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  • Merging Two Databases Into One

    Posted by Adam French on June 12, 2018 at 5:23 pm

    What’s the best and safest method for merging two databases together? We have two .cdv files being managed by two users, each database with unique files and metadata. I’d like to consolidate these into one and I’m curious about best practices for going about the merge.

    Thanks!

    Rolf Howarth replied 6 years, 8 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Rolf Howarth

    June 12, 2018 at 7:28 pm

    Do you have CatDV Server or are you using CatDV standalone? If you’re using CatDV Server you can just publish all your catalogs to the server and search across clips etc. If you’re using CatDV standalone then you can copy and paste clips from one catalog to another if you want to, though usually it’s best to have different catalogs for different projects etc.
    Think of catalogs as being (very roughly) equivalent to projects in your NLE, or folders on your hard drive. Just as you wouldn’t put ALL your media in one project or in one huge flat directory hierarchy it usually makes sense to have different catalogs for different purposes.
    -Rolf

  • Adam French

    June 12, 2018 at 8:35 pm

    Perfect. I just wanted to make sure that was the best practice. I’m using the standalone version and these files are all associated with the same project, hence the desire to have them merged. So, I’ll just copy and paste them from one .cdv file to another and ensure the files point to the same place.

    Thanks!

    Adam French
    Video Producer, Director of Photography

  • Dan Powers

    June 18, 2018 at 6:12 pm

    What if we are running server? I really do want all of my footage in one database so that I can search all of it.
    Is that a bad practice?

  • Rolf Howarth

    June 18, 2018 at 8:45 pm

    If you’re running CatDV Server then your footage is already all in one database. Catalogs are just a convenient way of organising them within that, the same way as you might arrange them in “projects” or “folders”, but you can search and browse all your footage across catalogs regardless of which catalog they’re in.
    -Rolf

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