I have had repeated and prolonged problems with FTR 5.5 and 5.6 -- the free download player systems. The Court provides, at a fee, these FTR encrypted files of courtroom audio. You try to use the FTR software on XP, and it is sooo clunky that it is nearly useless. The sliders don't adjust, the clock does not advance, you have no idea what it is doing if you try to back up. (Oh, the sliders adjust eventually, at their chosen pace, but do not show you any indication of having done so.) You cannot move the audio play spot with the mouse. (And you cannot make an mp3 or wma file from it see below.)
Try it on Windows 7 -- works somewhat better, but guess what? You cannot create a simple mp3 or wma file from it so you can send it to a boss or a client. It says without much clarity that you need some other kind of "manager" software. Fine, you finally figure out how and download that. It doesn't work, and you cannot tell whether it is because you didn't pay some fee or that it just doesn't work.
I have tried time and again to use FTR software. Once I got it to work passably on a Vista system early last year, but it wasn't my system.
Why on earth the courts continue use this software, when it is troublesome and clunky and doesn't work for people, is beyond me. And they charge us for the encrypted files -- that we can hardly use.
If I wrote a bad review for every hour I've spent trying to get things to work, I'd have overwhelmed this blog spot. Mr. D'arcy last year tried to answer my questions but could not solve the problem. As I recall, he suggested there might be something about my hardware configuration. Yet my hardware is totally vanilla, off the rack.
We're talking about a software system that, um, plays audio files. Is this rocket science? I've tried to say away from this thing, but legal work forced it on me again.
Why the rant? Because I feel for the others attempting to use this FTR software and having nothing but problems, and possibly thinking it something they are doing wrong.
