CatDV 3.0 Reference Guide

This shortened reference guide is a copy of the online help text. A more detailed user manual is available separately as a free download from http://www.catdv.com/download.html as a PDF. You can also order copies of the full user manual in printed form.

Table of Contents

What's new?

Getting started

How to use help
Introduction
Installation
Quick start guide

Clips and catalogs

Catalogs
Clips
Importing clips and movies
Live capture
Exporting clips and movies
Managing multiple catalogs

General operation

Views
Customising views
Clip details dialog
Marking and selecting
Searching and filtering
Summary mode
Grouping mode
Hiding clips

Viewing and managing media

Previews and thumbnails
Media dialog
Media dialog shortcuts
Sequences
Source media management
Media file metadata

Miscellaneous

Printing
Preferences
Tools
Import warnings
Preview presets
New features in CatDV 3
New features from earlier versions

Professional Edition

Professional Edition features
Workgroup Edition features
Enhanced query dialog
Additional importers and exporters

How to...

How to catalog tapes
How to log using an external capture application
How to log a tape with Live Capture
How to archive the source material for a project
How to merge two EditDV/Cinestream projects together
How to use CatDV with other applications
How to edit and present a program within CatDV
How to organise your digital photos
How to cope with timecode resets
How to simulate batch capture

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 Topics button displays a table of contents, listing all the topics.
• Click on a blue link to display a related topic.
• Click on the Next link to read all the topics in order.
• Use the back and forward buttons < and > to go back (or forward) through the history of pages you have visited after following a link.

You can find the topic relating to a particular feature or keyword by looking up keywords in the index:

• Press the Index button to display the keyword index.
• Within the index, click on a blue link to look up the relevant topic.
• Within the text, menu commands, buttons and field names are shown in bold.
• Other keywords are shown in italic where they are defined.

Other sources of documentation

The CatDV Pro 3.0 User Manual is a separate PDF document including screen shots and additional background material, available for free download. If you're not familiar with CatDV you are strongly recommended to read the PDF user manual first. It is also available in printed and bound form for a small handling charge.

Introduction

CatDV 3.0 is a cross-platform media cataloging and video logging tool. The CatDV product family has different members, all sharing the same basic user interface but with different features:

• CatDV (Personal Edition)
• CatDV Pro (Professional Edition)
• CatDV Pro (Workgroup Edition)

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

Cataloging

CatDV will import and catalog media files and video clip data in most popular formats, including:

• still images (JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, PSD, etc.)
• audio formats (MP3, AIFF, AU, WAV, etc.)
• video formats (QuickTime MOV, AVI, MPEG, DV, etc.)
• video editing capture logs and projects (EditDV, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, etc.)
• interchange formats (CMX edit decision lists, HTML, tab separated text, XML)

Media files are indexed with thumbnails and can be played back either as previews or as full screen presentations.

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. Each clip can be annotated with meta data (such as clip name, description, project, status, date and time of recording, or camera exposure details) that can be used for searching and sorting the catalog.

CatDV lets you organise digital camera images and MP3s as well as digital video. You can present slide shows containing a mix of media formats.

Managing large media files

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

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.

Video capture

With QuickTime-compatible video capture hardware CatDV will scan a tape and capture previews in a single operation. (If you don't have compatible hardware, however, CatDV will work just as well with media files captured using your existing editing application.)

Editing

Although CatDV is not a fully featured editing application you can create a simple movie by stringing together clips of interest. You can export clips as either self-contained or reference movies, or you can convert a movie using a different codec, for example to create a web movie. You can also consolidate the media files on disk by trimming and deleting unused material.

Tools

Several unique utility functions are provided, such as adjusting the timecode values of a program to match the timecode generated after printing to video to permit recapture from a program tape, exporting "whole tape" batch capture logs, or adding a burnt in security camera-style date and time display.

Workgroup features

Using the optional CatDV Workgroup Server and a relational 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 Pro is available for both Macintosh (Mac OS 8/9 and OS X) and Windows. It requires Java and QuickTime, which you can download for free if they're not already provided on your system:

• Java for Windows (Sun's JRE) is available from http://java.sun.com/j2se/downloads.html.
• Java for Mac OS 9 (MRJ) is at http://www.apple.com/java/.
• QuickTime for both platforms is available from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/.

(Note that you need to do a custom installation and select all components, including "QuickTime for Java".)

Updates

The latest version of CatDV is always available at http://www.catdv.com. You should check this site regularly for updates and bug fixes. Updates are sometimes provided as a base version plus a "patch" consisting of just those files that are new and need to be replaced.

Purchasing CatDV

CatDV Pro works as a 30-day limited-functionality demo until you purchase a license on-line to use the full application. You will then be sent a registration code to unlock the application. Enter the name and registration code in the Registration tab of Preferences.

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.

There are separate registration codes for the Personal Edition and Professional Edition of the client application, with different features available in each.

Quick start guide

This section provides a very 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). Please refer to the separate PDF user manual for additional details.

Screen layout

• The main window in CatDV shows all the clips in a catalog (or database) of clips. Each clip represents either a media file or a scene within a movie and usually has a thumbnail image, as well as Name, Format, In and Out timecode values, and various other attributes.
• The toolbar at the top of the window and the menu bar provide commands to save and load catalogs, import media into the catalog, and to change the way the catalog is viewed.

Importing clips

• To get started, use Import directory (from the File menu) or the button to import all the images and movies from a directory and build up a thumbnail catalog. The files are analysed as they are imported and, for movies, a separate clip record for each scene or shot within the movie is created.
• If you have QuickTime-compatible capture hardware use the Live Capture command to scan a tape and create a clip for each scene. Alternatively, create a whole tape capture log and use your existing capture application to batch capture a tape to disk, in short segments if necessary, then import the resulting files. (Scenes are automatically joined up if they span more than one file.)
• Specify the directory and size for previews in Preferences then use Build preview movies to build up low resolution preview movies of all your video clips. These are small enough to be kept permanently and are therefore available to show you the contents of your entire tape library - even when the original DV capture files have had to be deleted to make space for the next project.

Viewing clips

• Use the toolbar buttons (or View menu) to view the catalog in different ways (for example as a list , or as a storyboard-like grid of thumbnails only ). To navigate your clips you can group them (according to tape, subject, bin, etc.), and sort or filter them as required.
• Use the button, to bring up the details dialog. This provides full details of a clip and is used for logging. You can enter a name or description, make a selection within the clip using the Movie tab, mark it as good or not, and so on.
• Use the button to play the contents of a clip.
• Rearrange the order of clips by dragging and dropping them within the main window, or assemble a rough cut program by including them in a sequence.

Outputting clips

• Once you have selected clips of interest or created a rough program you can use them in various ways. You can: play a full screen media presentation or slide show, export the clips as a QuickTime movie, export them as an EDL or batch list to import into your NLE video editing application, save them as a sequence within your catalog, print them out as a thumbnail "storyboard" or "contact sheet", and more.
• To split a large DV capture file into separate files for each scene, or to trim unwanted material from the capture files, first create clips for each scene you want and make selections within them. Then select the clips you want to keep and use Consolidate footage. This will write a separate self contained movie file for each clip before deleting the original capture files.
• Import projects, EDLs and batch lists from popular editing systems and then export them in a different format to exchange data between different applications or build up a library of logging information from different sources.

Managing catalogs

CatDV stores clip details and their thumbnails in a catalog:

• Use the New Catalog command to create a new catalog.
• Use the Open Catalog or Open Recent commands to open an existing catalog.
• Use Save Catalog or Save Catalog As to save a catalog, either keeping the same name or making a copy with a new name.
• Use the Always create backup checkbox in Preferences to automatically make a backup copy of the catalog when saving.
• Use the Open/Import command (or toolbar button) to either open a catalog or import a movie or batch list into the current catalog, depending on the type of the file that is selected.
• Use Catalog Details to enter a short description of the 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 let you save catalogs (or export or print data).

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

Regardless of whether you are using the single user standalone or the workgroup version of CatDV, to keep catalogs a manageable size you would normally 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.

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 or fields (also referred to as columns when clips are shown in a table). Additional fields that provide full details of the media file format that a clip was imported from are listed separately.

Some of these fields are editable while others are filled in automatically at the time of timport. Depending on the type of the clip, many of these fields will be blank.

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. Use tool tip text (hover the mouse pointer over a field name) to show a short description of the field if you are unsure which property you are viewing.

Importing clips and movies

You can import clip data into a new or existing CatDV catalog from many different sources. The Open/Import command attempts to determine the file type automatically, though you can also use the Import As submenu to use a specific importer:

• Import as Media - any QuickTime-supported media type can be imported, including still images, sound clips, and movies (including AVI and MPEG). For visual media a poster thumbnail is created, typically the first frame of the movie. If you select the Scene analysis Preferences options the movie is scanned as it is imported and separate secondary clips are created automatically for each scene within the movie.
• Import as CMX 3600 EDL - import both source clip definitions and a sequence of program clips from an industry standard CMX edit decision list
• Import as Cinestream Project - you can import clips from the project window and from the program of an EditDV/Cinestream project into CatDV. Each program track (V1, etc.) appears as a separate clip sequence. Use the Preferences option to choose whether or not to import the Program bin (which contains rendered footage that may be necessary for a program but not otherwise be of interest).
• Import as Final Cut Pro Batch List - import standard fields from an FCP 3 batch list (Professional Edition only)
• Import Tab Separated Text - import clips defined in a tab separated text file, one per line, eg. if you have manually logged a tape using pencil and paper or a spreadsheet.

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. 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.

Live Capture

With compatible capture hardware you can scan a tape without capturing it to disk first. (On Macintoshes with internal FireWire interface this capability is built-in. Under Windows a third party VDIG driver may be required to enable the capture capability in QuickTime applications such as CatDV.)

Bring up the capture dialog using the Live Capture menu command or toolbar button. You have the following options:

• Scan Only - scan a DV tape for scene changes and create a log entry with thumbnail for each scene.
• Scan & Build Preview - scan a tape for scene changes as above, and capture a low resolution preview version of the tape directly into the Previews directory at the same time. (This option is recommended for most purposes.)
• Capture - capture a movie from tape to hard disk at full DV quality and subsequently import the captured movie into the catalog.

Enter a tape name, destination file (if relevant) and other options, then press the Start button and start your tape playing to commence a scan or capture. (You need to use the controls on your deck or camcorder because CatDV does not currently provide Firewire device control.)

Use Set Poster while the tape is being scanned to create an additional thumbnail at the current frame and use that as the poster for the scene. (Because the length of a scene is not known in advance during live capture the preference options that let you specify which poster to use have no effect. Instead, the first frame of each scene is used unless you set the poster yourself.)

If necessary, use Power Up to initialise the capture hardware after connecting and powering up your camcorder. Use the Video and Audio buttons to configure the capture source. If no video is recognised when you play a tape try closing the Live Capture window, start the tape playing, and then re-open Live Capture.

If any timecode resets are detected while scanning the tape a new artificial tape name is automatically used for each continuous segment.

Exporting clips and movies

You can export the clip definitions in a CatDV catalog in various formats for use in other applications. Select the clips you want to export and use one of the Export As commands:

• Export As Movie(s) - if the original media is still available you can export QuickTime or AVI movies for each clip. There are several options: create a small reference movie for each clip (which depends on the original source media remaining on-line); create a self-contained movie (which makes a copy the source media); or recompress with a new codec (convert the movie to different settings, for example to save it on CD-ROM or upload to a web site). You can also add a burnt in date and time of recording display (if available from DV source movies) and select other advanced options.
• Export As Stills - create JPEG stills from the poster frame of each movie clip, or export scaled versions of still image clips. By default the exported images are restricted in size to make them suitable for emailing, and a whole set of images can be combined into a single convenient ZIP archive.
• Export as Cinestream Capture Log, Premiere Batch Log, Canopus Batch List - you can export batch capture logs suitable for various popular video editing applications, including EditDV/Cinestream, Adobe Premiere and Canopus Raptor. Various additional formats are available in the Professional Edition.
• Export as Tab Separated Text - export all the columns from the current view as a plain text file, suitable for importing into a word processor or spreadsheet.
• Export as HTML - export the clips and poster thumbnails as a simple HTML catalog.
• Export as CMX 3600 EDL - export a CMX-format edit decision list. This command only works on sequences, not ordinary clips.

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. (If a clip has no selection the whole clip is always used.)

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

Views

Clips are listed in a main window, which can be displayed in one of two main ways:

• List view - a spreadsheet-like table, one row per clip, with a choice of which columns are displayed. You can resize or change the order of the columns.
• Grid view - a two-dimensional grid of clips, shown with their poster thumbnails, where you can arrange the order of clips, storyboard style.

When using the main window you can

• Click on the List or Grid toolbar buttons to select the next view of that type, or select a particular view from the drop down list.
• Apply filtering or grouping to limit the display to particular clips of interest.
• Have more than one window open on the same catalog with the New view command.
• Select one or more clips with the mouse and apply various menu commands to those clips.
• Display the clip details or media for a given clip using the relevant toolbar button or menu command or by double clicking on the clip. (To change the double click action either hold down the control key as you double click or choose a different double click action in Preferences.)

See also: Customising views, Quick start guide

Sorting clips

Clips have both a 'natural' order within the catalog (usually the order they were imported in) and a display order within each view:

• Click on a column header (when in a list view) or use the Order by menu to change the order that clips are displayed in.
• Use the Randomize clip order button to shuffle the display order (eg. for a slide show).
• Use Reverse to reverse the display order of clips.
• Use Make clip order permanent to rearrange clips in the catalog according to their current display order.
• Drag and drop selected clips within the window to rearrange their order in the catalog manually.

Customising views

Use the Customise views command to create your own view definitions, containing just those columns or properties you are interested in:

• Select an existing view to edit, or define a new view. (Views that you have customised are shown in italics.)
• When editing a view select the basic type (list, grid, or icon only) and size for the view.
• Add as many columns as you like (grid and icon views only show a limited number of columns - if you ask for too many columns those that don't fit are greyed out).
• Rearrange their order by dragging and dropping columns in the right hand list.
• If the same column name appears more than once click on the name and use the description to distinguish them (eg. long and short versions of a file name).
• Press 'Apply' to preview a view definition (without overwriting the previous saved definition).
• Press 'Ok' to save the view definitions so they are available in other windows and when you next launch the application.

Adjusting column widths

You can adjust column widths in a list view by dragging on the column divider line in the header row. If you make changes like this 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. (If you do not save the column widths in this way then they will only apply as long as the current window is open.)

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.

User defined fields

Three user defined fields User 1 to User 3 are available for additional keywords or notes. These appear at the top of the clip details dialog, and you can define your own custom labels for these columns, and whether they should be used for grouping or not.

The Professional Edition has an unlimited number of user-defined fields. The first six of these are shown at the top of the clip details dialog, though you can access any of these fields via the details table or in a list view.

When you import clips with QuickTime Meta data, such as ID3 tags in an MP3 file, or Exif tags in a TIFF image, you can set it up so that the value of these tags are automatically copied to specified user defined fields. Simply give a user defined field the same name as a meta data tag (eg. "Flash" or "FNumber", "Artist" or "Track") and that column will be filled in automatically at the time of import.

Clip details dialog

Select Clip Details to bring up a window showing all the properties of a selected clip. This window also shows the thumbnails and media for a clip and is used for logging.

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

• There are three tabs that show all the media representations available for a clip: thumbnail images, the original movie and a low-resolution preview movie (see Previews and thumbnails).
• Press the play media button to show the movie (or still) at full size.

Logging

Viewing and editing clip details

• The "Detail" table shows all the properties for the clip, and may include a longer form of the columns shown in the main window (for example, time of day as well as date of last modification of a file).
• Double click a row in the detail table to bring up a separate popup if the property value is too big to see on one line.
• If you rename or delete a primary clip you are asked if you want to rename or delete the associated media file on disk at the same time. (Rename a clip by typing into the "name" field. Delete a clip from the catalog by pressing the Delete button.)
• For DV clips the date and time of recording and camera exposure details are automatically extracted at the time of importing the movie and are displayed in the details dialog. (This feature depends on your camcorder and capture software).

Splitting and merging clips

• Use the Split button (scissors icon) to cut a clip into two at the current point.
• Use the Review Transition button to play the last few frames of the previous clip followed immediately by the start of the current clip to review whether the two clips belong to separate scenes or not.
• If the two clips shouldn't be separate after all then use the Merge button to merge this clip into the previous one.

Creating and navigating to other clips

• Using the toolbar buttons you can create a new secondary clip (consisting of just the selection), or create a duplicate of this one (a copy of the entire clip).
• Use the up and down toolbar buttons to step through the catalog and show details for other clips
• Press the Show related clips toolbar button to show other clips in the catalog related to this one, such as the parent clip (if this is a secondary clip), details of which projects or programs the clip is used in, any clips with overlapping timecode values, and so on. Double click on a related clip to navigate to its details.
• Use the back and forward buttons to move through the history of related and secondary clips

Keyboard shortcuts

• While the media panel is active you can use shortcuts like 'I' and 'O' to mark in and out points, 'P' to set the poster, and use JKL transport controls (Professional Edition only) to play the clip forwards or backwards at different speeds.
• Use Control-Down or Control-Up to advance to the next or previous clip.
• Use Control-P to play the media.
• Use Control-J to toggle between the clip details dialog and the media dialog.

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. All these types of media can be shared by more than one clip.

Thumbnails

• Thumbnails are stored in the catalog along with the clips.
• Thumbnail images are created when you import a movie or still image into a catalog, usually for the first, last and middle frame of each movie or scene.
• You can create another thumbnail and set that as the poster for a clip by going to the frame you want in the "movie" tab and pressing the set poster button.
• You can select different sizes of thumbnails in Preferences. (Note that larger thumbnails increase the size of catalog files and the time to open them.)
• Use the Rebuild thumbnails command to rebuild the poster thumbnails of selected clips after changing the thumbnail size.
• All the thumbnails in a catalog with the same tape name and whose timecode lies between the "in" and "out" point of a clip are available for display with that clip.

Original movies

• The original movie or source media files can be played if they are on-line (i.e. accessible on the computer's hard drive). In the case of DV movies, however, CatDV makes the assumption that the source media will typically be deleted from disk at the end of a project (to make space for the next one), and that batch capture can be used to recapture the original files if they are needed again, without loss of quality, given the tape name and timecode values.
• Use the Attach Media command if you have recaptured the source media. Use Update Media Location if you have simply renamed or moved the source media files to a new location (usually you only need to select the new location for one file - other files in the same directory are reattached automatically if they still have the same name and file size).

Previews

• Use the Build Preview Movies command to build a low-resolution preview movie of the selected clips.
• Preview movies are stored on disk in a common preview directory and are shared between catalogs. Once created they are available even when the original source movie is deleted.
• Specify the directory for previews, and choose their size and quality, in Preferences.
• There are different settings for for Live Capture previews because these need to be generated in real time.
• Preview movies are 'private' to CatDV but can be exported with Export As Movies if you want to use them in another applciation.

Media dialog

There are several ways to display the media for a selected clip at full size:

• Use the Play Media command (or toolbar button), from either the main window or clip details dialog, to play selected clips one at a time. (You can also use the keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl-P, or define a double click action of Media preview in Preferences and double click a clip to play its media).
• Use the Present Movie command to present the selected clips combined into a single sequence that plays smoothly as a whole (this is mainly intended for video clips).
• Use the Run Slide Show command to present the selected clips as a slide show of individual clips (this is mainly intended for stills and audio clips).

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. The next topic lists various other keyboard shortcuts you can use to control the media as it's playing.

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

Media dialog shortcuts

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

JKL controls

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

• In shuttle mode 'J' plays in reverse and 'L' plays forward. Successive presses will speed up playback to 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 8x or 20x normal rate. Press 'K' to stop the movie, and hold down 'K' at the same time as pressing 'J' or 'L' to step one frame at a time. (Professional Edition only)
• In jog mode 'J' and 'L' step backwards by 0.5s or one frame respectively, while 'L' and ';' step forwards by the corresponding amount.

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

A sequence is a special type of clip that contains a sequence of clips in order. It corresponds to an edited program. A sequence is created:

• when you import an EDL
• when you import a Cinestream/EditDV project (one sequence per program track "V1", etc.)
• when you select some clips and use the Create Sequence command.

Double click a sequence to display it in a special sequence dialog. There, you can:

• View the clip usages in the sequence as a timeline or as a list
• Zoom in and out of the timeline, and determine whether to wrap the timeline to the window width or not.
• Select large or small thumbnails in the timeline, and whether to show the clip date as well as the name
• Press the clip details icon to show details for a clip usage
• Press the play media icon to play a selection within the sequence.

The sequence dialog is also used when you use View tape as sequence.

You can export sequences as an EDL.

Marking and selecting clips

You can copy or move clips (together with their thumbnails) between catalogs.

• Use Cut, Copy, Paste, Clear and Duplicate on selected clips to delete, move or copy clips.
• You can also delete selected clips by pressing the Delete key (Command-Backspace on some Mac keyboards).
• You can copy or paste text within a text field using Control-C/X/V, or Command-C/X/V on the Mac.

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

• Unlike selections within a window (which are temporary), marks are saved in the catalog.
• Use the Mark submenu to mark selected clips, toggle the mark for selected clips, and so on.
• Use the Select submenu to select marked clips, invert a selection, and so on.

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

• From the main window you can use commands in the Mark submenu to mark selected clips as good or not.
• When a clip is playing in the media dialog there are keyboard shortcuts you can use to mark it as good or not.
• Use Select reviewed to select just those clips that are "good" or have otherwise been "reviewed", i.e. a selection (in2/out2) has been made.

Hidden 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. They can be made visible temporarily by:

• Pressing the Show hidden toolbar button.
• Using the Show Hidden menu command (under the View menu)

You can hide or unhide selected clips more permanently by using the Hide Selected or Unhide Selected menu commands, or by checking or unchecking the "Hidden" checkbox in the details dialog.

When you import a DV movie 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.

Searching and filtering

You can search for clips based on one or more clip properties, and also apply a filter so that only those clips matching the filter condition are shown in a window.

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

• Clip name, notes, etc. containing certain text
• Date or timecode values before or after a particular value
• Picklist properties (such as tape, bin, or format) matching one or more items from a list
• Other conditions, such as testing whether a particular property is blank or not.

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 show. Press the filter button to toggle a filter on and off, or 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 the query dialog available in the Professional Edition.

Summary mode

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.

• Use Summary View to temporarily combine clip segments and filter out duplicates (this is useful if you have imported clips from multiple sources, eg. as both movie files and projects)
• Summary view usually provides a concise, non-overlapping summary of the contents of a tape.
• You can Copy summary clips and then Paste them into a new catalog as normal clips.

If you use a Whole tape capture log to capture tape 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:

• Use Summary View.
• Use the Auto-merge DV clips belonging to same shot Preference option to automatically join clip segments at the time of importing a DV movie
• Use the Auto-merge DV Clips tool to clean up selected DV clips by automatically merging any start & end segments that come from separate media files but are known to belong to the same scene. This command also tidies the catalog by removing the original long capture clips from the catalog (leaving just the detected scenes).
• Use the Merge command to manually merge two or more contiguous clips into one.

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. Summary mode displays a concise description of the scenes on a tape as follows:

• If a catalog has several clips with the same in and out value (eg. from different projects) these are merged into one
• If you captured several long clips, each of which contains several scenes, the long clips are hidden and only the scenes are listed
• If a single scene is split in two because it was captured as two files these sections are joined up.
• Source Media View is similar to Summary View but shows precisely one clip for each source media file.

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.

• Press the grouping button to toggle grouping on and off (you can have 0, 1 or 2 grouping columns, shown at the left of the window).
• Select the property to group by (eg. 'Date') from the drop down list. A list of all the distinct dates recording dates contained in the catalog is then shown.
• Select a value from that list. Only those clips from that date are shown.

More advanced operations are possible:

• With two grouping columns you can quickly correlate two sets of grouping properties, for example find all the tapes which contain recordings at 32kHz, or see the range of dates covered by stills in a particular folder.
• To rename an entire existing tape or bin name, click on that item in the grouping list and type in a new name.
• As a convenient way of editing many clips in one go you can change the tape or bin that a particular set of clips belongs to by dragging and dropping them onto an item from the grouping list.
• Create your own user-defined grouping properties in the Customise views dialog.

Printing

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

• Use Print | Current View to print the current window, in either list or grid view.
• Use Print | Single Page Index Sheet to print a single page contact sheet as a grid view. As many clips as will fit on one page are chosen to be as representative as possible of the tape. (To select the tape to be printed use Group by tape and click on the tape you want.)
• Use Print | Selected Images to print out the selected images or posters at the maximum available resolution (using the thumbnails, previews or original media, depending on what is available). Print as many images as possible on each sheet of paper, and automatically switch individual images between landscape and portrait to maximise the print area.

To adjust the appearance of printouts:

• Choose a different type of view (list or grid).
• Select a percentage reduction in your print settings dialog and then print a large grid view for higher resolution.
• Use Page Setup (Windows and Mac OS X only) to select a different page orientation or percentage reduction.
• Adjust the font and spacing in Preferences.
• Enter a custom title in Preferences to be used as the main title or as a custom footer (eg. a copyright notice or contact details if you plan to give printouts to clients).

Preferences

Use the Preferences dialog to enter your registration details and change user preferences. The following settings are available:

General tab

Format for displaying dates and times; whether to interpret timecode as PAL or NTSC; whether to create a backup copy when saving catalogs; whether renaming a clip or changing its bin also renames or moves the media file.

Import tab

Whether to recursively scan subdirectories when importing a directory; whether imports (and similar operations) can take place as a background activity; how to import Cinestream projects; whether to combine clips with the same tape name, in and out values into a single clip reference; whether to automatically combine start and end segments of a DV clip that spans more than one capture file.

Movies tab

Whether to import clips based strictly on the DV timecode information embedded in the media; whether to perform scene detection based on changes in time stamp or image contents (check both to for automatic operation); what naming scheme to use when automatically generating clips for each scene; what size thumbnails to create; whether to use midpoint or start of clip as initial default poster; whether to create thumbnails on first/last frame or inset at 5%/95% (in case shots fade in from black).

Previews 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); what size and quality previews should be created by the Live Capture Scan & Build Previews command; whether Live Capture should compensate for dropped frames when building previws; the directory in which to store previews.

Play media tab

Whether to display a preview instead if the original movie is unavailable; how fast should slide shows be shown; whether to fade between slides (Macintosh only); whether to automatically double the size of small movies or images; whether to use jog or shuttle keyboard controls (Professional Edition only).

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).

Printing tab

What fonts and margins to use when printing; how much extra spacing to leave around cells; any custom title to be used.

Appearance tab

Select the look and feel of the application; explicitly define 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.

Registration tab

Enter the name and registration code you were sent to register CatDV, or clear an existing registration.

Tools

Various useful utility commands are provided in the Tools menu:

• Use Bulk Edit as a flexible tool to copy one field to another or automatically renumber clips. Select the destination field whose value you want to set, then either type in a fixed value to use or select another field to copy to the destination. To use automatic numbering type in a value like "Scene 009" and the next line will automatically be incremented to "Scene 010" etc.
• Use Whole Tape Capture Log to create clip definitions of equal size spanning a tape. These can be exported as a capture log to capture an entire tape unattended using the batch capture capability of your NLE editing software.
• Use Map Tape Offsets to adjust the timecode values of selected clips by a fixed amount (for example to recapture from a program tape after printing to video, as this will have different timecode assigned by the camcorder).
• Use Detect Scenes to manually perform DV timestamp-based or analog (visual frame differencing) scene detection on selected clips after they have been imported into a catalog. New secondary clips are crated for each scene within the first clip. The sensitivity of the the detection can be adjusted. (Professional Edition only).
• Use Timezone Adjustment to specify how the camera clock was set and what timezone was in effect at the shot location. These may be different (if you travel without changing the camera clock) and an adjustment is therefore necessary if you want to display the time correctly in GMT (GMT date) or in local time (Location date). It is also possible to apply a camera clock adjustment to allow shots taken by different cameras to be synchronized and accurately compared based on the record date. (Professional Edition only).
• Use the Timecode Calculator to add or subtract timecode values, convert between hours, minutes, seconds and frames, or divide one time into another. A "paper tape" printout of all your calculations is displayed.
• Use Search and Replace to correct errors in logging fields. With regular expressions you can apply complex transformations to the text. (Professional Edition only)
• Use Verbatim Logger to type in log notes and insert timecode markers while a clip is playing (eg. to type in a narration). (Professional Edition only)
• Use Convert To Text to concatenate all the Name and Notes fields of selected clips, eg. to copy and paste the text into a word processor.

Other features

• Catalog Details shows who last modified the catalog and when. It also shows certain statistics about the current catalog, such as how much memory is being used by the application, intended for diagnostic purposes.
• New Log Entry will create a new empty clip for you to type in In and Out values manually.
• The Help menu has shortcuts to display the table of contents and index in the online help, to display the license agreement and release notes for the application, and to jump to the CatDV web site in your default web browser to check for application updates.
• Auto-merge DV clips, Create Sequence, View Tape As Sequence, Live Capture and Consolidate Footage are described elsewhere.

Source media management

CatDV deals with both clips and source media. A clip describes a piece of media in abstract terms (tape name, in and out points) whereas a source media file is an actual file on disk that contains a DV stream or other media content, such as stills, audio clips, and so on. A clip may or may not have any source media, but you can only manipulate source media in CatDV if you have a clip that refers to it.

When you import a media file CatDV analyses that file and creates a clip that refers to and describes the source media. If the file is a movie file then several clips may be created, a master clip for the media file as a whole and one for each scene.

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). The clip details store the last known location of the media file.

The following commands let you deal with source media in various ways:

• Update media location is used when you have renamed or moved an existing media file on disk and need to tell CatDV the new location so it can play the media. If you have moved an entire directory you normally only need to locate the first file. Any other clips which have been similarly affected are updated automatically.
• Use Attach media to attach a clip to a completely new media file, for example after it's been recaptured, or if the clip was not originally associated with a media file. You can also attach clips to existing preview movies based on tape name.
• Use Rebuild thumbnails to build new thumbnails for selected clips, eg. after changing the thumbnail size.
• Use Build preview movies to build preview movies for selected clips from the source movies.
• Use Delete media files to delete the media files for selected clips from disk and then also delete the corresponding clips from the catalog.
• Use Move media files to select a new directory and then move the selected media files there. (If you selected a single clip you can enter a new name to rename the media file.)
• By default the clip Name corresponds to the media file name and the Bin to the parent folder containing the media file. If you edit the clip Name or Bin you will be asked if you want to apply the corresponding move to the source media file (assuming the Auto rename files preferences option is set).
• Use Consolidate Footage to trim unused material from the source media by saving a self-contained (flattened) movie of the selection (in2/out2) within each clip and then deleting the original source movies. (This only applies to DV movies. The assumption is that DV footage can always be batch recaptured based on the original timecode and it is therefore safe to delete the source media.)
• Use Source media view to simplify the view and show precisely one clip only for each source 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 is stored with the file is extracted at the time of import and displayed in special columns against each clip. (Depending on the file being read, not all the fields will be set).

This information can be very useful when searching for clips, when grouping similar clips together, or when diagnosing problems with particular files.

General metadata

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

DV metadata

The following fields have special meaning for DV clips:

Exif metadata

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

Import warnings

When importing movies several consistency checks are applied and warnings may be displayed in the Import notes field 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 'strict' capture 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 for each continuous segment.

Timecode differs (DV/QT=?)

There are two ways to determine the timecode for a particular DV frame, based on the QuickTime 'timecode' track and how far into a movie the frame is, or on the digital data read from the DV stream itself for that frame. Usually these will give the same result but if you have dropped frames on capture or other anomalies occurred 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. Often the movie is reported as being longer than it really is and the last frame appears as a 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 speed 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 practical, the unstable data is ignored and the first valid date or timecode is used instead.

Video and Audio differ by ? seconds (? frames)

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. (Don't worry if the quoted difference in seconds and in frames don't agree with each other, this is quite normal as they are calculated differently.)

? fps invalid for PAL/NTSC DV

This indicates that the frame rate is not exactly 25 or 29.97/30 fps respectively, perhaps because the movie was rendered by computer rather than captured with a camera, or because frames were dropped during capture.

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.

Controlling how movies are imported

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

• produce a log that precisely matches the DV data, even if there are dropped frames or timecode discontinuities which might mean there are gaps in the captured media;
• ignore the movie length as reported by QuickTime and use the length of the media itself instead (bypassing an issue affecting some capture applications where the movie is reported as being longer than it really is).

Turn off the 'strict' option:

• if you are unlikely to batch recapture the material from DV tape and it's more important to reflect the file in its currently captured state;
• for improved compatibility with other applications which are likely just to use the QuickTime information;
• if you don't want each timecode sequence to result in a separate clip.

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 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)

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 Export As Movie(s) command, where you can choose to export existing previews as either reference or self contained movies without recompressing them.

Live capture

When building previews in Live Capture (using the Scan & Build Previews command) time is at a premium, so this always uses a 'fast' Motion JPEG codec, with IMA 4:1 12 kHz audio. The frame rate and JPEG quality setting are controlled by the Live Capture preview settings in Preferences.

As less time is available to compress each frame the Live Capture preview file sizes may be bigger than when building previews from movies that have been captured to disk. You may choose to use a smaller preview size for Live Capture therefore.

Managing multiple catalogs

If you have a large number of clips to catalog 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:

• Press the Browse button to select the directory where your catalogs are saved.
• All the catalog files are listed, together with the total number of clips in each catalog.
• Other fields show the catalog descriptions, the tape names used in each catalog, and what range of dates they cover. Both the original date of recording (if known) and the timestamp of the batch files and media files on disk are shown (the latter might indicate when the media was captured or the project was worked on).
• Double click a line or use the Open catalog button to open the desired catalog.

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

Searching catalogs (Professional Edition only)

With the Professional Edition you can search all the catalogs in a directory looking for particular keywords:

• Type in some keywords and press the Search button to show which catalogs contain particular logging keywords. The clip name, bin, notes and user defined fields of all the clips are searched, as well as the catalog description.
• The total number of clips in the catalog is shown, together with the number that match your chosen 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.

New features in CatDV 3.0

• Drag and drop of files into main window, and copying thumbnail images to the system clipboard (Windows and Mac OS X only)
• New Create Real-Time Sequence command to create an EDL based on time of day record date, simplifying the synching of multi-camera shoots (Professional Edition only)
• Compatibility with Final Cut Pro's OfflineRT codec (Professional Edition only)
• New Timecode Calculator command.
• Changes made in the clip details window are applied immediately without needing to press a 'Save' button. The detail table and the rest of the window are always kept in synch now.
• Improved handling of media file formats other than DV. Improved reporting of metadata indicating the media file format (eg. Exif exposure details, new Importer column, changes to the Format column).
• Various new columns: Date, Aspect Ratio, Audio Rate, Frame Size, Frame Rate, Importer, Name or Tape, Size or Length. Some of these show existing information in a different form and are useful when grouping, or when a concise display of different types of clip in a grid view is desired.
• The main window now supports two levels of grouping.
• Multi line text shows more of your logging notes in wide list views (eg. 'Full' view).
• Values for picklists such as Tape, Bin and user defined grouping fields are remembered across catalogs. Allow them to be selected from drop down lists in list views and within the details table of the clip details dialog.
• New buttons in the clip details dialog to split a clip at the given cursor point, to review the transition from one clip to another, and to merge two clips together if they were split incorrectly.
• The Rec. Date field is now editable.
• Export as FCP batch list now substracts one from Out points and honours the base clips on selection flag. (Professional Edition only)
• Scan For New Files now searches back to a common root directory and finds all new files anywhere in that tree (if the include sub-directories flag is set).
• New Merge menu command merges two or more selected clips into one. New commands to Clear (delete) and Duplicate selected clips.
• Keyboard shortcuts now work in the clip details dialog, eg. control-up or down to step through the catalog, I and O to mark in and out points, JKL jog shuttle keys (Professional Edition only), etc.
• New command in Order By menu to Reverse the current clip order.
• New Page Setup command (Mac OS X and Windows only).
• New Print Selected Images command.
• New Preferences option to set a custom title on printouts.
• New Source Media Summary View
• New menu commands to simplify marking selected clips as good or not.
• New option when Exporting Movies to disable square pixel aspect ratio correction.
• Improvements to slide show, eg. speed is configurable in Preferences, new option whether to autodouble small images, option to fade between slides (Mac only), the selection in the main window is updated to your location in the slide show, etc.
• New menu command to Attach Media to a clip which hasn't previously had media (as opposed to Update Media Location, which is used when an existing media file has been moved).
• New command to Move Media Files. This will also update the Bin if the bin is currently showing the parent directory. Conversely, editing the Bin name will ask if you want to move the media file.
• Improvements to Live Capture previews generation: new Preferences options to select JPEG preview quality and to control compensation for dropped frames.
• Sorting on the Poster field sorts clips according to overall thumbnail brightness. (If you have several copies of the same image at different resolutions this function will bring all the related images together.)
• Automatically remember the last selected window size and view and use that for new windows.
• Timecodes can now be entered without a colon.
• Tool tips displaying basic details of a clip when viewing catalogs in a thumbnail only grid view.
• Correctly extract the date recorded by JVC DV camcorders.
• Numerous cosmetic improvements, such as reordering some menu and toolbar commands to make them more obvious, especially the Media and Tools menus, displaying a Mac OS X 'needs save' indicator, making it clearer which column header a table is being sorted on, and making it clearer which cell in a table has keyboard focus.
• The Help menu now has links to the CatDV web site, to display the License Agreement and Release Notes, and shortcuts to specific help pages.
• Improved stability in low memory situations (by suppressing display of thumbnails).
• Countless other bug fixes and 'under the hood' improvements.

There are now two different editions of the CatDV client application, the Personal 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:

• The Professional Edition can be used as a client to the optional CatDV Workgroup Server to provide access to major new workgroup features.
• Other features specific to the Professional Edition are detailed here, including named filters, regular expressions, timezone adjustments, additional importers and exporters, and customisable preview settings.
• New columns specific to the Professional Edition include GMT Date, Clock Adjustment, Location Timezone, and Aux T/C.

CatDV 2.x Features

New features in 2.5

• New Live Capture command to scan a tape and build previews at the same time (with compatible hardware only)
• Added online help.
• New Bulk Edit command
• New Browse Catalogs command
• More flexible view configuration: ability to display small clip status icon within thumbnail; new 'text below thumbnail' view type; ability to configure widths of columns as well as their order.
• New Export As Still(s) command (full resolution or limited size suitable for emailing, archived as a zip file).
• Export Movie command allows export as AVI and other formats
• New Meta data column displays any QuickTime meta data that may be present in the media (such as copyright notices in movies, ID3 artist and album tags in MP3 tracks, or Exif exposure data in digital camera JPEG and TIFF files).
• Printing improvements (fully takes into account current view settings)
• Rotate thumbnails to match orientation of the image.
• Re-written movie importer to cope with and accurately report timecode discontinuities and incorrect movie lengths
• Ability to mark clips as hidden
• Improvements to the clip details dialog: the window is now resizable, provides immediate access to the User 1 to User 3 fields, and double clicking a value in the details table pops up a window to show long fields.
• Sorting columns now applies a numeric order (so "Clip 10" comes after "Clip 9" rather than before "Clip 2").
• Catalogs now store when they were created and last modified and by whom and have a catalog description field.
• Incorporated memory usage display within new Catalog Details command.
• New Detect Scenes command allowing movies to be imported first and then analysed and split into scenes later.
• New Make Clip Order Permanent command to rearrange clips in a catalog according to the current display order.
• Ability to move media files by editing the Path field.
• Added New Log Entry command.
• File choosers remember the last selected directory of each type.
• Other cosmetic and performance fixes (abbreviated column labels so they fit; moved the Preferences menu item to where it belongs under OS X; improved speed of grid view; clicking outside a selection now drops the selection; automatically select clips that have been added to catalog; reduced memory footprint of thumbnails; etc.)

New features in 2.0

• Improvements to clip details dialog, with a new toolbar and Preview tab panel, and improved navigation to other clips.
• Improved support for non-DV media formats (still images, MPEG, audio files, etc.)
• New media dialog to present movies, including full screen display. CatDV handles non-square pixels and both 4:3 and 16:9 DV movies are shown at the correct aspect ratio.
• New slide show mode (and related functionality, eg. randomizing clip order, rotating stills).
• Generation and display of low resolution preview movies (with choice of size and quality)
• Choice of thumbnail sizes; ability to rebuild thumbnails; ability to select new poster frame from Movie tab of details dialog; new Preferences option to specify midpoint rather than first frame as default poster.
• Improved file management (renaming or deleting a clip gives you option to do the same to the media file; new command to update media file location).
• New properties including "Good", "Status code", "Date", "Month", "Orientation", "QT Tracks", "Folder" and "Data rate".
• Much improved search and filter dialogs.
• Enhanced Export as movie(s) command, adding the ability to convert movies using a different codec and to add a date/time text track. There is also an explicit Consolidate footage command now for creating flattened movies from each clip.
• Program clips have been replaced by clip usages within a sequence. This is more flexible and allows EDLs to be exported as well as imported. Removed EDL import Preferences options as EDLs are always imported as a sequence now.
• New sequence view dialog and command to create sequences and allow simple cuts only editing.
• New icon-only grid view (at different sizes), allowing more clips to be visible within a window.
• New dialog to define custom view types and labels for the user-defined columns. Added a fourth user-defined property.
• Whole tape capture log now creates clips that can be exported in any of the supported batch file formats.
• All long-running operations such as imports now display a progress bar, with a Preferences option whether processing should take place in background or not.
• Preferences dialog has new tabs and a Default button to set factory defaults for many options.
• Rewrote portions of the EditDV project import handling, eg. to make handling of file names more robust and cross platform.
• Various other new menu commands, such as View marked clips, Scan for new files and Merge clips.
• More extensive use of tool tip text, eg. on table column headers.
• Renamed and rearranged several menu items to make them more consistent.
• Various performance improvements, eg. improved speed of thumbnail creation.
• Added export to Canopus file format
• New Preferences options to configure the default view when opening a window, appearance of toolbar and status line, and so on.
• Numerous other minor improvements and fixes, for example the name of an audio format, rather than just a code, is now displayed, thumbnails are always shown at the correct aspect ratio, new look toolbar, etc.

Professional Edition Features

The Professional Edition has several features over and above the standard Personal Edition:

Workgroup features

The Professional Edition has an additional Workgroup menu that contains commands to share catalogs with other users and search for clips across catalogs in a central clip database.

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 shared database (with the optional Workgroup Server). 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.

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.

Improved importers and exporters

The Professional Edition supports several additional file formats, including Final Cut Pro, Avid, dpsVelocity and XML.

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.

Workgroup Features (Professional Edition only)

Requirements

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

Note that 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.

Connecting to the server

Use the Log On To Server command in the Workgroup 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 Workgroup menu commands will be enabled, or you may see a message that a connection failure occurred.

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

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 Publish Folder 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 are in 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 Database 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:

• If you need to rearrange the order of clips in a catalog. (Publish Changes will insert, delete or update clips in the database but not change their order.)
• If you saved a remote catalog locally for offline working and now want to publish changes that you made to the local files.

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.

Enhanced query dialog (Professional Edition only)

With the new enhanced query dialog 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).

• First, select the clip property to search on. This will display a list of operations based on the column type (text, timecode, date, or boolean).
• Then, select the comparison operation, enter any parameters (such as the text to search for) and options (such as case sensitive comparison).
• If you want to search on additional clip properties at the same time press Add term to add a new row. You can add as many terms as you want (though with more terms the query may take longer to execute).
• Normally all the terms must match for a clip to be found (ie. the terms are combined by a logical 'AND' operation). If you check the 'OR' box then one (or more) of the 'OR' terms must match, as well as all the 'AND' terms.
• Check the 'NOT' box to exclude clips matching that term.

Named queries

• Press the Create button, then enter a name and press Save to save a named query.
• Named queries are stored in the local preferences file and are available in later sessions. Select a previously saved named query from the drop down list to use it.
• Check the Show in toolbar option to turn the query into a quick filter that can be used to filter the clips shown in the main window.

Remote searches

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

• Return additional clips similar to the ones matched by the query.
• Return all the thumbnails associated with a clip or just the poster thumbnail.
• Press Find Clips to create a new query results window showing all the matching clips, regardless of which catalog they are in.
• Press Find Catalogs to display a list of matching catalogs within the database, including a count of how many clips in each catalog match the query.

Local searches

• When searching for clips locally within a catalog you can either move to the next matching clip or create a new window showing all the matches. See searching and filtering.
• When doing local searches within a catalog you can set a Preferences option to use the original simpler query dialog from CatDV 2.5 instead if you prefer.
• A different browse catalogs mechanism is provided to search across multiple catalogs locally on disk. Because the catalogs are not stored in a relational database, as they are with remote searches, the search capability provided is much less sophisticated.

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 (Professional Edition only)

Batch lists

The Professional Edition (and Workgroup Edition) features the following additional export file formats. Use Export As and one of the following:

• Avid Log File to export an Avid ALE batch log
• dpsVelocity batch list to export a DPS BRT file
• Final Cut Pro batch list

It supports the following additional importer, use Import As and:

• Final Cut Pro batch list

XML

The Professional Edition supports two type of XML export:

• The Export as 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 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.)

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 that you can use even when the contents of a tape are not currently captured to disk.

1. First you need to load the information into CatDV:
   • If you have previously edited any projects containing material from your tapes then you can import those projects into CatDV to avoid retyping previously logged clip names.
   • If you have logged your tapes by hand (or using another application) you can import text files or EDLs.
   • If you have captured the contents of your tapes and have the movies on-line you can import QuickTime movies.
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 used 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:
   • group clips according to the tape they are on,
   • search for a keyword in the notes field,
   • print out a single page index print to file with each tape,
   • display the DV date & time of recording of each scene,
   • create preview versions of your movies to use even when the media is offline,
   • share a catalog containing thumbnails with clients or friends, even if they don't have access to the original movies.
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 Preference options to determine the size and quality of previews.

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

Assume you are about to start editing a 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 automatically, 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 editing application (Final Cut Pro, Premiere, Cinestream, etc.) 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.
5. Alternatively, if your editing application has the facility to capture an entire tape unattended, use that instead of the steps above.
6. Import all the long captured movie clips into CatDV using either the Import as media or Import directory command. This will scan the movies to identify each scene and extract thumbnails for them.
7. Use the Summary mode command to view the clips as scenes, merging fragments as required, then edit the summary clips to give each scene a meaningful name. If necessary, open up the clip details dialog by double clicking a clip and view the movie to help you pick a name.
8. Select all the scenes you want to use in your project then do Export as movie(s), saving normally (allowing references).
9. Create (or open) the editing project you want to use the scenes in then import all the reference movies you have just generated. Start editing!

How do I automatically log a tape using Live Capture?

1. Ensure your system has a suitable FireWire interface and drivers that are compatible with QuickTime.
2. Connect your camcorder/deck and computer using a FireWire cable and power up the camcorder.
3. Launch CatDV and open the Live Capture window. If you get an error this probably means you don't have a compatible VDIG driver, but try resetting the FireWire bus by removing and reinserting the cable (with the camcorder still on) and press the Power up button.
4. Press play on your camcorder or deck and you should see a preview of the video in the monitor window. If necessary check and adjust the Video and Audio capture settings. You should not select any compression here (use DV for video, Uncompressed for audio, and select the same sample rate as your tape is recorded at).
5. Type in a tape name and select Scan & Build Preview.
6. Rewind the tape to the start and press play on your camcorder/deck. Press the Start button in the Live Capture window.
7. CatDV will now scan the tape, simultaneously capturing low resolution previews and detecting scene changes.
8. Each scene will have a thumbnail poster from the start of the scene, but you can press Set Poster while the tape is playing to use the current frame as a poster instead. (It is normal for the monitor window to show the thumbnail for the current scene rather than the playing video.)
9. If capture doesn't stop automatically when the end of the tape is reached, or if you want to stop early, press the Stop button. Close the Live Capture window and review the clips in the catalog.

How can I archive the source material for a project?

Almost without exception, when you dub to a DV camcorder or deck it will write new timecode (beginning from zero or following on from whatever was previously written to a tape) rather than use the timecode of the original source. Although you can make perfect digital copies by hooking two camcorders (or a camcorder and computer) together with a FireWire cable, the copy will have different timecode, which unfortunately reduces its usefulness for making backups to restore a project from.

Using CatDV's Map Tape Offsets command, however, you can create a capture log that correctly refers to the location of clips on a copy that you might have made of your original master tapes. This can be particularly useful if you are consolidating the contents of more than one source tape.

For example, assume you have already used the techniques described earlier to help you log the contents of your source tape(s), scene by scene, and have created an editing project that contains all the clips you might possibly want to use:

1. Use your editing application to quickly review each scene and trim out any material you know you don't need. (At this stage, you are going for a very rough cut and should err on the side of including any material you are not sure about.)
2. Cut all the clips you are interested in to the program (i.e. to the timeline or sequencer, depending on the terminology used by your editing application). Place them all on a single track, and don't apply any filters or effects yet. You can also include any non-DV or computer-generated material at this stage, though of course it will need to be rendered. Doing so here has the advantage that you will then be able to batch capture it later!
3. Print this temporary program to tape, using a fresh blank tape. This will be your working master from now on and you can file away the original recording masters in a safe place.
4. Export an EDL for this temporary program from your editing application. Note down the start time of this EDL, or the time of a particularly obvious scene transition near the start of the program.
5. Review the program tape (your "working master") and note down the exact timecode that was actually recorded corresponding to the event you picked in your EDL (either the start or an obvious scene change).
6. Import the EDL you saved into CatDV and select the program clips from that EDL.
7. Use the Map tape offsets command and enter the original and new timecode values you noted earlier (from the EDL and program tape, respectively). Enter an identifier to identify your working master tape. This will update all the program clips to refer to the actual location of the clips on your new master tape.
8. Use the Export as submenu to export the modified program clips as a batch log and import the log into a new project in your editing application.
9. Batch capture the clips for the new project from your new working master tape and edit away!

This technique works particularly well if you are combining material from several tapes but the clips for all your rough cuts fit on a single working master tape, as it means all the material needed for that project is archived in one convenient place - and you have a backup of your precious recording masters! You can still use this technique if your working cuts span more than one tape but you would then need to split your temporary program by hand when you print to video.

How can I merge two EditDV/Cinestream projects together?

You can't directly merge together two EditDV/Cinestream projects but you can import the clip definitions from one project into another using the EditDV Import capture log command.

1. First you need to decide which is your main project and which you want to import the clips from. You then need to decide whether your want to import the definitions of clips from the "project" window or from the "sequencer", i.e. whether you want to preserve the original start and end points of your source clips, or the selected in and out points of those clips as used in your program.
2. If you want to use your "project" clip definitions, create a temporary CatDV catalog and import the EditDV project. Select all the source clips from the catalog and export them as an EditDV capture log.
3. Alternatively, if you want to use your "sequencer" clip definitions, export an EDL from EditDV containing those clip definitions and import the EDL into a temporary CatDV catalog. As before, select the source clips from the catalog and export them as a capture log.
4. Import the capture log you have generated into your main EditDV project and batch capture the newly merged in clips. You will need to reapply any filters or transitions to those clips.

How do I use CatDV with other 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 directly read EditDV/Cinestream project files, and can export an EditDV/Cinestream capture log. It will import and export Final Cut Pro batch lists, and can export clips as a Premiere batch capture log. CatDV can import clips 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.

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:

• Select a list view with the columns you want to export (use Customise Views if necessary), select the clips you want, and use Export as tab separated text.
• Alternatively, try selecting some clips from your catalog then copying and pasting them directly into an Excel spreadsheet. (If you select a single clip then its thumbnail will be copied instead.)

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.

• There must be one clip entry per line, and each field must be separated by a single tab character.
• A line on its own is taken to be a tape name.
• The first two fields on a line that look like timecode are taken to be In and Out points respectively (unless any of the supposed "out" points are less than the in points, in which case they are all taken to mean duration instead).
• Fields that do not contain timecode are interpreted as text, in the order: clip name, bin, tape name and comments. Any additional fields are ignored, as are blank lines or lines that CatDV is unable to process.

How can I edit and present a program within CatDV?

A very common task if you have recorded and captured a whole tape of material is to produce a condensed version of the edited highlights to show to people.

If you want to edit together a finished program, perhaps applying special effects, L- or J-cuts, transitions, titles, voiceovers and so on, you would of course use a fully featured non linear editing package. If all you want is a simple "cuts only" selection of the highlights, however, then you can use the capabilities built in to CatDV as a quick and effective alternative:

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. CatDV will automatically detect and produce a clip for each scene. (Either use Summary mode or enable the Auto-merge DV clips belonging to same shot Preference option if a scene might span across more than one movie file.)
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've 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. 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).
11. 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:

• If the images are stored on your digital camera first copy the files to your pictures folder on your hard drive (using the Apple Finder or Windows Explorer, or your digital camera software).
• In CatDV Preferences make sure that the Include sub-directories Import option is set.
• Open a new or existing catalog and use Import Directory to choose your pictures folder and import all the pictures (and other media files) within that folder.
• If you are have added files to an existing directory and want to update your existing catalog use the Scan for new files command. Alternatively, you can use Import Directory and select the root picture folder again. Any files that are already in the catalog won't be added a second time.
• View the catalog with a grid view so you can see thumbnails for the images you have imported.
• If any images have the wrong orientation select them and use the Rotate Left or Rotate Right command. This rotates the thumbnail and sets a rotation flag but does not lose any image quality by recompressing or overwriting the original image file.
• Use the regular features of CatDV (grouping and sorting, details dialog, bulk edit command, user-defined fields, etc.) to enter keywords or names as required to identify the files.
• If you type in a new value for the clip Name you will have the option of renaming the file on disk as well.
• If you group on the Path property you can see which folder on disk the images are in. Drag and drop clips onto another path name to move the files to another folder.
• If you want to suppress a particular image from a catalog without deleting it permanently bring up the clip details for that image and tick the Hide checkbox.
• To delete an image file permanently use the Delete media files command (or button) and confirm the file deletion.
• To present a full screen slide show of selected images use the Run slide show command. You can control the speed of the show with the keys 1-9, press Escape or double click to stop the slide show, and use various other keyboard shortcuts to control the presentation.
• If you import and include an MP3 file in the selection to be played then CatDV will play background music during the slide show.
• Use the Randomize clip order button, if desired, to temporarily shuffle the clips prior to starting the slide show.
• Some digital cameras will also record short MPEG video clips. CatDV will play these as well, and will automatically double the size during playback if the image size is small.
• To share pictures with friends use the Export as still(s) command to export selected pictures scaled down to a small enough size to email efficiently as an attachment. For convenience you can bundle up a set of images to send as a single ZIP archive.
• CatDV will display any Exif or Flashpix information it finds in the image in the Meta data column. (Many digital cameras record details such as the date, or whether flash was used.)

How should I deal with timecode resets on a 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 or reusing tapes as this does nothing to avoid the underlying problem but makes timecode breaks much more difficult to detect.)

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

• Leave them, and treat each segment as a separate "virtual tape".
• Make a copy of the tape with new continuous timecode.

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.

Alternatively, you can 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 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.
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.

How can I simulate batch capture with CatDV?

Batch capture (the ability to automatically capture a series of clips from tape based on a specified list of in and out timecode values) is one of the main features used to distinguish "entry level" editing systems from their more expensive "fully featured" cousins.

Arguably the main benefit of batch capture is that it gives you repeatability: the ability to delete capture files to free up disk space at the end of a project but then to be able to re-capture and re-generate the original project and all its files at a later date if you need to.

You can use CatDV as a "poor man's" batch capture command to achieve repeatability, even if you use it in conjunction with a low cost NLE which only supports manual capture:

1. Capture your initial footage to disk by manually starting and stopping capture as required
2. Use CatDV to log and split the footage into separate files for each scene you're interested in.
3. Import the movie files generated by CatDV into your NLE, instead of those you originally captured, and edit your project.

Even if your NLE doesn't support timecode, once you have completed your project you can safely delete the movie files written by CatDV. You can repeatably re-generate them at a later stage by manually recapturing footage that spans all the required clips and repeating steps 1 and 2 above. Because it will detect the same scene changes again, CatDV will generate exactly the same files again, even if the capture files don't have exactly the same start and end points as before. As the files will be named the same and cover the same material, you should be able to re-open your original project and resume editing without noticing any change.