[Rolf Howarth]

Yes, that would certainly explain why the web app can’t locate the proxy 🙂

The two key concepts that CatDV uses when building and locating proxies is that of a ROOT DIRECTORY, and of RELATIVE PATHS (relative to that root).

Let’s say the original file you are converting is /Volumes/Media/Project/Folder/File1.mxf, and you want to put proxies in /Volumes/Proxies.

You have a couple of choices. You can specify a root directory, and configure your proxy path as
/Volumes/Media => /Volumes/Proxies. In that case, the relative path is Project/Folder/File1.mxf and your proxy would be /Volumes/Proxies/Project/Folder/File1.mp4 (for example, assuming you’re using MPEG-4).

Alternatively, you could omit the ‘original location’ root directory and set your proxy path to be * => /Volumes/Proxies, in which case the relative path is taken to be relative to / and the proxy file would be at /Volumes/Proxies/Volumes/Media/Project/Folder/File1.mp4

Both approaches work, but if you explicitly specify a root directory that can give you more flexibility over where your proxies are located, as well as resulting in shorter file paths and making things more efficient because CatDV might not have to search so many file locations. It doesn’t really matter which approach you use, as long as you understand the principle so you know where the proxy file for a given media file is supposed to be.

This is particularly important if you use the Worker Node, as it provides a LOT of options and flexibility when it comes to naming output files. It’s supposed to be a general purpose scriptable tool, after all.

How are you triggering the conversion? Is it based on a watch folder? If so, the watch folder itself is taken to be the root directory. If the watch folder is /Volumes/Media and you drop in a file /Volumes/Media/File2.mov then the proxy generated will be at /Volumes/Proxies/File2.mp4. That may or may not be what CatDV is expecting, depending on how you configured it (it might be looking for /Volumes/Proxies/Volumes/Media/File2.mp4).

If it’s not what you want, try configuring the worker to generate a “Standalone Movie” rather than a “Path-Based Preview”. The file will be more or less exactly the same but you get more choice over where the proxy file is written, using variables like $p, $P and $g.

[Rolf Howarth]

Hi Gardiner,

Many thanks for the file. I just wanted to let you know we’re still investigating this. We’re very busy at the moment with all that’s going on re FCP X and a new FCSrvr import tool we’re about to release, amongst other things, but we would definitely like to add full support for reading metadata from any audio files we don’t currently support. I can’t give you any timescales yet but it’s definitely on our list…

-Rolf

[Rolf Howarth]

https://www.squarebox.co.uk/download/CatDVPro9.0.1.dmg includes support for importing and exporting the new .fcpxml FCP X XML file format. This opens up most of the old FCP 7 workflows to FCP X again, such as logging and rough cut editing over the network with proxies, then send a sequence across to Final Cut Pro. Clips, subclips, sequences, markers and clip notes go across (both ways), though the way FCP X handles metadata such as keywords means they map more closely to timecode event and range markers, not to CatDV’s user-defined fields.

-Rolf

[Rolf Howarth]

CatDV should read most audio metadata but if you can forward a sample file and a brief note of what fields should be being read and aren’t to support@squarebox.co.uk then we’d be happy to investigate!

[Rolf Howarth]

Actually, yes it does 🙂 You can create linked fields so that what you choose in one drop down (eg. Country) affects what’s shown in the other (eg. city). If you fill in Country first then City will only show cities from that country, but if Country is blank the the City drop down will show a tree listing countries and cities. If you choose a value from there it will populate both fields (but again, only if Country is blank).

To set this up, define the first drop down Country as a normal Grouping field, then define City as a Linked Hierarchy field, and give it a name of City:Country (which means display the label “City” but tell it that the contents depend on the field called Country).

For the City pick list values you need to enter them in the form of a tree, eg.

USA/New York
USA/Los Angeles
USA/San Francisco
USA/Denver
USA/Atlanta
USA/Washington
United Kingdom/London
United Kingdom/Bristol
United Kingdom/Manchester
United Kingdom/Stratford-upon-Avon
France/Paris
France/Marseille

etc.

[Rolf Howarth]

It may be possible… followed up offline.

[Rolf Howarth]

You can do View > Filter and create a named filter, that’s another way of filtering your catalog, leaving the quick filter free to narrow down the results further.

[Rolf Howarth]

I’m not sure about 8.1 but we found an issue where folders wouldn’t work as intended if you use CatDV 9.0.0 Workgroup Edition. This will be fixed in 9.0.1.

[Rolf Howarth]

I take it you’re referring to the quick search field in the toolbar? If you type in multiple keywords it does a logical AND, not an OR operation, ie. it only shows clips which contain both keywords. This is the same way something like iTunes works. You start off seeing all your clips. The more you type in the more it narrows down the search until you’re hopefully left with just the clips you want.

[Rolf Howarth]

That looks like it might be an issue specific to the workgroup version. I believe what you’re doing should work. We’ll investigate and if necessary include a fix in the next client update.