[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Craig
essentially there are two technologies in play ..both MXF4mac and Calibrated software extend qtime to play P2 files natively. Catdv is able via drag and drop to figure out how the disparate audio and video files fit together and present it inside the CATDV MAM as a single clip, then via XML and again drag and drop describe these files to FCP as an object inside the FCP browser as a single clip entity. It can also add markers etc and write back to the P2 XML and produce markers that are understood also within modern AVIDS.. basically tech magic

hope this helps and intrigues

Kevin Duggan
Catdv Product Manager

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Guys
a multi is as the name implies gives you the ability to place multiple values in one field. Think names Kevin, Dennis,Geoff in a three shot then a multi is for you as a search on one will also take you to this three shot. A GROUPING is usually when there is just one answer to the question and you can tag it as such…

Kevin Duggan
Catdv

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Geof
goto prefs > User Columns and make the User Field change from TEXT to the type GROUPING, ( click on the text field other option is MULTI ) Save your PREFS .. GO back to Pref and then select PICKLIST click on the COLUMN drop down and choose the USERFIELD you just made a GROUPING and then click the + sign to add values Save prefs and you are done. If you wish you can add or take away fields and Groupings to the Panels or create new panels by going to the EDIT DETAILS PANELS and create new layouts etc.

Hope this helps

Kevin Duggan
CatDV

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Craig
to answer the points you raise. MXF4mac and Calibrate allow FCP and CATDV to play mxf media natively. CATDV in addition extracts any embedded metadata and can re-map the fields so this information can be displayed within FCP`s browser window. The mechanism we provide to do this is a simple drag and drop operation. Catdv has at the top left of the interface a TAB called OTHER. Inside this tab is a folder called Final Cut Projects. This holds a list of FCP projects that CATDV has seen.. So with FCP running in the background drop your current FCP project file into CATDV`s clip list window. This will prime CATDV and add that project to its list of FCP projects. The project name should also appear in BOLD because it is a currently open project in FCP. Select your assets in CATDV and drag them to the FCP projects folder and onto this BOLD highlighted project. The assets complete with metadata will appear in your FCP Browser window. What is happening behind the scenes is that CATDV is creating XML files that it is pushing into FCP in the background by-passing the usual XLM dialogs. With MXF files which are being played natively it is doing a bit more work. MXF files are not muxed as they are in Qtime they are discrete files so CATDV describes within the XML structures to FCP as a merged clip. The result is that you get what you expect a single clip but with additional metadata mapped into FCP`s Browser window fields. All this is hidden from the user who only has to has to understand drag and drop. After a few trials of this process you will also realise that the Tabs at the top are spring loaded and you can just drag and drop without even having to specifically open the FCP projects folder. if you need a movie of this process just drop me a line at kevin@squarebox.co.uk and I will send you a link.

Hope this helps

Kevin Duggan
Product Developer

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Craig.
Yes CatDV the mxf enabled version with addition of MXF4mac or Calibrated Softwares Mxf enablers can read and play native MXF Formats. It creates what we call a metaclip. You can drag and drop these clips into FCP via our tree mechanism. This creates the XML description of the files and pushes them into an active FCP project. CatDV can read all of the mxf metadata ie memos shooter location camera serial number etc. You can also map any of these field to FCP (or additional logging fields that the P2 format does not cater for). Also it is possible to push back these amendments to the P2 XML file.
(File>Export>Update P2 metadata.

For example you can place markers in the clips and take them into FCP or save them back to the card or clone of the card and they show up in AVID Media Composer 3.5 and up as well.
However I find that the P2 metadata welcome as it is is not in itself totally sufficient to facilitate easy searching for users who actually where not present during the shoot. A more formal schema for logging is a better approach.

All the advanced functionality of Catdv is supported ie Global tagging of assets as well as the ability to create a dummy clip from which you can paste the metadata attributes to all of your imported P2 clips. Think of it as globally filling in the camera sheets for the clips. Do this as your first pass, then go through your clips again adding to the metadata that which is unique and specific to each clip.

Finally we also have a version of CatDV that supports the CACHE-A LTO 4 device. It enables you to do all of the above plus write the CatDV metadata to the LTO4 tape and track the LTO4 TAPE number. In this way you can construct either a thumbnail metadata view of all the clips on a given LTO4 tape on the shelf or generate editable proxies that you can later relink to the stored high res files as a conforming process.

Regarding you search question. Yes if you are using our standalone product you are searching on catalog at a time, if you upgrade to our server product you are always searching globally across all catalogs and with that product you can share all of the metadata across multiple seats. In effect you gain the ability to have directors producers etc do a pre-edit of favoured shots and selected takes , add metadata in a proscribed schema which aids searching and save and share this information across a SAN.

Hope this helps

Kevin Duggan
CatDV Product Manger

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Mark
one thing you can do with Transcriptions is that typically they may come back as a Word Doc. If your transcriber places the timecode in the correct standard format.. ie 10:01:02:00 in PAL land or similar in NTSC if it is placed on a line on its own CatDV can turn this into an event marker in the Verbatim Logger. If you open the Doc in WORD… Select ALL … then COPY..goto CATDV and start the Verbatim Logger …then use PASTE SPECIAL.. this will copy your text into the Logger and turn all those timecodes into event markers. Sorry the text does not scroll with the movie but if you turn the markers into events and goto the summary Panel you will find all of your markers listed and a single click will locate to that event int the movie. This list is editable so you can add annotations to the event markers from this panel.

Hope this helps

Kevin Duggan

Catdv

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Robert
to answer your questions directly. Yes you have control over where the worker places the proxies and the high res. I have built scripts where we manage one central ingest folder for differing media and place them on the SAN dependant on many differing criteria.Typically you do not have to write one line of code , just follow the options offered to you in the tabs that define the workflow. ie Pre-Processing …( move, copy , rename) Triggers ( what makes the worker kick in ) Conversions and Post-Processing ( Updating the database with the new information such as the new location of the files etc. ) and again one of the options is to give the proxies the exact same filename as the source.
and finally if you look at the CATDV interface you will see that it tracks both the Proxies and the High Res (Movie Tab) in the same window you can click between the two. Also if you hod down the option key as you drag the assets to the FCP project in the FCP projects tab it will take across the low res instead of the default high res… hope this makes sense its easier to demonstrate than write up… but just drag and drop over the spring loaded tabs in the tree interface onto a BOLD FCP project…the BOLD text denotes FCP is running and that this is the forefront project in CATDV and your assets complete with metadata, if this is how you have setup CATDV into the FCP Bin

Kevin Duggan
CatDV Product Manager

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Robert,
you pose some interesting questions about XDCAM workflows, the one thing you do not mention is that the proxy sound is very poor and a mix down of the original which could be for instance, four or eight discrete tracks. For this reason in the past, for the Volvo Ocean Race, I automated the generation of proxies. For this race we had an additional problem in that we sometimes had six crews shooting at the same time a live event. I worried about multiple instances of Untitled Disk and COOO1 files so what we did was pre-name all of the disks XD_0001 and upward and barcoded them as such prior to giving them to the crews. They just shot as normal but at ingest the enclosing folder was renamed to reflect the Disk Name. Our automation software Catdv Worker then renamed the files using this folder name so each file within the folder became XD_0001_C0001, XD_0001_0002 and so on. This meant that each file now had a man readable name that linked it back to a Disk on the shelf. The Worker then produced an OFFLine RT proxy with that exact same name for proxy editing in FCP. It also had the same discrete audio tracks as the original. This meant that relinking to the high res was very easy if you kept your high res and lo res in different folders and has the added advantage that you do not have to reconform your audio. The fact that this was automated apart from the naming of the enclosing folder meant that the workflow was kept consistent , the overhead of the proxy generation was mitigated by the clip based nature of XDCAM..after each clip was processed the Worker updates the central database , so that new clips just keep popping up in CATDV . This workflow might not suit all needs but it was very reliable in a high pressure news situation as well as allowing logging in CATDV for a weekly magazine 1 hour weekly show…Since then we have added MXF support using MXF4Mac and Calibratied Software so we can handle all of these MXF formats ie P2 XDCAM and even AVID in their native state and push them into FCP for editing so re-wrapping into Qtime is no longer even required

Hope this helps a little and check out our Worker product on the site and our MXF support

Kevin Duggan

Catdv Product Manager

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Peter
Stand 8.131.b Hall 8

in catalog under Squarebox and Quad Logic Systems

look forward to seeing you

Cheers

Kevin

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Peter,
in short yes, you can drag and drop clips into a bin or even the timeline if the clips represent a complete file. If the clips are sub-clips ie a portion of a complete media file the situation is complicated by the fact that Qtime does not understand or support sub-clips,( unless you use ref movies). So the mechanism we have put in place means that you drag and drop to the FCP project as it is displayed with the CatDV tree and this takes care of the issue by automatically exporting the XML into FCP where it appears in the Browser. True sub-clips are honored and display in FCP as such. In addition using this mechanism all of the added metadata from the CatDV catalogs is transferred into the correct FCP fields something that would not happen if you just dragged and dropped the media from CatDV to FCP. This is a very important point. Additionally it is possible within CatDv to place markers inside a clip which you can name on the fly and these named markers go with the clip via XML to FCP. You can then choose if you wish within FCP to turn the markers into subclips or they just appear inside your viewer as if you had set them within FCP. This allows producers etc to use CatDV to mark up interviews etc off-line and communicate this information very quickly to an editor. Alternatively one can make up a catalog of subclips,name them and then send the new catalog over to FCP as a Bin. It is also possible within CatDv to construct sequences of clips that transfer across to FCP as timelines. We will be posting tutorials on the website when I return from IBC but if your going call in the booth and I will happily demonstrate you these and many other features of CatDV.

Cheers

Kevin