I started out with Hollywood Woodwinds and have been surprised to see what a bad rap it gets on the forum here. (Obviously, this is just my opinion.) While I'm not partial to its clarinet's tone (and ended up adding the Fluffy Audio clarinet which is gorgeous), I really like the oboe and bassoon and find them very usable, even in exposed passages. I use the oboe heavily for solos in the first 30 seconds here:
And this is the Hollywood bassoon with the Fluffy clarinet:
The flute 1 is also decent, although I often pull down its high frequencies a bit to balance it with other instruments. Its legato is not quite perfect, but it's more than ample for an ensemble context. (Flute 2 is barely good enough to use for divisi below flute 1 without grimacing.)
How are they standing against the other developers options like Berlin or Spitfire ?
I bought Spitfire Woodwinds on their intro special and discovered them to be extremely different, very "expressive" sounding performances (lots of ambiance, gentler performances, heavier vibratos) compared to the more "plain" sound of Hollywood Woodwinds. Of the two, I often find it easier to get phrases to fit well in an orchestration using Hollywood, although it really depends what music you write. If you're a fan of libraries like Albion V Tundra, Spitfire would obviously be superior.
The quality is good overall, but there are several phasing issues with some of the sounds.
I agree that riding CC1 hard in an exposed context can give you some phasing, so I tend to use a mixture of CC1 and CC11 there and haven't had any huge complaints.
Berlin Woodwinds Revive is the way to go in 2017
I agree that if you can reach into some deep pockets, Revive really looks and sounds great, and is probably the most all-around high quality package out there at the moment.
i'd like to know too particularly the diamond edition
I do find myself reaching to tweak the mics on the woodwinds every once in a while (maybe for 20% of pieces) depending on if I want a more distant/orchestral or closer/solo sound.