CatDV vs. Competition

[Rolf Howarth]

We often get asked what CatDV’s competitors are, but, to be honest, media asset management can cover such a broad and diverse range of requirements that it’s very difficult to give a definitive answer.

Everything from free products such as iTunes, the Mac OS Finder or Windows Explorer, a simple hand-crafted Excel spreadsheet, or all the way up to enterprise content management systems costing (literally) millions of dollars, at some level they all provide quite similar functionality. CatDV is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, with a focus on video and post production of course, but even then, there’s a huge range in the kind of workflow problems you might be trying to solve, and which other tools it would make sense to look at for comparison therefore.

If CatDV does have any advantages, it’s that it’s a very flexible and scalable tool, with a comparatively very low cost of entry, but with a lot of depth there if you need it. It’s difficult to say more without knowing what your specific needs are though.

[Walter Biscardi]

There really isn’t anything that comes close. Final Cut Server is about the only thing you might call “competition.”

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver: Winner, Best Documentary, LA Reel Film Festival.

Blog Twitter Facebook

[Michael Hutchinson]

Many thanks Rolf. I did some further research and it really looks like CatDV is the way to go. Seems like FCP Server is really for workflow organization and you definitely need someone to customize it for your particular workflow if it’s to be effective.

I’m thinking that the best product would be something that’s simple enough to train an assistant editor to use in less than an hour so he/she can log and pull clips. This seems to be one of the many advantages to CatDV that I haven’t really been able to find elsewhere (short of going the old fashioned, excel spreadsheet way).

I also looked at Adobe’s On Location and was pretty unimpressed. Seems like if you’ve done enough pre-planning to log your shots in the field, all you really need is a decent naming convention. Not ideal for anything on the fly. Not sure what the next projects will be, but the one that is just being finished now was multicam and required a lot of post-production organization during the editing process. Story lines had to be developed after the shoot, so no way to arrange the actual media files into acts/categories prior to editing.

I keep wondering how many headaches could have been avoided if the footage had been logged in CatDV.

Thanks again,
Hutch
I keep wondering how much time would have been saved if we’d have just

Michael David Hutchinson
“That most limited of all specialists, the well-rounded man.”–F. Scott Fitzgerald ‘The Great Gatsby’

[Michael Hutchinson]

Hi Walter,
After further research, I’ve come to the same conclusion. It was almost difficult to do a compare/contrast chart because it’s so different from any other products I’ve seen. And Final Cut Server just seems too bulky. CatDV would have saved hours on the project that is currently being completed. Hopefully CatDV will make the post-production workflow on the next project a ton easier.
–Hutch

Michael David Hutchinson
“That most limited of all specialists, the well-rounded man.”–F. Scott Fitzgerald ‘The Great Gatsby’

[Gautam Pandey]

Hi.. just wondering if you looked at Editshare?

Gautam Pandey

[Bryson Jones]

Gautam,

I hear this from time to time, but I’ve never had anyone actually show or explain how editshare manages assets?

I’ve worked with EditShare as a SAN, but do they have a true asset management package?

If so, could you give us a rundown? I’ve not seen it in the field and I’d love to know more.

bryson

bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com

hidefcowboy.com

[Steve Mcgarrigle]

I’ve only been made aware of CatDV by this thread (been kind of busy recently!) so i need to get up to speed on it’s capabilities.
I have personally been using an asset management system called ‘Flow” made by Gridiron.
It may or may not be a comparable product.

[Allan White]

Steve, I use both Flow and CatDV. Flow does track assets, but serves a different purpose.

When I have, say, an Illustrator file or Keynote document (with all kinds of linked/embedded assets inside), Flow will tell me the “ancestry” of all those files (what file made the logo, the photoshop file that made the background image, etc.). I do a lot of multimedia, motion graphics, and the like where answering questions like, “where is the file that built this file that I’m looking for at?”. It scans all my drives in the background, and even tracks when I move a file somewhere. It’s insanely deep on that front.

CatDV will track files as well, but its true purpose is managing video clips. Flow might tell you the name or that it’s associated with an FCP project, but doesn’t let you work with video in the same way. CatDV lets you see inside the files, with all kinds of logging and other metadata, across a variety of projects.

I use CatDV in preproduction, scanning tapes (with the Live Capture app) and generating proxies so my writer/producer can tag clips for capture later. This is HUGE if you have a lot of archival material, as we do (going back 30 years). It’s also useful for ‘pre-editing’ tasks, such as wrangling a bunch of various formats into one codec. I use it for batch file-naming (powerful field-mapping abilities help) before I send clips to FCP – organized and ready to edit.

– Allan White, Video Producer, Luis Palau Assoc.

Quad 3Ghz Mac Pro, 10GB RAM, X1900 GPU, XSAN, CatDV Server

[Sharon Long]

Has anyone had experience with Fork for media management – video assets?

[Bryson Jones]

If you’re looking for experiences, I’m not sure if there are folks on here who’ve used Fork that I know of, but I’m curious too.

Also check over on Xsanity.com, they may have some guys.

If you’re looking for consulting, I have several associates I could refer as well as a former B4M employee who is now freelance.

B4M can also usually give you clients to talk to but I do know it’s a bit more involved than the typical CatDV integration.

bryson

bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com

hidefcowboy.com