-
FCP-compatible Cataloging Software
I’ve decided I’m going to digitize all of my video tapes (Hi8, DV and HDV) so that I have my entire video library at my fingertips for editing. I have plenty of hard drive space (3TB) and I know it’s going to be so nice to pull clips together without having to first capture from tape.
I use FCP which has some nice Log and Capture features to make the job easy. It also allows me to break the tapes into clips that relate to each other. However, I’m going to end up with thousands of clips and no good way to keep them organized or search them when putting together a project. I know I can name all of the clips I capture (from a given tape) with a unique name (i.e. “2010_May_Family”) however, I want to have more detail. For example, who’s in the clip, the season, location, holiday, etc.
I came across a few software packages (iDive, FootTrack, CatDV,etc.)but these products seem to offer more than I need. For example they all inlcude the ability to capture footage (which I’m thinking is better to do in FCP because of the variety of capture methods (Batch Capture, etc.) and codecs, and some are made for project collaboration, which I don’t do.
Do you guys have any suggestions? I guess I could use a product like iDive but just not use the capturing tools. It does say that it can export an edit list, which I’ve never done but it sounds like something that would be very helpful.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Fred
-
8 Replies
-
Maybe Filemaker Pro? It exports excel spreadsheets that could be imported into FCP…
FCP Server would likely fill the bill, but it’s a bit of overkill.
Jerry
Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski.
8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX Cinema Displays
-
Fred I got one thats simple and costs nothing.
open a project in final cut.
export a batch list .txt file
open that in excel.
there you will find all the fields for reel (tape) names, in and out points
and descriptions etc….log it all in that.
then when your ready to capture, import the batch list to fcp.
voila!
It really is that simple. I do this all the time with clients
and they appreciate the time savings it gives them. -
-
Thanks for your help guys. I’ve discovered that iDive can catalog my existing video clips (rather than having to use iDive to capture) and it has the ability to export an EDL. It’s also pretty cheap and has a nice interface. So…I downloaded a trial copy (it even comes with a demo library) and I’m going to give it a test drive.
I’ll add to this post after I have some feedback.
Thanks again for eveyone’s help.
Fred
Fred
-
Just curious what your experience with iDive is / was.
I need to capture about 30 mini DV tapes. FCP does not log the date/time stamp. And I like the thought of having a nice catalog of my tapes / clips.
Are there any downsides to using iDive over FCP for capture?
Thanks for any input.
Alex
-
I downloaded the free trial and spent a fair amount of time playing around with the software. I think its going to be exactly what I need. I plan on buying the software and cataloging all of my tapes (50+) but I’ve been distracted by other projects.
The software has some very cool features. It’s compatible with FCP and allows you to drag (reference) clips from iDive directly into a FCP project. It also has the abilty to choose the thumbnail frames you want to see for each clip and you can assign a bunch of different attributes (date, location, people, etc.) to each clip for organization.
Since storage has gotten so cheap, my plan is to capture all of my tapes to hard drives then catalog the clips using iDive. This way I’ll have immediate access to all of my footage. The only thing I haven’t decided is whether to capture the clips using FCP, then catalog them using iDive or do it all from iDive. Initially I was thinking of the FCP/iDive method because I thought that the quality of the captured clips would be better (using ProRes, etc.). However, I think iDive has access to the same codecs, hence the quality would be the same. I need to research this further.
I encourage you to download the trial and play around with it a little. If you do, please post your experiences. I’ll do the same.
Fred
Fred
-
Thanks for the response & input.
I’ve been playing with iDive a bit.
– I have the same concern as you about the capture codec / quality.
– I can’t seem to get the XML export from iDive to FCP to work. I get an error in FCP that it can’t find the video file referenced in the XML document.
– My only other concern is that, if the developer stops building the software, then whatever work is put into the catalog could be irrelevant in the future. Whereas, if I capture and manually name & organize files using FCP / Finder, there is a better chance that I’ll be able to use the catalog in the future.Otherwise, the thought of having date/time stamp and being able to catalog / search in a convenient way is appealing.
I’d be interested to hear if you do go the iDive route – or if you have any answers to any of my concerns.
Thanks much.
Alex
-
Hi Fred!
Did you keep using iDive? If you did, please could share your experience with it?
Thank you!
Lucia
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up