Bryson Jones
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The fact that they can be seen, but are dimmed is why I figured it wouldn’t be a problem, and by “fighting” I just meant that the spanning may not have been written into the CatDV XML import yet but as the TC is seen, I’ll bet it’d be a simple “enable spanning” sort of thing.
I’ll email this over in case Rolf’s missed this thread.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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First, thanks for the kind words. The 4th installment will be up tomorrow or Monday.
Next, as far as server limits, let’s be honest, unless you have more data than RedBull, Sony Music Entertainment or NASCAR (who has 3 Petabytes of proxy according to the last I heard) you’re good.
Enterprise Server means that, for the Enterprise. I myself have a rig running 47,000 clips in 14,000 catalogs. Users regularly have hundreds of thousands of clips. (I remember when NASCAR had 900,000, Kevin, do you have a recent count?)
As far as catalog creation, think of them like tapes if that works. No one ever griped about not having a 30 hour video tape, right? And for 30 years we’ve all managed fine. The good news is now, when you need to search for a telephone ring, you can find the one’s from the Europe catalog, the Asian rings catalog and the USA ring sounds catalog. Clips, not catalogs. The whole point of an asset manager is to make folders and drive location irrelevant. But it does help to have a basic structure, whether that’s by shoot day, project, tape or whatever else you choose to split by. (and you can change in an instant).
But the real thing is that CatDV, as I know it, integrate it and was taught it, is a server product. Enterprise Server is the basis for all my integrations and workflows.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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David, we can’t explain it here but know this fact:
CatDV is based on MySQL which, depending upon who you ask, can handle up to 4 billion records. (there is some dispute online over this being smaller than the actual number possible. I suspect some of Mr. Duggan’s clients will soon be able to tell us.) 😉
The “catalog” is only a base container which fades away once you have any metadata at all. A catalog can have x number of clips (3000 for now let’s say). But the catalog is irrelevant.
Let me say that again. The catalog is irrelevant. No one in a large system would open a catalog to find something.
You have 50,000 sound effects. They came organized either on CD’s, DVD’s or a drive in folders. None of that matters, you search for “car sounds” and the database delivers a list. Or, you use saved searches or groupings to browse the server by whatever category and metadata you choose, live. Just as you found things on multiple DVD’s using a database, CatDV does the same, but it also points you to the media at the same time.
There is no 3,000 item limit in CatDV Server. But just as you would leave Microsoft Excel for Filemaker when a spreadsheet got too large, you would leave the standalone client for CatDV Server when you get into large datasets. (again, a point beaten to death on this board)
If you don’t have integration help, you might want to contact your dealer so that they can properly demonstrate how this works. It will make your life much easier.
Let us know how it goes!
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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Spanning is tough, on any system.
I’m betting you are right, the XML schemas are fighting. The one that CatDV uses to gather a metaclip and then one Panasonic gives us to “make” their clips and span.
I’m betting this is just an update, since Calibrated can handle it.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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Man, sorry to lag on this response.
As we spoke offline and you have a good start there, I though I’d post some general thoughts on this.
As far as starting out with scripting, there’s not technically “CatDV Scripting”. A lot of things are shell script-able, as long as you are willing to dig into XML and the other things under the hood. That’s probably the hardest thing about this class of applications, (Asset Managers). You can “learn” to use CatDV but once you’re there, you have to extend into so many other technologies that it can be overwhelming for someone who doesn’t really want to “live” in this space.
You, as a developer, are in a good place to extend this system and really add some value. I look forward to what Atempo brings to this community. Let me know how I can be of service.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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Man,
I hate to say it, but you’ll see us here on the boards all the time talking about the fact that this is more of a system than an app.
The standard version is in fact pretty powerful, for what it is, but compared to the Enterprise version, it’s limited. A lot of confusion has come up around “CatDV” because all the reviews focus on the Enterprise Server edition, since that’s the most powerful version. (it’s like Final Cut Express, Final Cut Studio and iMovie, no one gripes about Express being limited unless you bought it thinking it does what Studio does for a fraction of the price, which people do of course.)
The Enterprise Server can catalog somewhere around 10 million clips, theoretically. And even Pro will give you the export options, but honestly, if you’ve shopped for asset management, there’s nothing under $50,000 that does anything near what this product/system does.
That said, you can cobble together a system, using the Pro version, that will serve a one-man shop really well, as long as you don’t need to search beyond catalogs and share metadata with another station. (this subject has been beaten to death on this board, so just take a look around.
Again, I don’t work for Squarebox, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but while I understand your frustration, it’s like saying a Ford Focus doesn’t go as fast and isn’t as nice as a tricked out Mustang. They are just different things.
The bottom line is that this field is some of the most expensive software in all of post, CatDV just happens to be the least expensive in the field. (Think of it as Lotus in a world of Ferrarri’s and Lamborghini’s to further the car idea) But for a small shop, asset management is still a relatively large expense, no way around it.
That said, Pro is still a pretty amazing app for the money.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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Congrats on getting it back up and running. You can always re-do the install later once you have a solid backup.
Use the new clean mac to create the production group. (it has to be a new one, but could be named the same. (log in as administrator, of course)
To bring the prefs live, copy them into the new machine and put your license code in and it will have the prod group settings (or whatever version of them you had last) and you can log into the production group you’re created and then, as long as you saved no settings in the first place, you can right click on the “production group” name under “production blog” and “Save Settings”. This will push the server settings to the server.
Finally, after that is live, you can “Bulk Publish Catalogs” under the Server menu and push a whole directory of catalogs back to the server.
At that point you’ll have a group back up and running.
Obviously, keeping a backup of your boot drive is preferred. Please set that up as soon as you can, and also remember to export your database from time to time.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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If you didn’t get this sorted, and don’t choose to or can’t use Squarebox support, please contact me off the board. I’d be happy to assist. (I feel weird offering services here, but this seems dire)
Here’s what we can do on here for now to ease the pain.
The Java Errors may just be an install error, I’ve never not been able to create a schema and get running on a clean install if all is config’d correctly in your server. I’d check the server config, software versions and permissions and then perhaps reinstall if it doesn’t clear up.
For now, make a backup of the client prefs on one of your workstations in
~/Library/Preferences/
If it’s a Mac, and I’m not sure where, if it’s a PC (hey, I don’t do those a lot) 😉
(Duggan or Stamos, where are those PC prefs?!)
Get the “CatDV Preferences” file and the .old file as well. Compress them into a zip for safety and that will keep your fields and some other info. We can push that up once you get the server running and then upload your old catalogs.
Once it’s up and running we can talk about suitable backup plans for those server settings and SQL data.
Try not to do much poking around until an experienced CatDV installer gets on the rig.
What part of the world/Country are you in? Perhaps I can refer you a local dealer as well.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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The app allows you to export an index, but I’m not sure how the Worker would define that query as different from 25 separate ones.
Rolf, this would be a great feature request, if you could work out a way to define the list vs individual actions.
It could probably be scripted in the meantime, through a couple of steps, but that may or may not suit your use.
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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Part 2 is up –
bryson
bryson “at” hidefcowboy.com
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