Bryson Jones
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Ref export of subclips works perfectly in the client. I’m sure it’s a quick one for the Worker.
bryson
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Not sure on ingest.
Rolf can probably speak to this, but as you say, Bulk Edit works. I’d tend to think that if you are ingesting into an asset management system you’d want to collect the original clip name first, to ensure a path back to the data, and then rename, if you like.
While that’s a great edit feature, for DAM systems I’d rather collect the true media name first and then edit.
Rolf, what’re your thoughts on this?
bryson
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Ok, a new one to check! Thank you.
I don’t like individual operations so I drag all the folders in, sort/group by “BIN”, select each folder full and then convert to metaclip. That should be quicker and less tedious than doing each one on import.
bryson
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That’s a pretty deep workflow for a simple online discussion. For me, that’s more of a custom thing that we’d do for a client as a project since it’s so specific to the production and system.
Also, the minute you finish a video tutorial, it’s out of date due to the rate of development on this product.
Generally though, transcoding is done a few ways:
Export out of the Client. (you can use this instead of changing your proxy settings as long as you don’t need to place the files in more than one directory path.)
Have the Worker Node do the transcodes if it’s not a lot of footage or you have more than one Worker Node.
Have the Worker Node fire the transcode job in another system like a Compressor or Episode cluster or ffmpeg and then direct the files to the correct path.
So it’s really dependent on what gear and software you have. As far as the Standalone app goes, it’s harder because you don’t get to do the path mappings and media moves necessary to automate the creation and management of the ProRes vs. the h264’s from the camera if you intend to let those be “proxy” files as was discussed here.
In the end, most of my clients have chosen to make smaller proxy files so that they can be used in the web client, archive the camera masters and transcode to ProRes as needed for editorial from those masters off of the nearline storage.
Getting specific on here, especially with automations can be fraught with problems as people can do a lot of damage if they don’t know what they’re doing and if this is your edit media, there’s a lot at stake. If you need something deeper and you can’t or don’t want to figure it out, your dealer can probably help you or contact Squarebox or JB&A and they can refer someone to make it happen.
bryson
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Ok, did some work today and have a workaround but no real permanent solution.
The DPX files won’t correctly form an image sequence in CatDV, however you can manage them as assets by importing them as a Metaclip or creating a Metaclip after the fact. (Tools>Convert To Metaclip…)
It’s best to not have GlueTools on the system doing this cataloging as that presents the CatDV Metaclip as being a clip made of a ton of QT movies due to GlueTool’s interaction with Quicktime. (which is pretty neat, by the way.)
Once you have a metaclip, you can at least know where and how many DPX files you have and more importantly, you can use the Cache-A or other archive systems to archive the files.
Also, thanks for the dpx4mac thing. It’s neat but doesn’t help us scan the files as it doesn’t allow QT to display the image, only quicklook. However, it allows you to preview in the finder which is a huge step up.
Hopefully, the dev team will work on making DPX import as an image sequence (or tell us how to do it in case I’m doing it wrong) so that DPX becomes part of the CatDV world but for now, at least we can catalog a collection of DPX frames and maybe throw in an exported movie into the catalog as a reference as well.
bryson
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Ah, your timing is amazing…
I’m in the middle of this myself. GlueTools, while amazing for vfx and editorial work, it has some interesting behaviors that make DPX management difficult.
Here’s a reprint of an email I wrote last week regarding DPX and CatDV.
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1 – The only way to see a DPX file on a Mac, that I can find, is using Glue Tools software. This appears to be the sole solution.
2 – Glue Tools tricks Quicktime into seeing a sequence as a QT .mov by itself. Meaning that if you open a single DPX frame in QT, it will show the whole sequence as a virtual “ref” movie. Only in the finder can you see a preview of a single frame.
3 – This is fooling CatDV into thinking that the folder of images is a folder full of the SAME .mov file. Indeed, if you drag .dpx stills into CatDV, they show up as movies and you can scrub through them instead of seeing it as an image.
This explains why I can import DPX as a metaclip, but not as an image sequence. To the OS, with the GT loaded, every image is a .mov so of course a metaclip would work and image seq. won’t as there are no images to the Mac.
Using metaclips works, but is clunky as you have to “build movie” every time you do an operation. Also, I don’t think we can manage proxies with GLue Tools. Building proxies seems to fail but I’m guessing that’s because CatDV is seeing a line of several hundred copies of the image sequence ref movie instead of just the images. (It must be trying to make a 24 second proxy for every 24 frames instead of 1 second!)
<>>>>
As you see, the very thing that makes GT great, (showing any frame of a sequence as the whole ref movie) makes it hard to work with for asset management where we need to know that each frame is both a single frame and part of a greater whole.
I’m waiting to hear from the Development crew on this and when we have an update I’ll make sure we post here. We’re looking at a couple of solutions.
In the meantime, does anyone know of a way on the Mac to view a DPX frame? And barring that, is there a Windows tool that does it well?
bryson
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That is indeed a server error. The support crew will have to pitch in, but can you not create a new catalog or make any changes on the server, even to other data?
bryson
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As far as I know, if you subclip in the main window (not the VL) the subclips show up in the list and you can simply drag them out to a new catalog.
Often we just have the producers create subclips and leave them in the catalogs and save. After that, the assists or editors go in, sort and export the subclips and then move them or delete them, depending on the use. I hate having subclips clogging up my catalogs too.
(A saved search would be good for this “find and export” operation.)
Rolf, I noticed that when exporting a ref movie through the Worker from a subclip, it exports the whole original clip. Could we look into this? I’d love to have the Worker see the subclips, export them as refs and move them to new catalogs, thereby cleaning up after us.
The Verbatim Logger, to my understanding, is mostly just for creating the logs and then you can translate them into whatever you want, (sublcips, markers, text etc) but it’s not really for going back in and subclipping etc, after the fact. At least in the way that I’ve used it.
bryson
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There goes the easy way. 😉
Rolf, you got anything?
bryson
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You have a common problem I suspect.
It’s the catdv_server1 thing. That happens when your Mac either connects twice, or when someone reconnects without unmounting the server. It seems to happen a lot like smb and afp mounting the same server twice, or when you mount via IP in “connect to server” and then someone clicks on the “connect” button in a finder window.
Anyway, it’s not the CatDV, it’s a mac or PC thing. If you use the terminal to check the contents of “/Volumes”, I’m betting you’ll see your server mounted as “catdv_server1” instead of “catdv_server”. I had this kick my butt on an Isilon one time and I’ve seen it a lot since.
This doesn’t show on the name in the Finder or Desktop, by the way, only in the /Volumes directory.
If you are averse to the Terminal, you can use “go to folder” in the “Go” menu of the finder and it’ll show you how things are mounted that way too.
If you reboot, after setting your paths up, I’m betting you’re fine.
The reason the Wizard worked is that it picked up the “1” on the end of the name, but when you rebooted or the “1” version went away and it mounted correctly, your Wizard was wrong because the “1” went away. So it seems random.
It’s not. Check the mount name, set your paths correctly, as you had them, and then it’ll all work. But be careful of the “multi-mount”. 😉
Let me know if this is what’s happening.
bryson
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