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CatDV Operating Questions
1) Is there any way to have the proxies reside with the catalog file ?
Or they have to be in /user/Movies ?2) Is there a way to organize my “Log Notes” window – say I set up some categories,
but I want to flip the order.thanks !
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9 Replies
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The Proxies can reside anywhere. Just direct CatDV where to look. Go down two entries in these questions and you’ll see some screen shots of the settings and how CatDV finds the proxies.
You can customize the interface extensively. Takes some trial and error and a bit of looking at the instructions.
Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.
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Yes, now that I think about it – I suppose the desktop client would then have to OPEN said catalog, correct? Would be a bummer for sure.
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no, not exactly. When you open CatDV there’s normally an open blank page. You run a query, and the results of that query will populate the open page. How long will it take you to fill in the query? I suppose that depends on how complex it is, and how you’ve described your source clips and in what fields. Me, I tend to do very general searches, so I use a single search field for “everything” and get a fair number of results. I’m sure you’d be more specific and narrow down the results considerably. k
What format are the video files in? Access to them might be interesting. I’d be interested in how you’d roll the sound and video into your production board, if you’re using one that is. You can use a popup player window as well as the one embedded in the GUI.Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.
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The videos are h.264.
Our audio engineer has a Soundminer client, which goes into an 8-channel board (he’s in the phone screening room). The output of this board then comes up on pots on the main studio board, so there is control of sfx volume in main control studio as well.
Video is done solely in main control room. Currently we use Premiere for playback which is setup to play in Premiere application and fullscreen on monitor 3 of a multi-monitor setup. Monitor 3 is mirrored to monitor 4 (which is really just an output sent back to video master control, TriCaster, as an input). So anything that appears on monitor 3/4 is an always-on source for TriCaster. So if you want to have anything on the computer such as website, fullscreen video, whatever sent to PGM1 you can. This allows us to start/stop/scrub video at will so we can comment as we go along.
If we wanted, we could duplicate this setup on sfx engineer’s computer so he could play video to program feed as well.
So in other words, we would simply search for video then drag from CatDV to premiere for playback. For audio, we would play back directly from CatDV.
And for searching, we developed the trick of adding “qq” to metadata for frequently-used or favorite sounds. So instead of searching just “cow” which would return a ton of results, you could seatch “cow qq” which would display ones you like.
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I’d say the speed issue is really only in the playback of the h.264 files. If they’re coming up fine then it’s ok. I’m not sure, without messing with it, how the video will be delivered to the video pipeline, but it’s certainly easy to try. Load up a catalog with 6,000-7,000 clips and see what happens. That will stress the system. You’ll also want to group your video clips in multiple directories, rather the way I’m sure your audio clips are sorted. I’d have the database on an SSD, myself. The assets on a nice little raid. How much material are you talking about? In the video world we don’t worry about audio assets nearly as much because the video files overwhelm everything.
Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.
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Re: Interface adjustments, Under Log Notes I added a bunch of categories / fields
to better suit our needs
Now, I want to rearrange my fields;
Say Move Proj Name and Proj Number to the top of the user field area
(Right after Rating) Is there a possibility to do so ?Also,
I ingested a source folder that came from a DSLR and wanted to name the “Tape” it came from.
Selected all the clips, tried to name the tape (#####_Card001 where ##### is our inhouse project number)I got an error:
Failed to commit change (java.lang.NullPointerException)any way to bulk-tag the tape field ?
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yes and yes
Go to settings and then Customize Details Panel or Customize View to create or modify a layout. You can do things like change the order and position and name of a field, as well as it’s length. All depending on the contents. Fool around with making some panels and view of your own.You “bulk tag” by selecting several clips and then entering the data in the field of your choice. You can set the field so only certain data is acceptable, or it will complete with previously filled entries. It’s actually quite complex in how you can set it up. I tend to lock down certain entries. That gives the user a specific set of choices from which to choose. That prevents then from going “free form” on me and making up all sorts of strange search terms that no one else recognizes.
Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.
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When you say ” lock down certain entries ”
you mean make certain fields Drop Down / Pick lists ?<== BilletHQ | Creative that Goes to 11 ==>
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Yes,
For example we have hundreds of hours of interviews with hundreds of interviewees. I have “interview” as one of my categories. Then I have another category with the interviewees name. That name is “locked down,” so I know the spelling is correct. Helpful a year or two later when you’re doing lower third name bars. And we often interview the same people at different places, at much different times. Most of our footage is first sorted by shooting location, say a particular hospital or factory. But later I may want to search for an interviewee who worked at more than one hospital. I take responsibility for maintaining the list of “pick” items.
Here’s an example of one catalog template I’m using, followed by user columns and pick lists, and then the customized details for the log notes panel.Bryson’s NASCAR example is brilliant because it shows how detailed you can make a catalog to find precise shots later. Of course someone has to dial in all that information.
Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.
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