Bryson Jones
Forum Replies Created
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We’ve mostly deployed on Apple hardware for several reasons:
1 – Unix underpinnings. If you have scripting to do and or web integration our coders lean more to the nix side. (This is huge. Literally every shell tool ever written will run.)
2 – Quicktime integration. Since many file formats in video, and edit systems use QT, we find it nice to be able to run those tools on the server. Compressor, and 1,000 other little OSX things that “help” FCP and Avid.
3 – File system issues. This is only an issue if you are on Mac based editing/production systems but most of our clients are.
4 – OSX Server. Simple, and complete unix-based Server OS with no per user or per service fees. And you can’t beat the price. ($38 for OS and server now.)
5 – Price. It’s hard to beat a quad core mini server for $1,000 and if you need stronger, we often upgrade an edit system and use the older Mac Pro for the server base. (Editors like this option for some reason.)
I know some other dealers have their own Windows stuff that they like. I’d love to hear from them on here.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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There are a ton of alternatives. Most are far more costly, as the average buy in on comperable asset management systems installed, in my experience, is over $100k. (Although that is changing monthly.)
Here is my free advice. Take it with a huge grain of salt and consider the source. I may be totally out of line. 😉
I’d contact an experienced reseller of MAM solutions, have them do some discovery work for you. They will help determine your needs, budget and develop a “software independent” workflow analysis and then you will have that to deliver to potential solution providers as a RFP spec. As a part of this process, hopefully some front runners will appear and you will gain clarity and focus before you spend your money and time on a solution only to find it doesn’t suit your workflow.
Yes this will cost you some money on the front end, but the pain and money it will save you later is immeasurable.
As to Quicktime, CatDV uses several playback methods (Xuggle and JMF, for instance) and as of v9 the playback is separate from the “app” meaning that if QT goes away (which it’s not), another player can be exposed in the interface with minimal re-working by the dev crew.
Also, remember to separate CatDV Pro from the CatDV Server, which houses your db.
Finally, ask other MAM solutions what they use for playback… I’m betting most of them use a web browser based player or have to launch in an outside player (QT, VLC, etc). Good luck playing XDCAM, P@, ProRes or most any actual production format in a web browser. Almost all, included the famed Final Cut Server, need to open media in an outside player to play anything other than proxy.
Any good reseller of asset management solutions should be able to discuss the pros and cons of several solutions for you. But know that when the rubber hits the road, I’ve seen a lot of folks go CatDV due to the fact that for the price, there’s very little that can compete.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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Hey there,
You actually can open as many as you like, or ram will permit. You can also search on a term and see every record on the system although you probably won’t want to.
Think if you;d said “how can I see everything I’ve ever typed into all of my excel spreadsheets?” or “I need to see every email I’ve ever written at once.” CatDV is not as limited as that, but there is a concept at work that maps well to those ideas, although the database aspect adds far more functionality.
I suspect you didn’t get a reply due to the nature of the question.
I’d recommend you get a training session, either from your original dealer or from JB&A if you are in the US. CatDV is an amazing and very deep system that can be frustrating if not configured, and used in the correct way.
Far more important than “how do I look at something” is the question, “how did you lay out your data?”
Read around here, but if you follow my posts you will see a ton of mentions of “getting help”. This is not because I own a company of “helpers”, it’s because success can come far more quickly if you have a company setting your system up and training you. This is how Squarebox intends the system to be deployed.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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No ideas on the tape ID thing, let’s see what the Cache-A guys have to say.
The official word on the copied vs archived is this. “Copied means it’s copied it to the vtape. Archived means that additionally it has received confirmation (by reading the transfer log file) that the file has successfully been written to tape. You won’t always get the latter, for example if you archive files by copying them to the vtape, then immediately close the CatDV catalog before it’s written to tape.”
This is from Squarebox and should explain a lot. Tape moves slowly, the confirmation takes a while and since the unit writes through the client app, the catalog can’t close before the whole operation is done.
The archive, however is most likely fine since it made it to the vtape.
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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This is an issue with v8 that, as Rolf says, was resolved in the early versions of 9.
If you test the server version he points you to and have success, please report back here. I had some trouble with a client and would love to hear if this version resolves it.
Thanks,
bryson
bryson “at” northshoreautomation.com
northshoreautomation.com
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Cool,
Note that it’s not that hard, but you do need to understand the shell, which is not super intuitive.
Let us know if you get stumped.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
hidefcowboy.com
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Yup,
In the variables you can use the original path from root to do the HiRes and then, depending on your proxy path structure, you can have it find the proxy either building from root, or by removing certain folder layers and replacing them with the initial parts of your proxy path.
Due to the variances in proxy setups, this is best done on the machine. Whatever variables we spec here will be wrong and obviously, since you’re deleting could have really bad consequences. I’d get some help from your dealer or Squarebox support with this one if you can.
The basics are:
full path = /Volumes/drive/folder2/file.mov
proxy path might be /Volumes/proxy_drive/folder2/file.mov or
/Volumes/proxy_drive/Volumes/drive/folder2/file.mov
Depending on the path, you can set up the proper rm command to delete the file. But there’s no way I’m posting any code examples to delete a file on this or any forum. 😉 I’m sure you understand why.
“Rolf! That guy posted a thing that deleted all my proxy!!!!”
Be careful, test on a non-essential data set and I’m sure you’ll get it sorted.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
hidefcowboy.com
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Robb, you can make folders in the “Browse Database” window in CatDV Server.
It’s a virtualization mostly used for organizing groups of catalogs in the db for browsing, just like you’d do with an actual file catalog in the file system.
It’s accessed from the Server menu in the tree by right clicking on a production group’s name.
These folders show up in the Browse Database area but they are most effectively accessed from the Tree where they can clean up a long catalog list greatly for “Tree Browsers.”
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
hidefcowboy.com
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Is this CatDV Server or Standalone?
In Server that should all be in your Settings from the Production Group.
In Standalone, technically the CatDV Preferences file(s) should have that. ~/Library/Preferences/CatDV Preferences is the path.
If you’re missing things, that’s gotta go the UK. It’s beyond me.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
hidefcowboy.com
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Also, this only exists in V9, before that, this wasn’t an option, in case some of you haven’t updated.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
hidefcowboy.com