-
CatDV and Softron Media products – experiences?
Hello, fellow bovines –
did a couple of basic searches and haven’t found any existing threads, so here goes –
I am interested in knowing if anyone has experience using CatDV with Softron Media products, especially On-the-Air-Manager. I am doing some consulting for a company that is considering both products and I am just trying to get a sense of how well they play together. On first glance it doesn’t appear there should be any hiccups at all, but it never hurts to ask.
I guess a secondary question might be: if you are using CatDV and a playout/scheduling program other than Softron, what are the pros and cons you have run into.
Any and all information is much appreciated and thank you.
John Ward
Owner,
Yellow Lotus Productions
jo*******@**************ds.com
315.877.5161 -
7 Replies
-
Tools on Air is the other option but may be a little more expensive.
I have used Softron’s movie recorder with live editing and it is an excellent product that plays well with most NLE’s. They also have very fast support.How exactly are you trying to use them together? What level of integration?
If it’s simply drag and drop from CatDV to the Scheduler then this should work fine.
Scott Goddard
Neo Verite Limited
https://neoverite.com -
Hi, Scott – thanks for the reply. My understanding of Softron’s scheduling software is that it pulls from what it considers ‘watch folders.’ So, for some playout devices we would have to move data into the device to schedule with it but with Softron what I was hoping to do was to pull directly from a ‘current’ folder on our shared playout storage server. Does my explanation make sense?
John Ward
Owner,
Yellow Lotus Productions
john.ward@yellowlotusprods.com
315.877.5161 -
Yes, but where does the CatDV integration come in?
Scott Goddard
Neo Verite Limited
https://neoverite.com -
I suppose a better way to phrase my question would be: For those who have both CatDV and Softron scheduling software, how much metadata from CatDV is available to you directly in Softron’s scheduling software?
For instance, there is a playout solution from Tightrope Systems that can do scheduling across multiple units and can pull files from elsewhere on the LAN, etc. but cannot migrate data from a database or other software easily. One of their only solutions involves a PEG access-oriented scheduling program called Facil and migrating some small amount of data via CSV files. If you don’t have Facil or if you need metadata that their solution doesn’t bring over, you’re out of luck. We did a trial with the Tightrope playout server but since we did not have Facil, we wound up having to do data entry into Tightrope’s unit despite having done it once when the files were originally transcoded.
The big deal for my client is that they use a lot of metadata about producers, copyright terms, series status, etc. in generating their schedule. So even if the technical end of playing files out is easier, if the metadata doesn’t make it into the scheduling software it takes longer.
Does that make sense or I have I just clouded it more?
John Ward
Owner,
Yellow Lotus Productions
john.ward@yellowlotusprods.com
315.877.5161 -
Just doing a quick search you can import XML with Movie recorder this may require a bit of massaging but should work in theory.
https://softron.zendesk.com/entries/264127-HOW-TO-Create-custom-Metadata-Keysets
-
Thanks, Matthew. I have a little bit of experience using XML in different situations and I’m a bit embarrassed this didn’t occur to me. I think that, based on this, we will definitely be able to get what we need between CatDV and Softron.
Much appreciated.
Sinerely,
John Ward
Owner,
Yellow Lotus Productions
john.ward@yellowlotusprods.com
315.877.5161 -
No worries let us know how it goes as I imagine this is a desire bale workflow!
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up