[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Lindsay
quick response to aspect ratio , filter on format ie DV then select all .. then change the ratio to the correct figure from the drop down list in the aspect ratio filed. The stuff may be incorrectly tagged as it is imported, but this will “fix” it

KEvin

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Lindsay,
you ask good questions! Firstly you can take a look at https://www.mme.tv and there are a couple of videos up there that show you how CatDV and MME work together to help with the workflows you describe. If you are not aware CatDv is a Qtime application and the addition of Calibrated Softwares products which give the ability to play your avid mxf files within Catdv is also desirable. This by the way is a cross platform solution which is generally important in the Avid space.
Your approach to drop the AvidMediaFolder is a good one, the chaos that you describe is perhaps a little harsh on Avid , they have just adopted a different approach to media management than say FCP and Premiere. The files themselves do not have meaningful names as far as human readability is concerned but CatDV can stitch the mxf files into playable clips and extract metadata that is embedded into these files and allow you to filter based upon multiple attributes which may aid you in making sense of your Avid back catalog. You do not mention whether you are on shared storage or if your AvidMediaFolder is a shared folder. If it is you will see a folder structure within the AvidMediaFiles folder , the folders that contain the media are numbered. In a Unity environment the numbered folders basically refer to each editing station, you should be able to work out which is which based on the content , so this may be a help in figuring out what to drop into Catdv. As mentioned check out one of the movies on the MME site, I would recommend this approach rather than throwing the whole lot at CATDV as it will help you discern what is what.
Going forward MME will offer as our highest priority , AAF out of the Avid into a form of XML that CatDv can import complete with the metadata from your bins, this will allow a project by project approach to getting the Avid media and metadata into Catdv as well as the ability to generate proxies, etc and all of the usual CatDv workflows. It is our intention to upgrade for free to this functionality to early adopters of MME . Another approach you can use right now if you can identify the correct files , is to apply an ALE log file to the relevant media files within Catdv, which will bring over logging information into Catdv. This is not as elegant as the MME/AAF approach as it applies to one tape at a time but is being used successfully in the context of the right workflow.
Finally the above methodologies , ( AAF and XML exports ) will allow Premiere to Avid to FCP and round tripping of metadata across these three platforms to be implemented.
Yes its a brave new world out there!

Hope this helps , but feel free to ask further questions as it may help others who are on this journey 🙂

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Whitney
it is not essential that you have all fields the same but I would recommend that you compound the fields , then it is a simple matter of creating two tabbed panels , one could be called US stuff and the other INTERNATIONAL STUFF ( see how technical I am ) and only put the relevant fields on each tab.. Life will be easier if you harmonise your logging across borders as you go forward. Not sure what went on with your previous import but am guessing it is related to display , as I am suggesting you do in my first suggestion. Goto Preferences Customise Details Panel and Create a new Panel then select the fields you wish to see on the panel, noting as you go that you do not have to show everything , but if you wish to see all of the potential fields goto the OTHER tab and it will list all available fields, thats where I expect to see your “missing” stuff.

Hope this helps

Kevin Duggan
CatDv/MME

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Whitney.
What you want to do is sync the fields between the server and the standalone copy of Catdv in the States. For your version their is a workaround , version Nine makes this a more elegant solution !.
In Holland goto User/Library/Preferences/ and locate your CATDV preference file. Drag a copy to your desktop. Zip up this file and send it to your colleague. Get them to place the pref file in the same place on their system that you got it from.. ie User/Library/Preferences/ it is going to overwrite an existing pref file. so make sure that they have their existing license code available as CATDV will sync the fields but lose the registration and will need to be re-registered! …
Once this is done Catdv will now have exactly the same fields and layouts as the Dutch Mothership and you will be able to just exchange catalogs between yourselves …

Hope this helps

KEvin

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi David
you are going in the right direction but you would probably want to set the prefs to make qtime ref movies. Then you only have to deal with a single object representing all of the image sequences. ie Pref > Image Sequences > Make Ref Movie … Basically works like Qtime Player > Export as Image sequence does.

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Jeff
you have to go into the task window and clear the jobs , the Worker will not re-run them until you clear them , as it thinks its done them so it skip onto the next . Their is a preference to change this behaviour but most times you won`t want to do this. It eventually clears the jobs itself over time . So select all delete tasks , then for good measure you could go into your script and then click apply , this will completely reset the worker and you should be good to reprocess your jobs

Kevin Duggan
Catdv/MME

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi David
just to clarify , you say you are using the Preview Manager , if Catdv has done its job correctly you should find that the Preview TAB “lights up” in the player window and you should have your proxy playing in this window. WIthout using the Preveiw Manager you should be able to verify that there is a file in the Catdv Preview folder , as it appears from what you say that the Path is being constructed, meaning your preferences are correct . You may need to deselect and then select again the asset for it to load the proxy in the Catdv interface , but linking is automatic . I would also suggest you check the EXACT FILE NAME OPTION as this helps FCP relink easily.

Hope this helps

Kevin Duggan
Catdv/MME

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi David
make sure that you have selected PATH BASED PREVIEWS PREFER PATH option setting in the Preview and Thumbnails and make sure TAPE BASE PREVIEW is unchecked. The behaviour is very different as is the Media Paths.

Hope this helps

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

HI Allan
make sure you have checked use FCP defaults in the Field Definition Pref . It is possible to map any of CatDv`s fields to the FCP one`s. I suspect you have got them out of whack . This feature is very powerful if you use P2 and other machine named clips.. You can name them in CATDV and then take them over into FCP without renaming the source file … Voila .. man readable clip names

Hope this helps

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME

[Kevin Duggan]

Hi Greg
you can contact me off-list I think I can help you but I don`t want to announce new products in the Cow until they are finished…

Kevin

Kevin Duggan
CatDV/MME