CatDV 7.0 Reference Guide

This user manual is a copy of the online help text. It is designed both for reference and to be read from beginning to end.

Table of Contents


How to use help

Getting started

Introduction
Installation
Quick start guide

Clips and catalogs

Catalogs
Clips
Importing clips and movies
Exporting clips and movies

Basic operation

Views
Clip details panel
Tree navigator
Customise views
Clip details

Viewing media

Previews and thumbnails
Media dialog
Sequences

Advanced operation

Marking and selecting clips
Searching and filtering
Summary mode
Grouping mode

Miscellaneous

Printing
Preferences
Tools
Media management
Media metadata
Supported file formats
Import warnings
Preview presets
Multiple catalogs
Identifying clips
Image sequences and metaclips
New features in CatDV 7
CatDV 6 features
CatDV 5 features
CatDV 4 features
CatDV 3 features

Professional Edition

Professional Edition features
Workgroup features
Enterprise features
Enhanced query dialog
Professional Edition Importers and Exporters

How to...

How to catalog tapes
How to log with an external capture application
How to log non-DV material
How to add subtitles
How to use CatDV with Final Cut Pro
How to use CatDV with unsupported applications
How to edit within CatDV
How to organise your digital photos
How to cope with timecode resets

How to use help

The online help documentation is arranged in separate pages or topics. It is designed to be suitable both for reference or to be read from beginning to end.

Use the CatDV Help menu command to access online help:

The online help text is also available as a standalone Reference Guide which you can view or print out with your web browser.

Other sources of documentation

The old CatDV Pro 3.0 User Manual is a separate PDF document including screen shots and additional background material that you can download. Although it hasn't been updated to later versions, if you're new to CatDV you might want to browse the PDF user manual first as an introduction.

You should also refer to the Support FAQ on the CatDV web site if you encounter any difficulties as this contains lots of useful tips and explanations.

Introduction

CatDV 7.0 is a cross-platform media cataloging and video logging tool. The CatDV product family has several members, all sharing the same basic user interface but with different features:

This reference guide describes all these versions. When there are differences these are indicated in the text.

Cataloging

CatDV will import and catalog media files and movies in most popular formats, including:

Media files are indexed with thumbnails, not just for the whole file but for each scene. Unlike other cataloging applications CatDV is aware of timecode and knows about scenes within a movie file, so as well as media files it will also import:

With the Professional Edition you can also import arbitrary files of any type into the catalog, not just media files but also related supporting files such spreadsheets, Word documents or project files.

CatDV helps you to keep track of which video clips are where on a tape (and which projects they are used in) by maintaining a catalog of clips, each with timecode in and out values and thumbnail previews. CatDV lets you organise digital camera images and MP3s as well as digital video, providing a common interface to locate and manage all your digital media.

Metadata

To make it easy to organise your media, each clip is annotated with metadata that can be used for searching and sorting the catalog. This includes both technical metadata (such as file path, audio sample rate, video format, date and time of recording, or camera exposure details) which are extracted automatically from the media file, and annotations explicitly entered by the user (such as clip name, description, project, or clip status). Once extracted, this metadata is cached in a CatDV catalog file (or a central database if using the workgroup server), and therefore provides a permanent and instantly accessible record even if the original file is offline (eg. on removable media).

Logging and scene detection

To simplify logging the contents of a tape and creating a first rough draft of an edited program, CatDV supports automatic scene detection of captured footage. You can review each clip and enter a name and keywords describing the scene, mark it as "good" or not, and enter "in" and "out" points to select portions of interest within the clip. Use the Verbatim Logger to type in spoken dialog (perhaps to create subtitles) or other comments while a clip is playing.

Proxy files

Full-resolution video files are very large and it is usually impractical to keep them all on-line at the same time. CatDV will create low-resolution preview movies to show the contents of clips when the original media files are off-line. To restore off-line media CatDV generates capture logs for use with the batch capture capability of your editing application.

Video editing

Although CatDV is not intended as a full editing application you can create a simple composition or sequence by trimming and concatenating together clips of interest. All editing is non-destructive as CatDV deals with references to your media files.

Movie export

You can export clips or sequences as either self-contained or QuickTime reference movies, or you can convert a movie using a different codec, for example to create a web movie, perhaps adding subtitles or a burnt-in timecode at the same time. You can batch convert multiple movies in one operation.

Tools

Several unique utility functions are provided, such as a convenient timecode calculator, or adding a burnt-in security camera-style date and time display. You can consolidate DV media files on disk based on an edit decision list by trimming and deleting unused material. CatDV will analyse most media files and display detailed technical information about the file, including the format of individual tracks, frame durations, sample counts, a dropped frame analysis, and more, helping you to diagnose capture and playback problems. You can also print catalogs, display them as HTML, and more.

Workgroup features

Using the optional CatDV Server and a relational SQL database you can store clip details in a central shared database accessible via a local area network, thereby allowing different members of a team to work together.

Installation and registration

System requirements

CatDV is available for both Macintosh and Windows. It requires Java and QuickTime, which you can download for free if they're not already provided on your system:

Consult the release notes in the Read Me file for further details.

Updates

The latest version of CatDV is always available at http://www.squarebox.co.uk. You should check this site regularly for updates and bug fixes or subscribe to the CatDV announcements mailing list.

Normally minor bug fix updates are issued free of charge while a small upgrade fee is charged for major feature upgrades.

Purchasing CatDV

CatDV Pro works as a 30-day limited-functionality demo until you purchase a license, which you can do on-line. You will then be sent a registration code to unlock the full application. Enter the name and registration code in the Registration tab of Preferences. (The easiest way to do this is by copying both lines of your registration details and pressing the special Paste button.)

If required we can provide temporary license codes to give you full access to CatDV's features for your evaluation. For sales and registration enquiries please contact sales@squarebox.co.uk; for technical support please contact support@squarebox.co.uk. You can also use the web shortcuts in the CatDV Help menu.

Quick start guide

This page provides a quick overview of the main features of CatDV. Each feature is described in more detail by following the links. Use the "<" back button at the top of this window to return to this page.

Screen layout

Importing clips

Viewing clips

Outputting clips

Use CatDV's searching and filtering tools to locate clips of interest, whether you have only just captured and logged them or from a library of old tapes and stock footage. Once you have selected the clips you want or created a rough sequence you can output them in various ways:

Unlike some applications such as iTunes, which save their data automatically in a hidden internal database location, CatDV uses an explicit 'document' metaphor for its catalogs. Once you have logged your clips you need to save the catalog document to your computer's hard disk, but you can organise these documents how you want (for example, you might create one catalog for each tape or project you are working on).

Managing catalogs

CatDV stores clip details and their thumbnails in a catalog:

Catalogs are normally saved in a file with extension .cdv. You can open more than one catalog at the same time and copy and paste clips between them. Catalogs are portable between Macintosh and Windows.

The trial version of CatDV will not normally let you save catalogs (or export or print data).

With the optional CatDV Server, CatDV users can store clips in a central shared database rather than in files on the local file system. Even then, however, CatDV still uses the concept of catalogs as a logical grouping of related clips.

Regardless of whether you are using the single-user or the networked version of CatDV, to keep catalogs a manageable size it's a good idea to have a separate catalog for each tape, or perhaps each project, rather than storing all your clips in one huge catalog. See managing multiple catalogs for hints on how to manage a large clip library.

Self-contained archives

In a self-contained archive the catalog is combined with the preview files for that catalog in a single directory (Windows) or directory bundle (Mac OS X). The archive can be saved to an external drive or copied to CD/DVD and when the archive is opened the corresponding previews are immediately accessible. With self-contained archives it is not necessary to keep all the preview files in one place. Archives have the file extension .cdvp.

You can use the Manage Preview Movies command to check which preview files are contained in an archive.

Clips

All data within a CatDV catalog is held in the form of clips. There are different types of clip, such as still images, movie files, scenes within a movie, lines of an EDL or batch list, and so on.

Each clip has the following main properties (often referred to as fields when shown in a dialog, or as columns when the clips are shown in a table). Additional properties that provide full details of the media file format that a clip was imported from are listed separately.

Some of these properties are editable while others are filled in automatically at the time of import. Depending on the type of the clip, some of these properties may not be relevant and are left blank.

NameName of the clip
NotesDescription or other comments you enter about the clip
BinProject bin or directory on disk where the clip came from, used for grouping clips
TapeName of the tape or reel the clip is on
Import sourceThe file that details of this clip were imported from (eg. a movie file, EDL, or batch list)
Source mediathe media file that holds the video data the clip refers to (not necessarily the same as the Import Source)
In & OutTimecode values for the whole clip. The Out point of a clip is the timecode of the frame after the last frame of this clip (and normally equals the In point of the following clip). (Corresponds to Media Start and End in Final Cut.)
DurationThe corresponding clip length, i.e. the difference between In and Out points.
In2 & Out2Timecode values for a selection made within the clip (corresponds to In and Out in Final Cut).
Start & EndCurrent clip bounds, either In/Out or In2/Out2 depending on the Export clips based on selection Preferences option
TypeClip type, whether still, audio or movie file, and if so whether a master clip (correspond to entire file) or a sub-clip. The icon is crossed out with a red X if the file is offline or unplayable.
Underlying TypeMore detailed type information that distinguishes QuickTime, OMF and WMV movies, for example. For DV clips the icon indicates whether a definite scene change at the start or end of the clip has been identified.
FormatA summary of the format of the movie (whether DV, other QuickTime movie, still, etc.). See the list of media-related properties for more details about the media file.
PosterEach clip has a poster thumbnail, normally the first frame of the clip but a different poster can be set from the clip details movie tab
MarkA general purpose check box to mark clips of interest or to save a selection
HideClips may be flagged as hidden so they don't normally appear unless the Show hidden menu command is used (you could use this to hide rejected clips but without deleting the clip record, or hide master clips once they have been divided into subclips.)
GoodA general purpose status field to indicate whether the clip is usable or not
ExposureA summary of the camera exposure details (available with some DV camcorders and digital cameras)
Record dateThe original date/time of recording of the clip or image (available with some DV camcorders and digital cameras)
DateEither the Record Date, or failing that the first modification time of the source media
User 1..NGeneral purpose user-defined text fields (in the Standard Edition you can have up to 3 user fields, in the Professional Edition you can have any number).
Clip IDSeveral fields are used to uniquely identify clips in different ways
TransitionAvailable when importing EDLs (edit decision lists)
Seq. No.Sequence number when importing more than one clip from a file, eg. an EDL or scenes within a movie
OnlineIndicate whether the clip is currently online, or a preview or thumbnail is available
UsedHow many sequences a clip appears in (this can indicate whether a clip is used in a project or not).

Making sense of property names

Some of these properties might appear more than once with similar names, for example where long and short forms of the same data are available. Or you might see two fields with the same name and quite different contents, or the same content in different fields!

There are several possible reasons for this apparent confusion. The important thing to remember is that the property name is just a label used to annotate the property on the screen, it doesn't necessarily have to be unique:

Use tool tip text (hover the mouse pointer over a field name) to display a short explanation of the field if you are unsure which property you are viewing. (You can also set the Show attribute IDs option in Preferences to automatically display a unique identifier after each property.)

Importing clips and movies

You can import clip data into a catalog from many different types of file. For most files CatDV will determine the file type automatically when you use the Open/Import command or drag a file into the main window, but you can also use the Import As submenu to use a specific importer if required:

Use Import Directory to import all the recognised media files in an entire directory. If the appropriate Preferences option is set it will recursively scan the contents of any subdirectories. You can also drag and drop files or folders from the Macintosh Finder or Windows Explorer directly into a CatDV window to import them. Use Scan For New Files to re-scan all the directories previously included in a catalog and import any new files that have been added since last time.

If you use the tree navigator you can navigate to a folder in your file system then right click on the node and choose Import Into Catalog, or drag the folder onto the catalog tree node, to import it.

Live Capture

For technical reasons, the old built-in Live Capture command is no longer available since CatDV 6. Instead, you can use the separate Live Capture Plus application, or capture a DV tape in an external application (such as your regular non-linear editing software or the free iMovie or Microsoft Movie Maker applications) then import the resulting files into CatDV to catalog them and create high-quality offline previews.

Exporting clips and movies

You can export clip definitions from a CatDV catalog in various formats for use in other applications. Some of these commands export the media itself, while others export references to the media including metadata.

Select the clips you want to export from the main window and use one of the Export As commands:

Use the Export Clips Based On Selection checkbox in Preferences to select whether the whole clip (as defined by its "in" and "out" timecode values) or a selected portion within each clip (as defined by "in2" and "out2") is exported by default. (If a clip has no selection the whole clip is always used.)

Note that the trial version of CatDV will not normally let you export or print clip definitions.

Exporting Movies

You can export movies from CatDV in several formats, either from the original media (if currently online) or from CatDV's preview versions if you have created them.

HTML Export

You can export selected clips and their poster thumbnails as a simple HTML catalog. There are two options:

With both types of export you can choose which columns to list on an index page and whether to include a separate detail page for each clip or not. You can also add a custom footer to each page. (A separate feature to create an HTML index is also included with the Export As Stll command.)

Note that pages exported from within CatDV form a static snapshot of the catalog at the time of the export. With the CatDV Server and optional Live HTML Publisher component you can make similar information available as a dynamic view of the current contents of the central database. The Live HTML Publisher also provides dynamic searching capabilities.

Views

The main window displays a list of clips. These can be displayed in one of three main ways:

Main window

When using the main window you can:

See also: Tree navigator, Customising views, Quick start guide, Summary mode

Sorting clips

Clips have both a 'natural' order within the catalog (usually the order they were imported in) and a 'display' order within the current window.

Clip details panel

Use the clip details panel to view and edit all the properties of a selected clip. This window also shows the thumbnails and media for a clip and is the main way of logging clips. It is also used for sequence editing. (In older versions of CatDV the functionality of the details panel was provided by the clip details dialog. This is still available for compatibility, though in most cases the new clip details panel has greatly improved functionality.)

You can show or hide the clip details panel at the top of the main window by toggling the clip details toolbar button.

Viewing media

There are three tabs that show all the media representations available for a clip: thumbnail images, the original movie, or a low-resolution preview movie.

Viewing and editing clip details

The Summary, Log Notes and Technical tabs display the various properties of the clip selected in the main window.

Logging menu

Use commands in the Logging menu to navigate within the clip details window, move to other clips, and perform logging.

Timecode event markers

In the Professional Edition you can create markers to flag particular events of interest within a clip without having to create subclips for each event.

Tree navigator

The tree navigator is shown on the left of the main window and provides a convenient way to organise the clips in catalog, to browse files on the file system, and access other functions such as the contents of the CatDV server.

You can show or hide the tree navigator using the toolbar button or menu command.

Catalog node

The catalog node represents all the clips in the current catalog. If you have a large catalog you can organise the clips according to any clip property, for example grouping by date, by file format, by tape or bin. You can think of grouping as providing dynamic "virtual bins" or "smart folders".

Server node

If you use the Workgroup or Enterprise Server use the Server node to quickly browse clips on the server without opening up a remote catalog in a new window.

File system node

The file system mode provides access to your file system from within CatDV without having to switch to the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer.

You can browse directory contents using CatDV's media analysis features without having to import them into a catalog. You can also perform common media file management operations straight from the tree navigator, for example drag and drop to move or import files.

Final Cut node

The Final Cut Projects node lists your recently used Final Cut Pro project files. If you have Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 or later you can drag and drop clips between CatDV and a Final Cut project using these project nodes.

Note that if you drag a clip straight to the Final Cut application window, whether from CatDV or the Finder, it is sent over as a file reference to the complete media file. Using XML and the Final Cut tree node is much more powerful however, as you can send subclips, log notes and sequences from CatDV to Final Cut and all the metadata is preserved.

Temporary views

When you use the tree navigator to view the contents of the file system, a catalog on the server, or the contents of a Final Cut project you are temporarily replacing the window's view on the current catalog with temporary clips.

It is important to note that these temporary clips are not part of the current catalog and won't be saved when you save the catalog.

Because changes to a temporary view aren't saved in the catalog the clip details panel won't let you edit or add log notes to a temporary clip. Additionally, the background colour of the clips changes to a shade of pink to remind you when you are in a temporary view.

It is easy to add temporary clips to the current catalog however. Simply drag and drop them onto the catalog node (or right click and select Import To Catalog). Once you do this they become normal clips that you can edit and save with the rest of the catalog.

Scratch Pad

The clip Scratch Pad is a holding area where you can drag clips of interest to save them temporarily, for example to build up a result set of clips from multiple catalogs or queries. Drag clips to the Scratch Pad node to save them, or drag them into a normal catalog window (or onto the Catalogs node) to add them to a normal catalog. Clips are stored in memory in the Scratch Pad as long as the CatDV application is open, even if you have closed the catalalog they came from.

Use View > Scratch Pad to access the scratch pad via a new tab in the clip details panel rather than the tree navigator if you prefer.

Customising views

Use the Customise Views command to create your own view definitions, containing just those columns (or clip properties) that you are interested in:

Adjust column widths

Use the Adjust Column Widths command to automatically adjust the width of columns in a list view according to the data being displayed in them. You can also adjust column widths manually by dragging on the column divider line in the header row.

You can also rearrange the order of columns graphically by dragging the column header. However, you need to use the Customise Views command to add or remove columns.

If you make changes to the column widths then bring up the Customise Views dialog you are asked whether to import the current column widths into the view definition. You can then save the view definition including the column widths. Alternatively, use the Save Column Widths command. (If you do not save the column widths in this way then they will only apply as long as the current window is open.)

Customise details panel

In the Professional Edition you can customise which fields are shown in the clip details panel using the Logging > Customise Details Panel command. You can:

You can define different panels and choose which ones are visible at any time by checking or unchecking the visible flag. For example, different panels may make sense depending on which kind of project you are working on.

Clip details dialog

Note: in most cases you will use the newer clip details panel within the main window to view and edit clip details. If you prefer you can bring up a separate clip details window however.

Select Clip Details to bring up a dialog where you can view and edit all the properties of a selected clip. This window also shows the thumbnails and media for a clip and can be used for logging clips.

You can bring up the clip details dialog from the main window in several ways: via the menu bar, via a toolbar button, via the context sensitive popup menu, or by double clicking a clip (or control double clicking, depending on how your Preferences are set up).

Viewing media

Logging

Splitting and merging clips

Viewing and editing clip details

Creating and navigating to other clips

Keyboard shortcuts

Clip summary dialog

The clip summary window is a formatted, read-only view of the properties of a clip. Unlike the clip details window, which has fixed size fields, text in the clip summary window flows so it's all visible.

Previews and thumbnails

A clip can have different types of media representation: small thumbnail images, the original movie or media file, and a low-resolution preview movie. A clip contains a reference to its media, not the media itself, so all these types of media can be shared by more than one clip.

Thumbnails

Original media

Previews

Locating media

CatDV can find the media for a clip in two distinct ways, by tape name or by file path.

Tape-based lookup:

Path-based lookup (of original media or low-res previews):

See also: Source media management, Preferences

Media dialog

CatDV uses the media dialog to play the media for a selected clip at full size:

All these options use the media dialog to show the media, either in a window or full screen. Double click or press Escape to close the media dialog. See below for various other keyboard shortcuts you can use to control the media as it's playing.

There are also a number of Preferences options that control how media is played, for example the slide show delay.

Keyboard shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts can be used to control the media presentation and mark the clip that is playing:

Space barplay or pause a movie
Up, Downmove to previous or next clip in the catalog
Escape (or Cmd-W)close the media dialog
Ftoggle into full screen mode. Double click to return to normal mode.
Tab (or R)start or pause slide show mode
Enterclose a slide show
+, -increase or decrease the audio volume
[, ]rotate image 90 degrees left or right
Ddouble the playback size of the movie or image
Shift-Drestore playback to normal size
Ctrl-Rrefresh the display, re-centering the window on the screen
0-9adjust speed of slide show
Ctoggle showing/hiding the movie controller
J/K/L/;jog-shuttle controls (see below)
Shift-Ltoggle looping playback mode
Mset the mark flag for the clip
Shift-Mclear the mark flag for the clip
G/N/?mark the clip as good/no good/maybe
I, Oset start/end of a selection (in2/out2)
Pplay the selection from start to end (in2 to out2)
T, Ymove to start/end of a selection (in2/out2)
S, Eplay start/end of a selection (in2/out2)
Ctrl-J (or Cmd-I)display clip details dialog

JKL controls

The behaviour of the JKL jog-shuttle controls depends on the Preferences setting:

These keys apply in the media dialog, in the Movie and Preview tab of the clip details dialog, and when playing movies full screen.

Sequences

The Professional Edition has support for creating and editing sequences. A "sequence" is a special type of clip that contains a sequence of clips in order. It corresponds to a simple timeline or cuts-only edited program.

A sequence is created:

A number of Preferences options control the creation of sequences when importing a file, for example whether to include audio tracks separately and what duration stills should have when added to a sequence.

The sequence window is also used when you use View Tape As Sequence or use the Create Real-Time Sequence command, which places clips on a timeline according to the time of day and can simplify lining up multicamera shoots if the camera clocks were set correctly.

Editing sequences

Double click a sequence clip to open it in a special sequence window. When you edit a sequence the clip details panel changes to show Source and Record playback windows with a timeline below.

The Source window (on the left) shows the current selected clip:

The Record window (on the right) is labelled Sequence and shows the entire sequence:

The timeline shows all the clips in the sequence as a continuous timeline, complete with thumbnails and clip name:

The following commands appear in the Sequences menu:

An easy way to list the sequences in a catalog is using the Sequences node in the tree navigator.

Keyboard shortcuts

Many familiar keyboard shortcuts are available when editing sequences, including:

Deldelete selection from sequence and shift remainder up
Shift-Delerase selection from sequence leaving a gap
Enterappend the clip in the source window to the end of the sequence
\insert the source clip into the sequence at the current playhead position or replacing an existing selection, shifting the remainder up
/overwrite the sequence, replacing an existing selection with the source clip. This performs a 3-point edit, ie. if you select in and out points in the sequence to be overwritten then the appropriate amount of material from the source clip will be used.
J, K and Lcontrol playback
I and Omake a selection by marking In and Out points
Shift-I or Oclear the corresponding In or Out pont
Xselect the current clip in the sequence (based on where the playhead is), ie. set In and Out points around the clip
Shift-Xclear the selection
FMatch frames, ie. jump to the frame in the trim window that corresponds to the current frame in the sequence window
Up and Down arrowmove to previous or next interesting time (edit point)
Ctrl/Cmd Pplay the selection in a new window
Ctrl/Cmd + and -zoom in and out of the timeline
Ctrl/Cmd \automatically scale the timeline to fit window width
Ctrl/Cmd Zundo the last edit

See the Sequence menu or hover the mouse over the buttons below the Source and Record windows for details of additional shortcuts (tool tips).

Some of these shortcuts apply to whichever one or other of the Source or Record windows has keyboard focus at the time. Click on the movie player or use Ctrl/Cmd-2 or Ctrl/Cmd-4 to switch between the two windows and observe which tab has a darker background.

Other functions that affect how the timeline is shown are available via the buttons below the timeline, including the size and number of thumbnails that are shown, and whether to use a static playhead when playing the sequence movie.

Printing sequences

There are two ways of printing the clips in a sequence, depening on whether you want to display the original source timecode or the timecode of the clip based on where it is placed within the sequence:

Additional information

The In and Out point of a clip usage in a sequence refers to its timecode within the timeline. If you are interested in source timecode you can drag and drop (or copy and paste) a clip usage out from a sequence into a regular window and it will create a new secondary clip referring to the relevant source.

Once you have created a rough cut sequence in CatDV you can render it by exporting it as a movie. You can also export a sequence as an EDL or Final Cut Pro XML file for subsequent editing in your NLE editing application.

The original sequence editing dialog available in earlier versions of CatDV is still available if you right click on a sequence in the tree navigator and choose Edit In New Window.

Please note that the basic sequence editing provided in CatDV is not intended to replace a regular video editing application. CatDV provides cuts only editing, with no support for effects or transitions and only limited support for separate audio and video tracks, but in many cases this is all you need.

Marking and selecting clips

You can select clips in a catalog by clicking on them in the main window, holding down the shift or command/control keys to extend the selection, then copy and paste them as required.

If you want to copy or paste text within a text field you need to click and select within the text field then use Control-C/X/V (or Command-C/X/V on the Mac) from the keyboard.

Marking clips

Use the Mark check box to mark clips of interest or to save the state of a selection:

You can also mark clips as "good" or not ("no good", or as "maybe" if you are undecided) using the Good field:

Hiding clips

Clips may be flagged as being hidden so they don't normally appear in a catalog window. These clips are still part of the catalog, however, and are saved and loaded normally.

Hidden clips can be made visible temporarily by using the Show Hidden menu command (under the View menu).

You can change whether selected clips are hidden or not by using the Hide Selected or Unhide Selected menu commands, or by checking or unchecking the "Hidden" checkbox in the clip details.

When you import a DV movie with automatic scene detection selected, a master clip representing the movie file as a whole is created, as well as separate clips for each scene detected within that movie. In most cases you are likely to be interested in the scenes on a tape, rather than the capture files, so the clips representing the movie file are initially marked as hidden. You can also manually hide master clips after creating subclips from them.

Searching and filtering

There are a number of ways of searching and filtering clips.

Use the Quick Search field on the toolbar to filter the clips shown in the main window to those containing the keywords you type in. As you type more characters fewer clips are shown. (The Quick Search field works by searching the clip's name, notes, bin name, user columns, and metadata fields for each word you type in in turn.)

For more advanced searches you can use the Find command to search for clips based on one or more particular clip properties. You can either move to the next clip that matches the query or use it as a filter so that only those clips matching the filter condition are shown in a window.

A query or filter can have different types of conditions, all of which must be true for a clip to match:

When searching you can move forward to the next clip matching the conditions, or search for all clips in one go (all clips that match will be selected). You can also create a new view containing just the matching clips.

When a filter is in effect only the clips that match the filter are shown. Press the filter button (or use the View > Filter... menu command) to toggle a filter on and off. You can also save named queries and then select a named filter to apply from the drop down list in the toolbar (Professional Edition only).

Grouping and Hiding clips are two other ways of excluding clips from being shown in a window, separate from and in addition to the regular filtering mechanism.

See the page on the enhanced query dialog for details of an alternative query dialog available in the Professional Edition.

Summary mode

In a normal view each row or thumbnail in the main window corresponds to precisely one clip in your catalog. In certain situations you might want a different view of your clips however. In a summary view the clips in your window are temporarily replaced by an alternative "consolidated" view.

There are three types of summary mode, which you can access via the View menu:

Switching to a summary view is just temporary and doesn't alter your original clips. You can toggle between a normal and summary view by pressing Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-S.

Clip summaries

Sometimes a catalog may contain overlapping or duplicated clip definitions, for example if you import logs from completed projects, or if you capture a tape in several segments.

If you capture a tape as a series of regular sized files (using Live Capture Plus or the Whole tape capture log for example) it's very unlikely that all the file boundaries will fall on an exact scene change boundary. Some scenes will end up spanning more than one imported clip therefore. There are different ways to combine these broken clip segments and join them into a single clip for each scene:

Some of these commands only work on DV clips because DV files contain the timecode encoded in each frame and also include start and end of scene boundary information.

How summary mode works

The changes made by summary mode only affect how clips are displayed and exported. The original clips in the catalog are not altered, so you can safely toggle in and out of summary view as required. Clip Summary mode displays a concise description of the scenes on a tape as follows:

Other summary modes:

Grouping mode

Use grouping mode to view all the clips in a catalog by tape, bin, or other picklist property. Select the property to group by from the drop down list at the left of the window, then select the particular item to view.

More advanced operations are possible:

Multi-grouping attributes can also be configured for user-defined columns via Preferences. This feature is designed for things like keywords, where more than one keyword might apply to the same clip. When grouping all the distinct keywords are shown and the same clip might appear under more than one keyword.

Printing

You can print reports from a catalog consisting of all the clips in the current view:

You can also print complete details of an individual clip by bringing up the Clip Summary window and pressing the Print toolbar button.

To adjust the appearance of printouts you can:

You can also export clips as HTML or text and print them from an external application such as your web browser or a word processor (for example, if you have large amount of text and want it all to flow on the page rather than be truncated to fit in a fixed row height).

Preferences

Use the Preferences dialog to enter your registration details and change user preferences. There are a large number of settings, arranged in different pages or tabs for convenience. You can use the Next and Previous buttons to cycle through them, or Defaults to restore selected settings back to their recommended default values.

General tab
Whether to interpret timecode in a log file as PAL or NTSC; the format for displaying dates and times; whether to create a backup copy when saving catalogs; whether to hide less commonly used menu commands or show a simplified toolbar in the main window.
Import tab
Whether to recursively scan subdirectories when importing a directory; whether to combine clips with the same tape name, in and out values into a single clip reference; whether to perform scene detection based on changes in time stamp or image contents (check both for automatic operation); what naming scheme to use when automatically generating clips for each scene; whether to import clips based strictly on the DV timecode information embedded in the media (ie. whether to favour the DV or QuickTime timecode if they differ); whether to automatically combine start and end segments of a DV clip that spans more than one capture file.
Previews & Thumbnails tab
What size and quality settings to use when creating preview movies (use one of the presets, or customise your own in the Professional Edition); whether to use tape- or path-based previews; whether to display a preview instead if the original movie is unavailable; whether to generate thumbnails for imported media; what size thumbnails to create; whether to use the midpoint or start of clip as initial default poster; whether to create thumbnails on the first/last frame or inset by 5% (for shots that fade in from black).
Media Search Paths tab
The directory for creating tape-based previews and additional preview directories to search when locating preview movies for a tape (you can include the directory where self-contained archives are stored to search those also). Specify equivalent media directories for path-based previews and to automatically locate media files (define mappings from the path as stored in the catalog to where the files are physically located on the local machine).
Play Media tab
Whether to start playing a movie automatically; whether to automatically double the size of small movies or images; how fast should slide shows be shown; whether to use jog or shuttle keyboard controls (Professional Edition only).
User Columns tab
Specify names for user-defined columns or create additional columns (Professional Edition only). The FCP Preset button automatically sets user column names to match Final Cut Pro. Define whether the column is used for grouping or not.
Pick Lists tab
View or edit the values that appear in drop down lists when editing grouping columns. If an attribute is extensible you can type in new values, otherwise you are restricted to values in the list. Auto-populate means values you type in are automatically remembered.
Metadata Columns tab
Choose whether metadata fields such as copyright and author information (extracted from the original media file from QuickTime user data, Exif and ID3 tags, or WMV/ASF attributes) are displayed as normal columns. Control how individual fields are used, or press Cmd-Delete to delete a field altogether.
User Interface tab
Whether to open last catalog when launching CatDV; explicitly specify the default view and grouping when a window is first opened or whether these should automatically be the same as the previous window; define whether the media or details dialog is shown when double clicking on a clip; whether to use the advanced query dialog for searches within a catalog (Professional Edition).
Customise Views & Customise Details Panel tabs
Create or modify view definitions. In the Professional Edition you can customise fields shown in the clip details panel also.
Printing tab
What fonts and margins to use when printing (top, bottom, left and right); how much extra spacing to leave around cells; any custom title to be used.
Export tab
What line ending character to use when exporting batch logs; whether to use the whole clip or a selection within the clip when exporting clips; whether to prefix the name of exported movie files with the tape or bin name (or create subdirectories based on these names); what duration to apply to still images when exported as a movie or added to a sequence; the custom footer to include on each page when exporting HTML.
Advanced User Interface tab
Select the look and feel of the application; whether imports (and similar operations) can take place as a background activity; whether renaming a clip or changing its bin also renames or moves the media file; whether to keep the details dialog on top of the main window at all times; preferred units for displaying data rate; which import and export menu command should have a keyboard shortcut; whether to play WMV files using QuickTime/Flip4Mac or an external application; automatic save interval; whether to enable commands that publish data to the server; whether clicking on a directory in the tree navigator automatically analyses the files.
Advanced Functionality tab
Options that control how files are imported and other advanced functionality, including: whether debug messages are written to the log file; how much detail to use when importing OMFI and Cinestream files; whether to import a media file even if it gives a QuickTime error; whether to completely disregard timecode embedded in DV movies; how to decide the timecode format for imported formats; whether to import audio tracks from FCP XML files; whether to import unknown file types as 'generic' files; whether Build Preview Movies should automatically add a timecode track.
Registration tab
Enter the name and registration code you were sent to register CatDV, or clear an existing registration. It is easiest to copy both lines from your registration email and press the Paste button.

Tools

Various useful utility commands are provided in the Tools menu. (Some of these commands are only available in the Professional Edition, and only if you enable Advanced menus via Preferences.)

Other features

Source media management

A clip in CatDV can represent either a complete media file on disk or a particular clip or scene within a movie or on a tape. This means that not all clips will refer to a media file, and sometimes you may have more than one clip referring to different parts of the same media file (if you have created subclips with the Detect Scenes command for example). You can switch to View>Summary Mode>Source Media View to temporarily consolidate your view and show precisely one clip for each source media file.

Locating media files

A source media file need not remain online on disk once it has been imported into a catalog (though obviously you won't be able to play the media file if it no longer exists or can't be found). CatDV stores the last known location of the media file. The following commands affect the media path:

If a directory or volume has been renamed or moved then CatDV remembers this. It keeps a list of original and current locations (under the Media Search Paths tab in Preferences) which it can use in future to automatically locate a file that has moved. Knowing that two paths are equivalent is particular useful if you work in mixed environments, where S:\Media and /Volumes/Shared/Media for example might actually refer to same folder. This enables CatDV to automatically locate and play the media file even if the catalog stores the old location.

Managing media files

A number of commands in the Media menu can be used to manipulate the media file referred to by a clip:

Previews and thumbnails

If a media file is not currently available CatDV normally falls back automatically to play a low-res preview version of the file instead.

Manipulating QuickTime movies

While CatDV can catalog and play back many types of media file, including MPEG, AVI and MP4, some features are specific to QuickTime .MOV files.

The commands above will directly modify the QuickTime movie itself to affect how they play in other applications (they don't re-render the media however, just change some movie settings).

You can also affect how media files are displayed within CatDV using the Rotate Left, Rotate Right and Toggle Widescreen commands, and by editing the Aspect ratio field for a clip. This information is stored in the CatDV catalog and doesn't alter the media file.

Media file metadata

CatDV provides detailed information about virtually any kind of media file that you import into a catalog, including stills, audio files, and other formats, not just DV movies.

All the metadata (ie. information about the file, as opposed to the media content of the file itself) that CatDV reads from a file is extracted at the time of import and stored in the CatDV catalog. It is displayed in special properties against each clip and is cached in the catalog so is available even if the media file is offline.

This information can be very useful when searching for clips, when grouping similar clips together, or when diagnosing problems with particular files. A wide variety of metadata fields are available, though which are shown depends on the type of file.

General metadata

The following properties are potentially applicable to any type of media file:

VideoA summary of the format of the visual track, including the codec, frame size and frame rate. (If there are several video tracks the overall frame size of the movie is shown.)
AudioA summary of the format of the audio track, including codec and sample rate.
ImporterDetails of which QuickTime importer is used to read the file, ie. whether it's a QuickTime .MOV file or another format that needs to be imported into QuickTime.
FormatA concise summary of the format, based on the Importer, Video and Audio fields.
QT TracksA list of all the tracks in the file, as reported by QuickTime. The 4 character type and subtype codes are shown, eg. "vide/jpeg" is a JPEG video track, while "soun/musi" is a MIDI music track. The size in pixels (Width x Height), the number of samples, and the duration of the track is shown. If a track has a name or is disabled this is indicated also.
MetadataAny QuickTime user data or Windows Media metadata, such as movie title or copyright annotations, that might be stored in the file is shown here in concatenated form. This field also shows metadata such as JPEG comments, ID3 tags from MP3 files such as artist and track, and Exif tags. (See below).
TypeThe clip type icon indicates whether a clip is a DV clip, a still, an audio clip, an interactive file (eg. Flash or QuickTime VR), or other movie.
Aspect RatioThe aspect ratio of the visual frame. In the case of DV the intended display size (4:3 or 16:9) is shown, taking into account the non-square pixel size, even though this won't match the ratio of the frame size.
Frame rateThe frame rate of the visual track, if known, or an indication if this file is a still.
Frame sizeThe normal display size of the movie in pixels, after any transformation matrix has been applied. (By contrast, the unscaled size of each track is shown in QT Tracks.)
Audio RateThe audio sample rate (this is extracted from the Audio column and made available separately so it can be used for grouping).
Import NotesIf anything unusual about the file is detected, such as audio and video tracks that differ in length or don't seem to relate correctly to the number of media samples, or if there are problems with the timecode, then a warning message may be displayed here.
DurationThe duration of the media file. The timecode format used depends on the file.
In (and Out)If the file has a timecode track then the in and out points use this timecode information, otherwise each media file is assumed to start at 0:00:00
Media pathThe last known location on disk of the source media file.
Media dateThe modification time of the source media file (typically the time the file was captured or digitized, as opposed to the original record date.)
Media sizeThe physical size of the source media file in kilobytes or MB. (This is the size of the media file as a whole, not the size for a particular scene.)
Data rateThe average data rate of the media. You can choose which units are used for displaying data rates in Preferences.

DV metadata

The following fields have special meaning for DV clips:

Aux T/CAdditional user-settable or time of day timecode supported by some cameras. (Professional Edition only)
DV T/CThe timecode value at the start of each clip as stored in the DV data itself (this may be different from the QuickTime timecode track).
ExposureCamera exposure details recorded in the DV data at the time of recording by some camera models.
FormatA summary of the format, such as whether PAL or NTSC, widescreen or normal, and locked or unlocked audio. In the case of DV this field is based on the DV data itself, not on what QuickTime reports. For example, if a captured movie file has been conformed by rendering a new audio track then the Format field might report that the original recording was at 32kHz even though the Audio field reports that the movie has a 48kHz audio track.
Record DateThe original date and time of recording, stored in the DV data (assuming the clock on the camera was set correctly at the time of recroding).

Exif metadata

The following fields have special meaning for JPEG and TIFF files with Exif metadata:

ExposureA summary of the Exif exposure details (if present). The EV (exposure value) number combines the aperture and exposure times and gives an approximate indication of the overall light intensity in the scene, assuming the shot was exposed correctly and the camera has equivalent sensitivity to ISO100 film. (Typically EV0 would correspond to almost complete darkness, while EV18 might be a pure white object in very bright sunshine.)
MetadataThis lists all the Exif tags commonly recorded by a digital camera, such as camera make and model, exposure time, whether flash was used, etc.
Record DateIf the Exif data has a DateTimeOriginal or CreationDate tag then this value is extracted and stored in the Rec Date field.

Media Information dialog

All the metadata properties above are extracted at the time of import and stored in the catalog, whether or not the media file is still online. If the media file is available you can also call up the Media Information dialog to display slightly more detailed technical information about the file, including a summary of the duration of individual frames in time units. Some movie file formats have variable length frames, but if a DV file has variable durations this generally indicates that dropped frames occurred during capture.

Metadata columns

The 'Metadata' field shows all the QuickTime user data (and other textual annotations that's read from a file) together in concatenated form in one field. If you check the Enable metadata columns box in Preferences you can display each metadata tag as a separate column (this only affects how the columns are displayed, not how they're stored, so it's safe to change this option at any time).

The number of possible field names is almost infinite and depends on the files you import but can include:

In the Metadata Columns section of Preferences you can choose whether particular columns are shown or not and whether they are used for grouping.

Supported file formats

CatDV supports the following media file formats:

QuickTime file formats

Natively, CatDV uses QuickTime for its media playback support. It will therefore play back and export files in any format supported by QuickTime 7, including:

Additional QuickTime codecs

The above formats are available as standard with QuickTime. It is possible to extend the formats available to QuickTime by installing additional codecs, for example:

OMF Files

With the Professional Edition you can use "Import As OMFI File" to import metadata from OMF media files. These files include both media and program information and may result in one or more clips and sequences being created. (In addition to the Name, Tape, Notes and Bin fields, several of the user fields are used when importing an OMF file: User 1 is set to the Project name, User 2 to the File name, User 3 to the Tracks, and User 4 to the UID identifier for the media object.)

There are two advanced Preferences options that affect how OMF files (and other files that contain sequence information) are imported: whether any sequence information is imported at all, and whether additional sequences are created for audio tracks, rather than just the main video track.

If the OMF file contains DV media (DV25) or Motion JPEG then a thumbnail image is extracted for the clip and the video can be played and exported from within CatDV.

WMV/ASF Windows Media files

CatDV will import WMV, ASF and WMA files if you use the "Import As Windows Media File" command. CatDV analyses these files and extracts metadata such as audio and video codec, author and copyright notices from the file. Under Windows, if a Thumbs.db file is present in the directory then CatDV will load a thumbnail for the clip.

Playback within CatDV is not directly supported, but double clicking a WMV file will normally launch an external application (such as Windows Media Player, VLC or MPlayer) to play the file.

If you install the Flip4Mac component, however, then you can play back WMV files within CatDV, and treat them like any other QuickTime-supported file, for example use the Export As Movie to convert them to another format. (Flip4Mac is available for Mac OS X only.)

The advanced preference option "Play WMV/ASF files" controls whether CatDV attempts to open such files in QuickTime or not.

Other file formats

CatDV understands several file formats that can contain clip information, such as batch logs, Final Cut Pro XML files and EDLs. When you import one of these recognised formats a clip is created for each entry in the file.

With the Professional Edition, you also have the option to import arbitrary non-media files, such as text files, Word documents, spreadsheets, project files, and so on:

Import warnings

When importing movies several consistency checks are applied and a warning message may be displayed in the Import Notes column under various circumstances. The most common messages and their meanings are shown below. (These warnings are fairly technical in nature and can usually be ignored.)

Timecode jump
This indicates that the DV timecode in the captured movie is not strictly continuous, either because the original source tape has a timecode discontinuity, because frames were dropped during capture, or possibly because data corruption occurred or the movie was edited or rendered by computer. If the 'strictly base clips on captured DV media' import option is on each continuous segment is processed separately during import into CatDV.
Dropped frame(s) between ? and ?
Repeated frame(s) between ? and ?
These indicate shorter timecode errors of just a few frames. CatDV treats these differently and does not automatically create a new clip at each point.
Timecode differs (DV/QT=?)
There are two ways to determine the timecode for a particular DV frame: either based on the QuickTime 'timecode' track or on the digital data stored in the DV stream itself. Usually these will give the same result but if you have dropped frames or other anomalies occurred during capture the results may be different and CatDV displays a warning during import. If you have set the 'strict' import option then CatDV will always try to use the DV timecode and generate new clips whenever it detects a jump, otherwise it uses QuickTime's concept of the timecode (which may agree more with what other applications use) and displays the DV timecode for reference in the DV T/C field.
Incorrect length (? short of ?)
This means the length of the media in the movie does not match the overall length reported by QuickTime for the movie as a whole. This can occur if frames were dropped during capture but other frames are stretched out to maintain the overall movie length. Sometimes the movie is reported as being longer than it really is and the last frame appears as one long frozen still, stretching out to give the movie its overall length. In this case the length that QuickTime thinks the movie is is shown in the message but the clip in CatDV will be shorter and reflect the media that is actually present.
Audio sample rate mismatch
If a DV movie has a separate audio track this message indicates that the sample rate of the audio track doesn't agree with that originally recorded in the DV stream. This can happen if the audio was resampled during capture, or if you capture a clip where the audio sample rate changes mid way through, in which case QuickTime can sometimes get confused about the sample rate and create an unplayable audio track.
Unstable frame at start
Skipping unstable frame(s) at ?
When the camcorder starts recording a new scene the tape may not have stabilised fully and the DV data in the first frame or two may not have a valid timecode or date/timestamp. Where possible, the unstable data is ignored and the first valid date or timecode is used instead.
Video and Audio differ by ? seconds
This means the audio track is shorter than the video track by the amount shown. This may indicate dropped frames or some other capture problem, but it could also mean that the movie was edited or rendered, or that the camcorder doesn't precisely lock audio and video samples.
? fps invalid for PAL/NTSC DV
This indicates that the frame rate is not exactly 25 or 29.97/30 fps for PAL or NTSC respectively, perhaps because the movie was rendered by computer rather than captured with a camera, or because frames were dropped during capture.
Average ? doesn't match nominal ? fps
The average frame rate (total number of frames divided by movie duration) doesn't match the typical frame rate (this could mean the movie has some dropped frames).

Many of these messages only apply to the clip representing the movie as a whole, which is hidden by default. You should therefore show hidden clips if you are trying to diagnose capture or import problems. You can also use the Media Information dialog to display more details about a media file.

Controlling how movies are imported

Use the 'Strictly base clips on captured DV media' preferences option (which is on by default) to:

Turn off the 'strict' option:

If you get a warning about average and nominal fps not matching and the clip appears to have wrong timecode format try toggling the "Timecode format" advanced preference option. For DV files CatDV can determine the correct format easily but for other files it can base it on the average frame rate or the nominal frame rate (time scale / nominal frame duration).

You should not normally use the "Ignore DV timecode" option but if you do then CatDV will treat DV files as ordinary QuickTime files.

Preview presets

When you use the Build Preview Movies command low resolution preview movies are created from your source movies to use even when the original source media is offline.

The following compression presets are available. The approximate file size for one hour of preview footage at 160x120 resolution is shown in each case. (In the Professional Edition you also have a full frame rate Offline RT preset, and can create your own customised preview settings using any available QuickTime compressor.)

Balanced
Video: Sorenson 3, 8 fps, medium quality. Audio: Qualcomm PureVoice 22kHz. (110 MB/hr)
Speed
Video: Motion JPEG, 6 fps, low quality. Audio: IMA 4:1 11kHz. (110 MB/hr)
Quality
Video: Sorenson, 12.5 fps, medium quality. Audio: QDesign Music 22KHz. (140 MB/hr)
Speed + Quality
Video: Motion JPEG, 8 fps, medium quality. Audio: IMA 4:1 22kHz. (250 MB/hr)
File Size
Video: Sorenson, 6 fps, low quality. Audio: QDesign Music 22kHz. (30 MB/hr)
Speed + File Size
Video: Motion JPEG, 5 fps, least quality. Audio: IMA 4:1 11kHz. (80 MB/hr)
Quality + File Size
Video: Sorenson, 8 fps, medium/low quality. Audio: QDesign Music 22kHz. (75 MB/hr)
Balanced (fast)
Video: Motion JPEG, 8 fps, low quality. Audio: QDesign Music 11kHz. (125 MB/hr)
MPEG-4
Full frame rate ISMA MP4 (at 550 or 300 MB/hr)

The difference in time to compress between the speed optimised and normal presets can be a factor of five or more, but with a corresponding difference in the resulting file size and quality.

Note that you should not access the preview files from the preview directory directly. They are private to CatDV - this is why they have obscure names like "25,123,4210,64x.mov". Instead, use the Export As Movie(s) command, where you can choose to export existing previews as either reference or self contained movies without recompressing them.

Managing multiple catalogs

If you have a large number of clips you may find it convenient to create several separate catalog files, for example one per tape or per project. When you open a catalog all the clips from that catalog are loaded into memory so performance may degrade if you have excessively large catalogs, especially if you use large thumbnails.

Use the Browse Catalogs command to list all the catalog files in a directory, together with a summary of their contents:

When a catalog is open you can use the Catalog Details command to enter a brief descriptive comment about the catalog. This description is listed in the Browse Catalogs window to help you determine the correct catalog to open.

Searching catalogs

You can search all the catalogs in a directory looking for particular keywords:

With the optional CatDV Workgroup Server you can also publish catalogs into a relational database and perform much more sophisticated queries, at the granularity of individual clips rather than entire catalogs.

Memory management

If you have very large catalogs open you might occasionally run out of memory. There are several things you can do:

Identifying clips

CatDV can deal with clip records that come from a variety of sources, for example importing a media file or batch log, and you might do things like export a clip to another application then re-import it. The question then arises of when are two clips the "same" or not?

A number of different fields in CatDV can be used to identify a clip:

Clip ID
This is a new general purpose clip reference field. You can choose to have clip IDs assigned automatically (it will get a random number calculated from the clip name and the time the clip was first imported) or assign them manually if you have an existing library system or want to refer to external catalog of assets. You don't have to use this field, you can leave it blank and you can have multiple clips with the same clip reference if that makes sense in your system.
File Hash
Whenever you import a file into CatDV a checksum is calculated based on the file contents. Although not guaranteed to be unique, it is unlikely that two files will have the same file hash unless they have the same contents. If a file has been renamed or moved, or there are 2 copies in different places, the file hash indicates they are really the same. (If you open an older catalog which doesn't include the file hash you can calculate it using the Tools > Re-Analyse Media command.)
Media Signature
This is always calculated automatically and is based on the media that the clip refers to. In the case of movies with a timecode track or clips that refer to a tape it will be based on the tape name and timecode, in the case of other media files it will be based on the file name and file length. In most cases, if you have two clips that refer to the same piece of media they will have the media signature, even if the clips themselves are named differently or the media file has been moved or is offline.
Remote Object ID
Finally, when a clip is saved to the CatDV server it is assigned a unique numeric id in the database. This number is not displayed on the client application but may appear if you use the Live HTML Publisher, for example.

Find Duplicate Clips

The Tools > Find Similar command will find duplicate clips which are similar to the selected clips based on a particular attribute. It will either search all the open catalogs in memory or compare the current catalog with the CatDV server. For example, you might compare on File Hash or Media Signature to see if anyone has already imported a particular media file.

Image sequences and metaclips

The Professional Edition has automatic support for image sequences, where folders of consecutively numbered still images (such as might be produced by animation software) are treated as a movie.

An image sequence is a special type of clip that has references to all the images within it. An image sequence is created automatically when you import a directory if all the files within it appear to be numbered consecutively starting from zero. You can also create an image sequence manually using the Import As Image Sequence command, available in the File menu or by right clicking on a folder in the file system tree.

Several settings in the advanced tab of Preferences relate to image sequences:

If image files are added (or removed from) the directory then the image sequence is updated automatically.

Metaclips

Image sequences are a special type of metaclip. To reduce "clutter" in a catalog, or group clips or files together which should always be treated as one, you can "collapse" or "stack" a number of clips into a single metaclip.

Do this by selecting the clips you want to combine and using the Convert To Metaclip command. The clips then appear as a single metaclip. You can view the individual clips within a metaclip by selecting it in the Metaclips folder in the tree navigator, and can remove a metaclip and detach all the clips so they reappear in the catalog again by right clicking on the metaclip in the tree. You can also rearrange the order of clips in a metaclip, move new clips to it, or detach individual clips by dragging and dropping clips and using the tree navigator.

Using the tree navigator (right click on the project node) you can import a Final Cut project as a metaclip containing the project file and all the clips and sequences within the project.

New features in CatDV 7

There are a number of improvements when using the CatDV Server:

Some of these features, in particular group documents and network preference settings, are only available in the Enterprise edition and when using version 6 of the server.

New features in CatDV 6

New features in CatDV 5

Server changes

The following features are relevant to the client-server version of CatDV, in particular the new Enterprise Edition of the workgroup client:

For further details please read about the new Enterprise features or consult the documentation that comes with the server.

New features in CatDV 4

Points to note

New features in CatDV 3 and earlier

There are now two different editions of the CatDV client application, the Standard Edition and Professional Edition, each with different feature sets. Unless otherwise noted, the changes above are applicable to both editions of the application. Various additional improvements are specific to the Professional Edition only:

Professional Edition Features

The Professional Edition has several features over and above the Standard Edition:

Networked operation
The Professional Edition has an additional Server menu that contains commands to share catalogs with other users and search for clips across catalogs in a central clip database when used with the optional Workgroup or Enterprise Server.
Enhanced searching and filtering
The Professional Edition features a powerful, completely new query dialog, used for both searching within a catalog and when performing remote queries against the workgroup database. Queries can contain any number of terms, be combined with logical OR and AND operations, and include regular expressions. Queries can also be named and saved for future use. There is a new toolbar Filter drop down that can be used to apply a named clip filter to the window. The Professional Edition also features a powerful Search and Replace tool that allows textual replacements to be made across any logging field, including regular expression pattern matching.
Sequence editing
The Professional Edition has support for creating and editing simple sequences, allowing a producer to make a rough cut pre-edit of shots to use and then send an EDL over to the edit suite for finishing, for example.
Unlimited user defined fields
The Professional Edition allows you to create an unlimited number of user-defined fields, compared with the standard number of three. These can be used to record details such as videographer, producer, project, location, and so on. Each field can store up to 64K of text and is fully searchable. The clip details window provides immediate access to user fields 1 to 6, and access via a scrolling list to the other fields.
Final Cut Pro integration
The Professional Edition lets you send clips and sequences to and from Final Cut projects complete with metadata and subclip information.
Improved importers and exporters
The Professional Edition supports several additional file formats, including Final Cut Pro, Avid, dpsVelocity, OMFI media files, and XML. You can create image sequences and metaclips, and catalog arbitrary file types such as Word documents or project files as well as media files.
Analog scene detection
The Professional Edition lets you perform automatic scene detection on clips subsequent to them being imported, via a separate Detect Scenes command, and also lets you tune the sensitivity for this operation. This is useful if too many false scene changes are detected, or if scene changes are missed with the default setting.
Timezone adjustments
To allow footage from different cameras, perhaps shot at different locations around the world, to be accurately correlated by date the Professional Edition has a Timezone Adjustment command allows the date to be adjusted based on timezone and camera clock differences.
JKL jog-shuttle keys
The Professional Edition supports the use of standard JKL keys to play media backwards or forwards at different speeds in both the clip details dialog, in the media dialog and when playing full screen.
Additional clip fields
To support these features and more, the Professional Edition supports several additional columns. These include Aux T/C (which displays the user-settable timecode field supported by some DV cameras), GMT Date, Location Date, Location Timezone, Clock Adjustment, Catalog and Catalog Notes.
Customisable preview settings
In Preferences you can customise the size of previews and the compression setting used in addition to using one of the presets.
Customisable clip details panel
You can customise which fields are shown in the clip details panel and define new tabs.

Workgroup Features

Requirements

To use the workgroup features of CatDV you need to purchase and install the separate CatDV Workgroup Server (or Enterprise Server) product. This is available for various server platforms and databases. You also need a Professional Edition license for each client that will be using the server.

Because most Internet firewalls block access to non-standard ports you normally need direct access to the server machine from each client machine via a local area network.

Initially the Server menu is configured in a safe mode to allow querying only. Commands which can write data to the server are disabled by default but you can enable these via Preferences if required.

Connecting to the server

Use the Log On To Server command in the Server menu and enter the hostname or IP address of the machine running the CatDV Server. When you press OK you will be logged on to the server and the other Server menu commands will be enabled, or you may see a message that a connection failure occurred.

If you use the Enterprise Server you will also need to log on by typing in your CatDV user name and password. (You can connect without logging on but will only have limited access to the server.)

To check that you have established a connection with the server program view the Server Status under the Server Admin Panel to display some statistics about the operation of the server, such as how many catalogs and clips are contained in the remote database.

If you predominantly use CatDV connected to the server rather than standalone then you can configure it so the Server Shortcuts window is displayed on startup, providing convenient shortcuts for connecting to the server, performing queries and so on.

Publishing catalogs

If you have created catalogs and saved them locally on your hard disk you need to publish them to make them available to other users via the shared database. Once they are stored in the shared database you no longer need the local catalog files (though you may choose to keep these files somewhere as a backup or in case you need access to them when the server is unavailable). Once published to the database you should make all your changes there, however, rather than in the local files, as the local files will not be kept in sync with the database.

You publish a catalog by opening it and then using the Publish Catalog command. This will publish the catalog from the current window (even if you have just created it and it has never been saved to disk - if you don't require a local copy you can then close the window without saving changes).

You can also publish an entire directory full of catalog files directly from your local hard disk by using the Bulk Publish Catalogs command.

Opening a remote catalog

Use the Browse Database command to view a list of all the catalogs in the remote database, including a short summary of the contents of each catalog. You can open a catalog by double clicking its name in the list. From this window you can also delete catalogs, or search for all the catalogs containing a particular keyword (in either the catalog description or the clip details).

Querying the remote database

Use Perform Query to enter search criteria to search for matching clips across the entire remote database. A window is displayed containing the query results, combining all the clips that match, even if they come from different catalogs.

You can save the query results to a new local catalog file, print them out, export them as a batch list, or make changes to the clips returned, perhaps adding new logging annotations and then publishing the changes back to the remote database.

Managing catalogs

Although all the clips in the remote database are stored in the same place, for convenience they are still grouped into logical groupings called catalogs. You should normally create separate catalogs for each tape, or perhaps each shoot or each project, rather than trying to store all your clips in one large catalog. This will make it easier to manage your clips. For example, you can use the Delete Catalog command in Browse Catalogs to delete a catalog from the database. You also minimise the risk of creating a catalog that is too large to open reliably if you only have limited memory available.

Once you have opened a remote catalog you have a local copy of the clips and thumbnails from that catalog in memory on your machine. If another user on your network edits these clips and publishes their changes to the database you can use Refresh Window to update your window with the latest version from the remote database. The time at which the contents of the window were last synchronised with the remote database is shown as part of the window title. If you have had a window open for a long time it's a good idea to refresh the window before starting to make any changes.

Publishing changes

When you open a remote catalog or perform a query and are working with the query results you can edit the clips in your window exactly as if you were working on a normal local catalog file. However, rather than saving any changes to disk with Save Catalog, you normally want to update the clips in the remote database instead, for which you use the Publish Changes command.

You can add logging notes, change clip names, make selections, select new poster thumbnails, delete unwanted clips, split a clip into two or create new secondary clips, and all these changes will be saved when you publish the changes. You can also create brand new clips, eg. by importing a file or using New Log Entry, but only if you have opened a remote catalog, not if you are viewing query results, as in the latter case it is not defined which catalog the new clips belong to.

Resolving conflicts

If two users try to make changes to the same catalog or clips at the same time then only the first set of changes that are published will be saved to the remote database. The second person who attempts to publish changes will receive a warning message stating there were conflicting edits (eg. trying to add a comment to a clip which the previous user has just deleted). All the changes which can be saved without conflict are saved, and the main window is refreshed to show the current contents as per the remote database. Any clips which weren't able to be saved are displayed in a new unsaved changes window. The second user then needs to manually re-apply those changes in the main window, deciding whether and how to resolve any conflicts before trying to publish the changes again.

When to re-publish a catalog

If you publish a catalog with the same name and creation time as an existing catalog in the remote database (and your local catalog is newer than the one in the database) then you will overwrite that catalog in the database with the newer one. Normally you should always use Publish Changes, as this automatically merges your changes and attempts to resolve any conflicting edits.

There are two main situations, however, where you may want to overwrite a catalog by using Publish Catalog instead:

In both cases note that any change history associated with the old catalog will be lost, and if another user has the same catalog open they will be unable to publish their changes.

Enterprise Features

The networked features of CatDV are provided in one of two editions of the CatDV Server. The features described below extend those of the regular Workgroup Server and are only available if you use the CatDV Enterprise Edition client with the CatDV Enterprise server.

Access control

The "Enterprise" version of CatDV supports access control. When using the Workgroup Server you do not need any special privileges to connect to the workgroup server and only the system user name (as used when logging on to the Mac OS X or Windows) is recorded in log files. With the Enterprise server, however, you can define your own CatDV users and groups and give them different permissions within the CatDV database.

First, an administrator will define different production groups (these might correspond to different projects or departments, for example "Drama", "Documentaries", and "Childrens"). The administrator can then create users, and assign these to any number of groups.

Each catalog is owned by a particular user and group, which governs what access you have, depending on what permissions you have in that group.

The following permissions are available:

These permissions all apply to one particular group or "production". A user can have different permissions in different groups, giving you great flexibility in setting up access control if you need it. You can also make users members of the special System Group; any permission they have in this group will apply to the entire database, regardless of which production the catalog belongs to.

Use the Browse Database command to view the group and user that a catalog belongs to and whether you have permission to read, write or delete the catalog. The "Access" column summarises these permissions with the letters 'r', 'w' and 'd', while '-' indicates you don't have access.

Use the Show Info button to display the catalog information panel where you can change the user or group the catalog belongs to (if you have permission to edit the catalog).

Log In Details

Use the Log In Details dialog to connect to the server. If you use the Workgroup Edition you just use this dialog to configure the host name and port of the server, but if you use the Enterprise Edition you can also:

Server Admin Panel

The Server Admin Panel has four tabs:

When editing users, first select or create the production group you are interested in, then select a user in that group to edit their permissions. To add an existing user of another group to your group check the "Show all" box then select the user and click "Assign to group". (If you don't check "Show all" only users who are members of the selected group are shown.)

In the audit log there may be two names shown in the "User" column. One is the Mac OS X or NT logon of the user who was running the CatDV application, the other is the CatDV user (if any) that they logged on to the server as at the time. Each object in the CatDV database (primarily users, groups, tapes and catalogs, but also individual clips and thumbnails) has a unique object id which is shown in the "Obj ID" column and can be used for searching the audit log for events relating to that object.

(In the Workgroup Edition client only the Server Status and Connections panels are available.)

Tape Library Management

The Library Management window displays a list of all the tapes in the database. Each tape has information such as tape format, shelf location and a description which is stored against the tape record itself, not a particular clip or catalog record in the database.

While the Browse Database commmand lets you browse the contents of the database by catalog, with the Library Management window you can also browse the database by tape. Use the Find command to search for and list tapes, then use the Tape Details command to view or edit the tape information for a selected tape, such as its format or shelf location. Press View Clips to display all the clips belonging to that tape (or selected tapes). You can also print tape information from the library management screen (see the File and Edit menus for commands relating to tapes).

With the optional wireless barcode scanner you can simplify data entry, for example doing a stock take of which tapes are on which shelf:

You don't need to enter the library management screen to view a tape's details. You can also do Edit > Tape Details (or press Cmd/Ctrl-T) from the main window to view the tape details for a particular clip.

(Library Management and Tape Details are not available with the Workgroup Edition client.)

Enhanced query dialog

With the enhanced query dialog (Professional Edition only) you can build up complex queries and save them for use later. Use the same query dialog when searching for clips in the catalog locally or querying the remote database (with the optional Workgroup Server).

Named queries

Remote searches

When querying the remote database (with optional Workgroup Server only) you have the following options:

Local searches

Regular expressions

In regular expressions many characters have special meaning to match particular groups of characters. For example, '^' and '$' match the start and end of a line respectively, '.' matches any character, '[A-Za-z]' matches any upper case or lower case letter, '\s' or '[:space:]' means any white space character, '\d' or '[0-9]' or '[:digit:]' means any digit, '\S' means any visible (non-space) character, and '\b' matches a word boundary. '*' means the previous character can match any number of times (0 or more), '?' means it's optional (matches 0 or 1 times), and '+' means matches 1 or more times. To prevent one of these characters from having its special meaning precede it with a '\'. For example, 'h[ea]llo' or '(hello|hallo)' will match 'hello' or 'hallo', while '\(.*\)' will search for pairs of parentheses.

Using the Search and Replace tool you can search for a regular expression and use the results of that expression in the replacement. Any text that matches a sub-expression in the search term inside parentheses '(' and ')' can be inserted into the replacement text using '\1' for the first term and so on. For example, you could search for '^(\S+) (\S+)' and replace it with '\2 \1' to swap the first two words of each line, or search for '.*XXX.*' and replace it with nothing to delete all comments tagged with the text 'XXX'.

Additional Importers and Exporters

The Professional Edition (and Workgroup Edition) features the following additional file formats.

Batch lists

You can export clip lists in the following additional batch file formats. Use Export As and one of the following:

It supports the following additional importers, use Import As then:

Final Cut Pro

When importing and exporting Final Cut Pro batch lists and XML files, CatDV uses the user-defined fields in particular ways: User 1 maps to Description, User 2 to Scene, User 3 to Shot/Take, User 4/5 to Comment A/B, User 6 to Label, User 7 to Label 2, User 8 to Capture, and User 9-12 map to Master Comment 1 to 4. The FCP Preset button in Preferences automatically sets up these definitions.

If possible, you should normally use FCP XML files in preference to batch lists as they have a number of advantages. Most importantly, when you use FCP XML files the media links will be preserved, but they also support the transfer of bins, subclips and sequence information to and from your browser window, and work with localized (non-English) versions of Final Cut Pro.

The Send to Final Cut Pro command provides an easy way to send clips or sequences straight to Final Cut Pro. It is similar to exporting an XML file but saves it in a temporary directory and automatically opens the file in Final Cut Pro. You can also drag sequences and clips onto a Final Cut project node in the tree navigator to send them to Final Cut using Apple Events.

XML

As well as Final Cut Pro XML files the Professional Edition supports another CatDV-specific XML format:

The Export as CatDV XML command exports details about the selected clips as an XML document. XML is useful as an interchange format if you need to import clip data (including metadata) into an external application such as a database.

The Export CatDV XML Index(es) command saves XML file(s) containing any log notes or other information that you have entered for the selected clips. These file(s) are called index.xml and are stored in the directory with the media files.

(The purpose of these files is to store any data that you enter such as the description of a media file or orientation of a still directly with the media files, in case the files are later moved or the catalog file is lost. When you import a media file any index.xml file in the same directory is checked and the information from it is automatically added to the clip as it is imported.)

Finally, if you import a media file and there's an XML file with the same name alongside (eg. MyFile.mov and MyFile.xml) then CatDV will attempt to read additional metadata from the XML file and associate it with the movie.

OMF Files

The Professional Edition also adds support for importing OMF media files.

I have many tapes, how do I know what's on them?

This is the first of a series of How-To notes, describing how to perform various common logging tasks.

CatDV is designed to help you pull together all the information you have about what's on a tape to make it easier to manage your tape library and find scenes again. It will also manage low resolution previews to show you the contents of a tape even when it's not currently captured to disk.

  1. First you need to load the information into CatDV:
  2. To find clips on a tape it's important that the correct tape identifier is entered for all your clips. Use the editing commands within CatDV to correct any mistakes or missing data. (For example, you could use the Search dialog to find all the clips from a particular project, then group by tape and drag the selected clips onto the correct tape name or use the Bulk Edit command.)
  3. Once your clips are in a CatDV catalog there are lots of things you can do to help you find those of interest. For example, you could:
  4. To build previews for a tape that is currently online (i.e. that has been captured to disk), select all the clips for that tape, ensuring they have the correct tape name, then use Build Preview Movies. Use the Preferences options to determine the size and quality of previews.

(If your main interest is in cataloging physical tapes on a library shelf, rather than logging media down to the clip level, then please refer to tape library management features provided by the Enterprise Server.)

How do I automatically log a DV tape with an external capture application?

Assume you are about to start editing from a DV tape and want to log the start and end of each scene. The traditional way to do this involves wearing out your tape and camcorder by painstakingly logging each scene by cueing and reviewing the tape itself. Instead, a better approach is to capture the whole tape to disk first and then log the scenes from disk.

If your editing application has the facility to capture an entire tape unattended, use that. Otherwise, you may need to capture the tape manually, but if you have batch capture one way to do this is as follows:

  1. Cue to the end of your tape and note down the last timecode value recorded on it.
  2. Use the Whole Tape Capture Log command within CatDV and enter the tape name and final timecode value to generate a series of equal length clips that cover the whole tape. Some capture applications have a limit of 2GB per file, others even 1GB (about 9 minutes or 4-1/2 minutes respectively), but apart from that the size you enter doesn't matter.
  3. Select, then export these clips as a batch list suitable for your particular editing application using the Export as submenu.
  4. Create a new temporary project within your editing application and import the whole tape capture log, then use your batch capture command to capture the entire tape to disk. You don't need to capture any additional trim handles. After you have successfully captured the long clips to disk you can delete the temporary project.

Once you have captured the tape to disk:

  1. Import all the long captured movie file(s) into CatDV using either the Import as QuickTime Media or Import Directory command, or by dragging the files into a CatDV window. This will scan the movies to identify each scene and extract thumbnails for them.
  2. If you had to perform the capture in several smaller files it's likely the scene boundaries won't exactly fall on capture boundaries. Check the Auto-join DV clips Preference option to merge such clip fragments automatically during import. (Alternatively, use Summary mode or the Join DV Scene Fragments command.)
  3. Open up the Clip Details dialog for the first clip and view the thumbnail or the movie and give each scene a meaningful Name, or description in the Notes field. Mark the clips you want to use with the mark checkbox, or by setting them as "good".
  4. Select all the scenes you want to use in your project then either do Export As Movie(s), saving normally allowing references (if you want to keep the original capture files on disk without modifying them) or use Consolidate Footage (if you want to chop the original files into separate scenes, without recompression, and trim any unused material).
  5. Create (or open) the editing project in your NLE, then import all the movies you have just generated. Start editing!

As described, this will trim hard up to each automatically detected scene boundary, giving you the maximum available material while eliminating any risk of inadvertently including rogue frames from an adjacent scene during a dissolve. You can also set In and Out points within the Clip Details window and export just the selection if you prefer.

How do I automatically log non-DV material?

If you want to perform automatic scene detection on material that was not originally recorded in DV format, whether digital or analogue in origin (including BetaSP, DigiBeta, footage captured via a DV converter, or analogue footage dubbed to DV), you should proceed broadly as described in How to log with an external capture application then use CatDV's visual scene detection capability.

  1. Capture the whole tape to disk, using whatever format and capture application you would normally use for editing.
  2. Enable Visual Frame Differencing and disable the DV info based Scene analysis options in Preferences and import the captured media file(s) into CatDV.
  3. Unlike DV-based scene analysis, the visual (image based) scene detection can never be totally frame accurate and in addition to entering a meaningful name and comments, you will need to review and correct the scene boundaries within the Clip Details window:
  4. Press the Review transition button to check that two adjacent clips really are from different scenes. If the scene detection was too sensitive and both clips relate to the same scene, press the Merge into previous button to merge the two clips into one.
  5. Conversely, if the scene detection was not sensitive enough and a clip ought to be split into two separate scenes, move the timeline (in the Movie or Preview tab) to the first frame of the new clip and press the Split clip button.
  6. The Consolidate Footage command is only available for DV clips but you can achieve the same results (reducing disk usage by trimming unwanted material) by exporting those clips that you want to keep as self-contained movies and then deleting the original files.
  7. If you have the Professional Edition you can tune the sensitivity of the scene detection. Uncheck both options at step 2 to disable automatic scene detection, then import the file, select the resulting clip and apply the Detect Scenes command where you can set the sensitivity.

How do I add subtitles to a movie?

If you have Professional Edition you can easily add simple subtitles to a movie as follows:

  1. Import the movie you want to add the subtitles to (with the scene analysis options turned off in Preferences).
  2. Select the resulting clip and open the Verbatim Logger.
  3. Play the clip, then press the Mark button (or use the configurable keyboard shortcut) at the point you want the subtitle text to appear. Type in the text you want for the subtitle.
  4. When you close the Verbatim Logger, new sub-clips are created in your window starting at each point you marked. The text you entered appears in the Notes field.
  5. Select all the sub-clips that were created then bring up the Export As Movie(s) dialog. Under Batch Options select "Single movie combining all clips". Under Extra Tracks check the "Add text" box and select the Notes field from the drop down. Select the size, position and duration for the subtitles then press OK to export the movie with a text track added containing your subtitle text.

Convert To Text is the "opposite" of Verbatim Logger. With this command you can convert the name, notes and timecode values of selected clips to a textual list which you can copy and paste into a word processor, for example, to create a transcript or for further editing. When you are finished in your word processor, you can copy and paste this text back into the Verbatim Logger to create separate clips again.

How do I use CatDV Pro with Final Cut Pro?

If you have Professional Edition you can easily use CatDV with Final Cut Pro.

Before you start, go to the User Columns tab in Preferences and press the FCP Preset button to set your user-defined column names to match Final Cut Pro. Also, if you want to use CatDV preview movies as OfflineRT previews in Final Cut Pro, then you should use the OfflineRT preset in Preferences to configure previews as follows: 320x240, Normal Quality, Maximum Frame Rate, Uncompressed Audio.

You can then use CatDV for logging and cataloging your clips, including features such as automatic scene detection, Verbatim Logger, and the building of previews, and export the data to Final Cut Pro for editing. If you use DV tapes you can proceed as follows:

  1. If you have Live Capture Plus, configure this to use Offline RT format, and to capture CatDV previews and create a CatDV catalog. Capture a DV tape, then open the CatDV catalog that's created for that tape.
  2. Review each clip in CatDV Pro, entering clip names and descriptions, creating subclips using the buttons in the Clip Details window, etc.
  3. Select the clips you want to use in your editing project and Export As Final Cut Pro XML File.
  4. Create a Final Cut Pro project using the appropriate OfflineRT easy setup preset (PAL or NTSC). Use Import | XML File to import the log you exported in step 3 into Final Cut Pro.

Alternatively, if you're bringing clips into an existing Final Cut project you can simply drag them onto the Final Cut project node in CatDV's tree navigator at step 3.

You have now imported your CatDV clip definitions into your Final Cut Pro project, including both metadata and logging fields from CatDV and OfflineRT editing proxies. You can edit with these low-resolution proxies and then batch capture the full-resolution versions in the normal way (using the "Create offline" option in Media Manager to convert your sequence from OfflineRT to DV).

If you are ingesting formats other than DV, such as Beta SP, HDV, or Digi Beta, which are not supported in Live Capture Plus, you can do the following instead:

  1. In Final Cut Pro, enter the tape identifier and use the Capture Now command to capture the tape to your capture scratch area.
  2. Select the media file(s) you captured using the Finder and drag them into the CatDV window to import them.
  3. Use CatDV's Detect Scenes command to create subclips automatically based on visual scene changes. You can review these scene changes and adjust them if required.
  4. Continue as above, entering clip names, selecting the clips you want, and exporting an FCP XML file to transfer this information to Final Cut Pro, complete with subclips and links to the media.

The converse is also possible. If you do your logging within Final Cut Pro you can export the clips from your browser window as an XML file and import these clips into CatDV, to build up a permanent searchable database of all your tapes and clips. (An easy way to export the file to CatDV is to save the XML file on the desktop and then drag it into the CatDV window.)

Note that the Final Cut Pro "Mark Good" checkbox corresponds to the "Mark" property in CatDV Pro (not the "Good" property), and that "Log notes" maps to "Notes" in CatDV, and "Reel" to "Tape". If you use the Label field then it's down to you to make sure you only choose valid labels in CatDV, otherwise you will get errors when you export a batch list and try to load it into Final Cut Pro.

How do I use CatDV with other, unsupported applications?

CatDV will import and export clip data to a variety of non-linear video editing systems and other applications.

Many project and batch file formats are directly supported. For example, CatDV will read and write Avid or Final Cut Pro batch lists. It will directly read EditDV/Cinestream project files, and can export an EditDV/Cinestream capture log. It will export clips as a Premiere batch capture log, and import them from Premiere if you first export them as a CMX EDL or tab-separated text file.

Most other NLEs can also export and import clip lists in a form that is compatible with CatDV, as both CMX EDLs and tab-separated text are fairly universal file formats. If necessary you can use a text editor to adjust the file format slightly.

Finally, you can import and export clips between CatDV and other applications in any QuickTime-supported media file format, including .MOV and .AVI files.

Tab-separated text

Use tab-separated text to exchange data with a wide variety of other applications, including spreadsheets, databases or other logging applications, or even a "pencil and paper" log that you typed in to a word processor or text editor.

To export clips:

When importing tab-separated text, CatDV uses a smart algorithm that tries to guess the format of the file used and extract as much information as possible:

How can I edit and present a program within CatDV?

After recording and capturing a whole tape of material you will almost certainly need to edit it to produce a program containing selected highlights or telling a particular story.

To create a proper finished program, perhaps applying effects, transitions, titles, adjusting audio levels and so on, then you would of course use fully featured video editing software. If all you want is a simple "cuts only" selection of the highlights, however, then you can use the capabilities built directly in to CatDV as a quick and effective alternative.

(Note: The tip below describes the older mechanism of using the notion of "good" and "reviewed" clips to select clips of interest to include in a sequence. Since CatDV 5 you can also edit sequences directly by dragging and dropping clips into a sequence window and rearranging their order as required.)

  1. Capture the material you want to use to disk and import the media files into CatDV. (Alternatively, if disk space is limited and 'preview' quality is sufficient for your needs at this stage, use the Scan & Build Previews command in Live Capture.)
  2. If you choose the scene analysis options in Preferences CatDV will automatically detect and produce a clip for each scene. Alternatively, use the Detect Scenes command (Professional Edition only).
  3. Use the Clip details window to review each scene in turn. Play the clip (in the Movie or Preview tab as appropriate) and mark In and Out points around the section you want to keep.
  4. If you don't want to include that scene in your highlights, select "No Good" from the Good drop down list.
  5. If you want to include a scene in its entirety select "Good" from the drop down list. (If you have already made a selection you can leave the Good value blank as making a selection implies that you have "reviewed" the clip and want to use it.)
  6. If you want to include two separate sections from the same scene you can either duplicate the clip or create a new secondary clip for the current selection from within the Clip Details dialog.
  7. As an alternative to using the Clip Details dialog you can use the Media dialog to review the clips. Use the keyboard shortcuts 'I' and 'O' to mark selection in and out points as a clip is playing, 'G' or 'N' to mark the clip as good or not, and 'P' to play the selection from start to end. Use the up and down arrows to move to the next clip.
  8. Once you have reviewed your clips and decided which material should be included in the highlights program, select all the clips in the catalog with Control-A (or Command-A). Notice that the status line shows how long your "good selection" is.
  9. Use the Present Movie command, choosing the options "Good clips only" (as mentioned previously, by default this also includes those with a selection) and "Selection (in2/out2)", to show your edited program.
  10. Alternatively, use Export As Movie(s) to export the clips in as a reference movie or recompressed in a form suitable for publishing on the web. Under Batch Options select "Single movie combining all clips" and "Good clips only". If you want to, you can import the reference movie into your DVD authoring software to burn it to DVD.
  11. You can set up a filter so your view only shows the good clips (for example to display a storyboard view and rearrange the clip order by dragging and dropping clips). Press the Filter button, select Pick List field "Status", and then select the values "G" and "S" (hold down the command or control keys to select multiple items).
  12. At this stage your edited program is defined by the status of each clip and can still be edited. To make it more permanent use the Select Reviewed command to select just the good clips and then do Create Sequence. This will create a new clip called a sequence that holds your program selections. You can then export this sequence as an EDL or play it in the media dialog at any time.

How can CatDV help me organise my digital photos?

You can use CatDV to catalog and present digital photos and other image files stored on your computer:

How should I deal with timecode resets on a DV tape?

If at all possible you should try to avoid timecode resets or breaks from the outset. Timecode discontinuities arise when you play or fast forward past the end of a recording and the camcorder either picks up an incorrect timecode value from an old recording "underneath" or encounters blank tape. You should therefore get in the habit of always using your camcorder's End Search facility every time you Play or Cue a tape, unless you know you have finished and will never record any more on it.

(Ideally, you should also avoid pre-striping tapes or reusing them. While pre-striping does indeed stop the timecode resetting back to zero, it does nothing to stop timecode discontinuities. It does nothing to avoid the underlying problem and you will still get capture errors, but it makes timecode breaks much more difficult to detect.)

There are two possible strategies for dealing with timecode resets once they occur on a tape:

Actually, there's a third option which is to ignore timecode altogether. This is fine if all you do is play tapes from beginning to end, but will fail if you ever plan to edit, batch capture or catalog your tapes properly, as having a unique tape name and timecode value to identify each frame of video is an essential pre-requisite for any of these operations.

Copying a tape is the best solution in the long term, and is straightforward if you have two decks connected by a FireWire cable. The copy will be identical to the original except for having new clean timecode. (You can also make a copy via the computer using a single deck or camcorder, by first capturing and concatenating the segments in your editing application and then printing these to tape. The end result is the same though the process is more cumbersome.)

The other approach is to think of each timecode segment as a separate "virtual" tape and name them accordingly, for example "Tape 12 #1" and "Tape 12 #2". The fact that the timecode starts from zero in each segment does not matter in this case, because the timecode is unique within each virtual tape. During batch capture, if your editing application asks for "Tape 12 #2" you need to fast forward into the second segment of "Tape 12" and capture from there.

If you use Live Capture to scan a tape and build up a catalog then if CatDV detects a timecode reset it will automatically create a new virtual tape name for each timecode segment.

Alternatively, if you have already captured a tape containing timecode resets to disk and want to import the movies to CatDV then you should proceed as follows:

  1. Select the "Strictly base clips on captured DV media" Preference option.
  2. Import the movie file(s).
  3. Show hidden clips, to make sure you correct all the clips including any that are hidden automatically.
  4. Ensure that you are not sorting the view based on Tape or In point, otherwise clips from both timecode segments will be intermingled. Instead, either sort on DV Record Date or leave the view unsorted (ie. in the order the clips were imported to the catalog).
  5. Look at the In (and DV T/C) columns and select all those clips that occur after the timecode reset. Use the Bulk Edit command to give these a new virtual tape name to distinguish them from the first timecode segment.

It is very important that you set a new virtual tape name like this before building preview movies otherwise the previews will refer to the wrong clips.


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