maximum size of catalog

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Swami
attractive as it may seem the single catalog idea will eventually hit the buffers in terms of manageability , how long it takes to load , how much memory it consumes and what machine it is running on This limit may well cater for your immediate needs but the server model because it searches across multiple catalogs and only returns the “hits” is much more efficient . You make the point that you have a vast library you want to bring in, the server model will help you share this information across multiple seats and with our forthcoming web client across the Web. Another way to look at it might be , what if GOOGLE had a single catalog that you had to load up everytime you wanted to make a search across the Web..would this be the right way to go.! But keep on going until needs dictate, The files that are saved contain only text and thumbnails so that should not limit you but don`t forget to back stuff up..

Kevin Duggan
CatDv

[Swami Kevala]

Hi Kevin,

Supposing we upgrade to the server version within 6 to 12 months, does it make any difference when migrating, how we have set up our catalogs while using the standalone version. Or does all the data from all the catalogs just get merged into the database irrespective of how we have split up the data over the catalogs. i.e. Does the concept of ‘catalog’ still exist in the server version?

Kind Regards

Swami

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Swami
no. it does not make any difference when migrating and it could help.you can actually bulk publish a large number of catalogs to the server version. The concept of a catalog still exists but it gets a little “blurred” due to the fact that a server query is global across all catalogs within a Production Group or Groups. I usually explain it as a type of folder , it can also give context to a single clip because the catalog defines it as belonging to a group of a certain type. You can choose to search such that the query will return the whole catalog of clips. This can be useful for instance if you want to see what happened before or after a specific event if other clips have been grouped into a catalog the search engine can bring them all back. In short it can be yet another way of defining metadata that is common for a large number of clips. Finally if you use CATDV on set or location you can email the “catalog” file back to the main facility to await the arrival of the media.

Kevin Duggan
CatDv

[Rolf Howarth]

The server does still have the concept of catalog as one way of organising clips, but it’s just one way. You can search and browse the server using any of CatDV’s fields, across the whole database regardless of which catalog it’s in.

Just like every file you have on your hard drive must be in a directory somewhere, even if you always use a database like Spotlight to access them, every clip on the CatDV server must be in a catalog.