Where is Workout Blender for Download Users?

I

imamac

Member
So I purchased almost all of Cathe's Videos as downloads with the promise that "In just a few short months" (ha! it said that for years!) Workout Blender would be available for us to create and share videos with each other using the Videos that we had purchased. Many posts were responded to noting such details...that we would only be able to use mixes where we had paid for each video...ya da ya da...

I check in every few months to see if the sharing app is ready and lo an behold Today I see on the website that Workout Blender is available but only for Cathe on demand subscribers???

Is this correct? and if so can I get a refund for the hundreds of videos that I purchased in exchange for On Demand?

Thanks,

I await my promised Workout Blender sharing app!
 
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The desktop beta Workout Blender is a free after sale app, not something you pay for or that is a guaranteed service. The desktop version of the WB is now a legacy piece of software that is several years old. We may in the future look at upgrading it if possible to do so, but desktop software of this nature is extremely difficult to develop and this is not something we are currently working on.
 
I just found the old blender page...it still says "In just a few more months we will release Workout Blender beta 2.0 which will allow you to easily share and download premixes with your fellow Cathletes. "

Is this a different version for download users? How many months is the wait now?
http://cathe.com/workout-blender/

vs. this version
http://cathe.com/stream/workout-blender/

I would really like to get a firm date and clarity on this. I had asked a while back (2012?? holy cow) about cathe.com commitment to supporting this...because I was trying to decide if I should continue to buy the DVDs or just the downloads. Now I am not sure I should even buy the downloads.

http://cathe.com/forum/threads/when...-beta-2-0-to-be-launched.290034/#post-2159518
 
The last time I asked for clarity (before purchasing another set of downloads) cathe implied complete commitment to getting this working and supporting it for download users.

Some quotes from that thread.

"To answer your question, yes, we are completely committed to getting the Workout Blender to work correctly, "

"Hopefully you don't think that it is an unsupported product, "

And my reply:

Will place my order for XTrain downloads today!

I feel like I have been lied to or at least misled. The least you could do is update your website instead of stringy me along for many years now.
It may not be paid for but cathe advertised this as a "feature" that would be available to purchasers of the downloads.

It's still there.

http://cathe.com/workout-blender/
More To Come
In just a few more months we will release Workout Blender beta 2.0 which will allow you to easily


 
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At one time the desktop beta version of the WB worked fairly well for a beta piece of software and many people used it to create premixes. Over the years desktop OS versions have changed as well as the software we used as the engine for the WB. We make or provide many free services for our customers, like the Workout Manager, forums, etc., but these are only free services we offer, not something we guarantee that we will continue to provide forever. Back in 2012 we were committed to improving the WB and spent a lot of time and money doing so. Back then we were able to make the WB work well for a complex beta piece of software, but it still was far from perfect.

The desktop version of the WB was always advertised as a beta piece of software, not a finished product - and this means "full of bugs and use at your own risk". We hope one day after finishing the online WB, which is many times easier to develop, to revisit the desktop version of the WB...but we can't say if this will be something we can technically handle with our skill sets or if it is even possible to do.
 
So why not update your website? Which has stated consistently for many years...in a few months you will be able to share workouts.
This is what I mean by stringing us along. At the time I purchased the downloads it was free beta software...but I clarified with cathe this would be future support for this before purchasing my downloads....I would have bought the DVDs with the premixes otherwise. Cathe goes down many notches today. Did you forget the golden rule of customer satisfaction?
 
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I agree with imamac. I am very disappointed that I am unable to create the pre-mixes any longer and had I known I might not have ordered downloads. There is no benefit to them other than speedy deliver which wasn't so speedy this time around. I can't say Cathe goes down notches as the work she puts into the work outs is top notch but the benefit of downloads has certainly gone done many notches.
 
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I understand your disappointment, but the lack of the Workout Blender doesn't stop you from enjoying your downloads. Downloads still offer certain advantages such as no need for an internet connection and can easily be taken with you when you travel. We spent years developing the desktop Workout Blender, but found it to be too difficult and costly to develop for the constantly changing desktop market and our skill set. The technology world also shifted several years ago with streaming replacing downloads as the most popular way for consumers to view and enjoy their videos. In the quickly changing world of video technology what was new and hot a few years ago is now obsolete. In the same way consumers have to replace media formats and hardware, like iPhones every 2 years, we too have to scrap research time and money on products that we have spent a lot of money on developing.

In our case we realized several years ago that it was doubtful we could ever bring the WB desktop version out of beta as the multiple OS systems for PC's and Mac's and video software were constantly changing. It became clear to us back then that the best solution was to make a WB product that lived on our server, not on the hundreds of different types of home computers. These are the kind of things you only learn in beta testing and is the reason you find that most beta software never makes it out of the testing phase.



.
 
I love my downloads and will always buy them. Even though the Desktop WB is a dinosaur, I find having downloads very useful for many other reasons. A couple of quick expamples would be...I can take all my workouts with me when I travel and do them right from my Ipad. I workout in my basement and the internet can be spotty at times. Not an issue with the downloads. A have a computer hooked to my TV and they are readily available. With this said, I am a little disappointed that the Desktop WB is going by the wayside, but at the same time understand the challenges keeping it up and running.
 
imamac said:
So I purchased almost all of Cathe's Videos as downloads with the promise that "In just a few short months" (ha! it said that for years!) Workout Blender would be available for us to create and share videos with each other using the Videos that we had purchased. Many posts were responded to noting such details...that we would only be able to use mixes where we had paid for each video...ya da ya da...

I check in every few months to see if the sharing app is ready and lo an behold Today I see on the website that Workout Blender is available but only for Cathe on demand subscribers???

Is this correct? and if so can I get a refund for the hundreds of videos that I purchased in exchange for On Demand?

Thanks,

I await my promised Workout Blender sharing app!
Click to expand...

imamac said:
The last time I asked for clarity (before purchasing another set of downloads) cathe implied complete commitment to getting this working and supporting it for download users.

Some quotes from that thread.

"To answer your question, yes, we are completely committed to getting the Workout Blender to work correctly, "

"Hopefully you don't think that it is an unsupported product, "

And my reply:

Will place my order for XTrain downloads today!

I feel like I have been lied to or at least misled. The least you could do is update your website instead of stringy me along for many years now.
It may not be paid for but cathe advertised this as a "feature" that would be available to purchasers of the downloads.

It's still there.

http://cathe.com/workout-blender/
More To Come
In just a few more months we will release Workout Blender beta 2.0 which will allow you to easily
Click to expand...

I agree with imamac, it is very disappointing to read that there'll be no more work done on the workout blender for those of us who like to purchase downloads and believe an announcement should have been made to let us all know. I suggest that downloads should now be a lot cheaper to buy than they currently are since we don't get all the premixes and will no longer be able to make our own with the blender. Another suggestion would be to continue to upgrade and develop the blender as promised and charge a one-off fee for downloading the software for us to use at home.
 
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mjd said:
I agree with imamac, it is very disappointing to read that there'll be no more work done on the workout blender for those of us who like to purchase downloads and believe an announcement should have been made to let us all know. I suggest that downloads should now be a lot cheaper to buy than they currently are since we don't get all the premixes and will no longer be able to make our own with the blender. Another suggestion would be to continue to upgrade and develop the blender as promised and charge a one-off fee for downloading the software for us to use at home.
Click to expand...

Charging a fee for the download version of the Workout Blender would probably only net us a few hundred dollars while the cost of hiring programmers (assuming you could find qualified ones) would probably cost between $500,000 and 3 million dollars. It's just not practical to do this for a free piece of software and is well beyond our ability to do so. Downloads have also now been replaced now by streaming as the way most people prefer to view media. So there is no growth potential in Downloads.

At one time we were committed to making the Workout Blender work, as Cathe stated, just as companies like Microsoft were at one time committed to Zune and Vista or Apple was with Lisa. We spent thousands of dollars trying to develop the free desktop version of the Workout Blender but after years of trying it became obvious that it was just to complicated to do with our resources. It also became clear that the best solution was to just develop an online version of the WB as this is many times easier to do than is a desktop version.
 
forum_admin said:
Charging a fee for the download version of the Workout Blender would probably only net us a few hundred dollars while the cost of hiring programmers (assuming you could find qualified ones) would probably cost between $500,000 and 3 million dollars. It's just not practical to do this for a free piece of software and is well beyond our ability to do so. Downloads have also now been replaced now by streaming as the way most people prefer to view media. So there is no growth potential in Downloads.

At one time we were committed to making the Workout Blender work, as Cathe stated, just as companies like Microsoft were at one time committed to Zune and Vista or Apple was with Lisa. We spent thousands of dollars trying to develop the free desktop version of the Workout Blender but after years of trying it became obvious that it was just to complicated to do with our resources. It also became clear that the best solution was to just develop an online version of the WB as this is many times easier to do than is a desktop version.
Click to expand...


Isn't the obvious solution to this problem to allow people who have downloaded to have access to the online workout blender?
 
Hi Raj,

It's impossible to use downloads on the Workout Blender as it is not a desktop application. The only way the Workout Blender can work is by having the WB software and video files on the same Linux server. Since your downloads reside on your system, not our server, and because you're either using Windows or Mac OS, the WB is not an option. The Workout Blender is only designed for our Cathe OnDemand service and can not work on a desktop.
 
What I mean is that you could create a version of On Demand that has all the premixes from the DVDs and allow download buyers to access the premixes that equate to the videos they have bought.
 
Hi Raj, Unfortunately, a premix is not a video file, it is a playlist and can't be downloaded. To turn all of our premixes into actual video files would take a tremendous amount of time to do (we're talking years) and the files would be huge. Just to do download the LITE series premixes you would need 300 gigabytes of storage. Since we have to pay server storage and bandwidth charges this would cost us more than we charge to purchase a download. I know what you're asking seems simple, but it is not. If you want premixes the only way to get them is to purchase the DVDs or subscribe to Cathe OnDemand.
 
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The other option would be to give download users a credit for Cathe on demand so they can at least try a premix, and then decide if they want to subscribe on an ongoing basis (e.g. a credit equal to the amount the paid for the download).
 
Hi, I know this is an old thread, but thought I'd post the info so that people can find it if they have the same question. I used the desktop Workout Blender app on my Mac until it stopped working due to an out of date library incompatibility. So I worked out an alternative. I'm using Mac based tools, though there are likely some similar tools on Windows.

You need to know which chapters are used for any particular premix that you want to build from your downloads. They are vaguely listed by category in the PDF user guides that can be downloaded. But I like to use the Workout Manager because they have the specific chapter numbers and names. So go to Workout Manager on Cathe's website. Click on the Calendar in the top bar and then select "Add Workout" on the right. Select "DVD", then the DVD name, then the Premix. The Premix chapters will show on the right side, listing the chapter number and name.

I use the free Handbrake tool to save chapters (individual or a sequence) from the digital download video file and save them to files. This will result in a number of separate video files. To combine them for the premix, I use another tool called MP4tools; you need to click on the "Edit Files" button, then select to open the first video file that corresponds to the first chapter(s) you want to include in the premix. Then you use "Add File" to add the subsequent files/chapters. Once you have added all the files for the premix, you can click "Join" to create the combined output file. And you have your premix video.

If you want the premix video to have chapter information, there are further steps that can be taken using other tools like Subler (again, for Mac). If there is interest in that, I can go over that.
 
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