[Lindsay Simpson]

I just wanted to report that I use the Premiere plug-in for the CatDV Desktop version, and am very happy with how it performs! The metadata imports nicely and translates well in Premiere.

It’s a great advantage for a large media library!

[Lindsay Simpson]

Thank you for the information Dougal. Taking a look at the pick lists in preferences, I see the “Remember Values” check box, but it is grayed out for each field and both relevant pick-lists. I’ve linked a screen shot below.

picklist_preferences.jpg

[Lindsay Simpson]

While the custom FFMPEG export setting in the screen shot has been adequate for the majority of my media, perhaps it is not robust enough for these larger time lapse files?

I began experimenting with different proxy settings, and found that using the Quicktime exporter, instead of FFMPEG, with an H264 codec is working well.

Perhaps this tidbit of information will prove useful to someone else.

[Lindsay Simpson]

I should also note that the screenshot features one of the proxies that is working. The working proxy files will open in the separate Quicktime player.

[Lindsay Simpson]

Thanks for your patience John. Indeed that dang apostrophe ‘ strikes again. I think I have discovered that the media I logged with the trial version, pre-removal of the ‘ from my file name, is the big problem. For the sake of my sanity, I’m going to start from scratch with that media, which is not a detrimental loss. Otherwise, media that has been ingested in the last week, seems to be linking just fine with FFMPEG CatDV internal, built proxies.

Have a nice weekend!

[Lindsay Simpson]

Just performed some testing using the FFMPEG encoder to build proxy files within CatDV. It does initially seem more robust and reliable for larger numbers of proxy builds. I was able to build a handful of proxies, successfully map to a Google Drive location and force proxies over the original media. Here’s a screenshot link to that: successful_proxy_ffmpeg.png

However, after this initial successful test in a smaller catalog, I moved to a larger catalog to attempt a bigger proxy build. This failed entirely. Here’s a link to a screen shot of that attempt: unsuccessfulproxy_samepath.png

Taking a closer look at one of the clips in the first, successful catalog that also exists in the second, larger catalog, the proxy file is viewable in one catalog and not recognized in the second catalog. Here’s a screen shot of the two catalogs, with the same clip highlighted and the proxy path mapping in preferences: sameclip_2differentcatalogs.png

What would account for this inconsistency? I think I can make the FFMPEG proxy build work for my needs, if I can get consistency in recognition of the proxy files across catalogs.

[Lindsay Simpson]

Hi John,

To clarify, the proxy file that is working was built by CatDV, not Adobe Media Encoder. I have not yet been able to link Adobe Media Encoder created proxy files, even when matching the file path exactly.

I’ll explore the FFMPEG option. Thank you.

[Lindsay Simpson]

And apologies about the request from someone for Square Box to chime in. I’m betting based on your profile picture that you are just that person! Thank you for all of your assistance!

[Lindsay Simpson]

John, thank you for the additional feedback. I had suspected the proxy path would need to be identical to the original media. Thank you for confirming.

As you can tell by my previous screen shot, the folder structure is a bit deep on the original media. I built an exact copy of that structure on Drive as the location for the proxies to live, and mapped that to be the output location for Adobe Media Encoder. The files exported and landed in the correct location.

I then cleared any proxy mapping that had existed in the preferences and re-mapped using the exact locations. Still no luck linking to the proxy files.

To round out my testing a bit, I did ask CatDV to build a proxy of one of these time lapses, and mapped the location to a higher directory in the Google Drive folder, not the same structure as the original media. This method worked! The catalog refreshed and the proxy was forced over the original. This is great, but really only produces more questions, especially given your statement about the need for exact duplicate mapping of original and proxy media.

Here’s a screen shot: screenshot2015-02-19at2.31.06pm.png

I think the trial license I received may have been CatDV 10. Or was at least a 32-bit version of CatDV. Would that have an impact? Any other reasons why CatDV may not support the Adobe Media Encoder files any longer?

Worker node is only available in conjunction with the CatDV Server correct?

Anyone from Square Box out there able to chime in? I know this method of Google Drive can work as I tested this and was successfully with my trial license.

[Lindsay Simpson]

Thank you for your suggestions John. I tried simplifying the proxy path and removing any special characters from the folder/file names, but still not luck linking up proxies. Here is a screen shot of a simplified path I attempted, linked below.

screenshot2015-02-19at8.52.16am.png

Does the proxy path need to be identical the original media folder structure? Re-structuring my original media is a less than ideal solution.

Also, I failed to mention in my previous post, that I am building proxies using Adobe Media Encoder rather than CatDV itself. In my experience CatDV just doesn’t seem to be robust enough to handle multiple proxy builds at once.

With a trial version of CatDV, back in December, I had tested this method of using AME to encode proxies saving them directly to a local Google Drive folder, and it worked seamlessly. I am not sure what critical link I seem to be missing at this point, other than as you suggest, error in path mapping.

I’ll continue playing with mapping paths and see where that gets me for now.
Any other suggestions or resources out there will be great appreciated.