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.
Name | Name of the clip |
Notes | Description or other comments you enter about the clip |
Bin | Project bin or directory on disk where the clip came from, used for grouping clips |
Tape | Name of the tape or reel the clip is on |
Import source | The file that details of this clip were imported from (eg. a movie file, EDL, or batch list) |
Source media | the media file that holds the video data the clip refers to (not necessarily the same as the Import Source) |
In & Out | Timecode 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.) |
Duration | The corresponding clip length, i.e. the difference between In and Out points. |
In2 & Out2 | Timecode values for a selection made within the clip (corresponds to In and Out in Final Cut). |
Start & End | Current clip bounds, either In/Out or In2/Out2 depending on the Export clips based on selection Preferences option |
Type | Clip 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 Type | More 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. |
Format | A 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. |
Poster | Each 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 |
Mark | A general purpose check box to mark clips of interest or to save a selection |
Hide | Clips 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.) |
Good | A general purpose status field to indicate whether the clip is usable or not |
Exposure | A summary of the camera exposure details (available with some DV camcorders and digital cameras) |
Record date | The original date/time of recording of the clip or image (available with some DV camcorders and digital cameras) |
Date | Either the Record Date, or failing that the first modification time of the source media |
User 1..N | General 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 ID | Several fields are used to uniquely identify clips in different ways |
Transition | Available 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 |
Online | Indicate whether the clip is currently online, or a preview or thumbnail is available |
Used | How many sequences a clip appears in (this can indicate whether a clip is used in a project or not). |
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.)