• Square Box CatDV

  Looking for new asset management/ encoding platform

  Posted by Jan-david Van luipen on April 2, 2013 at 9:46 am

  Hi all,

  I’ve been looking around for a new asset management and encoding platform for our editing enviroment consisting of 11 Mac Pro’s with a 64 TB raid 5 Xsan volume. We’re still running Final Cut server, tweaked in a way it can use compressor 4 codecs. So our codecs and stuff are stil up to date, the only problem is the hardware which is running for 6 years at the moment.

  So I’m looking for a new asset management/ encoding platform, found some alternatives like CatDV, Telestream Vantage and Portfolio. I like CatDV because they have the final cut server migration tool but I was wondering what you guys think. The following actions are being mostly used in our enviroment now:

  – Encoding
  – Copy responses (using hot folders)
  – Mail responses
  – Uploads to FTP

  Any of you out there experience with one of the earlier mentioned systems? Or working with something else that can fit to my needs? I woud love to hear!!

  Thanks in advance,

  Best regards,

  Jan-David

  Bryson Jones replied 13 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Bryson Jones

  April 3, 2013 at 3:48 pm

  Get a demo from JB&A, if you’re in the US, Squarebox directly if you’re not.

  Note that CatDV is less integrated like Portfolio or FCSvr, for instance. It’s got a few apps that integrate together with other systems to make a custom workflow. This, while less easy to envision at first, makes for a far more flexible system.

  For instance, on the transcoding side, NSA has integrated CatDV with ffmpeg, Compressor, Telestream Episode Pro, Engine, and Vantage. We’re currently looking at adding Digital Rapids and Rozhet as well based on some client requests. We have an integrated review and approval and web interface that we built to work with CatDV. As well as file transfer workflows using ftp, Aspera and http. There are 5 or 6 archiving systems that support CatDV integration which is staggering.

  CatDV is a powerful framework or platform. You can extend it as you wish, which is nice when most companies have one or two options for transcoding and transfers. But like building an edit bay, you can’t expect Apple or Avid to advise you on what monitors to use, you have to make some informed decisions.

  Good luck and I’m sure you’ll hear some great feedback on this forum.

  bryson

  bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com

  northshoreautomation.com

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