I've just run tests and done documentation of th... See more Hm. I would be personally annoyed about the Excel issue. I'll have to look at that, because I have a client who manages his product marketing data that way (horror!), and this would be a big inconvenience. That does, however, remind me of another point of comparison where I *think* DVX currently has the advantage. That is for managing multi-lingual projects (one source language, N target languages). I say "think", because I don't do this actively; I've just run tests and done documentation of that function for a few clients that were interested it. But I haven't seen a way to do it as efficiently in MemoQ, but maybe there is another user (probably an LSP) who knows better.
I have been recommending that the client with those Excel files invest in DVX Workgroup for some time to deal with the 14 to 20+ language translations needed for every product release (lots of them). I thought briefly about recommending MemoQ Server instead, but for this particular client, who is NOT very sophisticated in IT and data management matters, I could not see this as a clear advantage. Again, this could be ignorance on my part - I'll look into it more when I can find the time. There's got to be some reasonable way to handle this, since the LSPs I talked to were happy and I can't imagine they would be otherwise. ▲ Collapse
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