CatDV 6.0 Reference Guide

This shortened reference guide is a copy of the online help text. A more detailed (but less up to date!) introductory guide is available separately as a free download from http://www.squarebox.co.uk/download.html as a PDF.

Table of Contents

Getting started

How to use help
Introduction
Installation
Quick start guide

Clips and catalogs

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

General operation

Views
Customising views
Clip details panel
Tree navigator
Clip details dialog
Marking and selecting
Searching and filtering
Summary mode
Grouping mode

Viewing and managing media

Previews and thumbnails
Media dialog
Sequences
Source media management
Media file metadata
Supported file formats

Miscellaneous

Printing
Preferences
Tools
Import warnings
Preview presets
New features in CatDV 6
New features in CatDV 5
New features in CatDV 4
New features in CatDV 3 and earlier

Professional Edition

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

How to...

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

How to use help

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

Use the CatDV Help menu command to access online help:

• The Topics button displays a table of contents, listing all the topics.
• Click on the Next link to read all the topics in order.
• Click on a blue link to display more information about a related topic. (Links which are underlined will launch in an external web browser.)
• Use the back and forward buttons < and > to go back (or forward) through the history of pages you have visited after following a link.
• Type in keywords to the search box and press Enter to display a list of matching pages.

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

Other sources of documentation

The original CatDV Pro 3.0 User Manual is a separate PDF document including screen shots and additional background material that you can download. Although not updated to the current version, if you're new with CatDV you might want to read the PDF user manual first as an introduction.

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

Introduction

CatDV 6.0 is a cross-platform media cataloging and video logging tool. The CatDV product family has several members, all sharing the same basic user interface but with different features:

• CatDV Standard Edition
• CatDV Professional Edition
• CatDV Professional Edition with Workgroup Server
• CatDV Enterprise Edition with Enterprise Server

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

Cataloging

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

• still images (JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, PSD, etc.)
• audio formats (MP3, AIFF, AU, AAC, WAV, etc.)
• video formats (QuickTime MOV, MP4, WMV, AVI, MPEG, DV, etc.)

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

• video editing capture logs and projects (Final Cut Pro, Premiere, etc.)
• interchange formats (CMX edit decision lists, tab-separated text, XML)

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

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

Metadata

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

Logging and scene detection

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

Preview files

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

Video editing

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

Movie export

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

Tools

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

Workgroup features

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

Installation and registration

System requirements

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

• Java for Windows (Sun's JRE) is available from http://www.java.com.
• QuickTime for both platforms is available from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

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

Updates

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

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

Purchasing CatDV

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

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

Quick start guide

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

Screen layout

• The main window in CatDV shows all the clips in a catalog or database of clips. Each clip represents either a complete media file or a scene within a movie file or tape, and usually has a thumbnail image, as well as Name, Format, In and Out timecode values, and various other fields (also referred to as "attributes" or "properties").
• The toolbar at the top of the main window provides commands to import media into the catalog and to view and organise the clips in the catalog in different ways.
• The tree navigator lets you group clips in your catalog into virtual folders, and also provides shortcuts to key locations in your file system. The clip details panel is used to display and edit the selected clip. (Both the tree navigator and details panel can be turned on and off using the toolbar.)
• Other windows may be displayed as required, for example to edit a sequence, play back a movie, or customise application settings.

Importing clips

•   The quickest way to get started with CatDV is to use Import Directory from the File menu (or the Import toolbar button) to import all the images and movies from a directory and build up a thumbnail catalog. You can also drag and drop files into the CatDV window. The files are analysed as they are imported and in the case of movie files a separate clip record for each scene within the movie is created.
• CatDV can create and manage low-resolution preview movies to represent each clip in your catalog. Specify the location and quality settings for previews in Preferences, then use Build Preview Movies to create preview versions of all your video clips. CatDV previews 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 media files are unavailble (perhaps they're on a removable FireWire drive, you're working on your laptop away from your server, or you had to delete them to make space for the next project).
•   CatDV has a large number of Preference settings that govern all aspects of its behaviour, such as how movie files are imported, where to locate media files, what clip properties to display, the behaviour when you double click a clip, and much more. Take the time to look through all the different preference panels to get a feel for what features are available.

Viewing clips

•    You can view the catalog and organise your clips in many different ways, using commands in the View menu or toolbar buttons. For example, you can view clips as a spreadsheet-like list or as a grid of thumbnails only. You can also choose which particular columns (or clip properties) are shown by selecting a different view definition from the drop down.
•    If you have many clips in your catalog you can navigate your clips by automatically grouping related clips according to tape, subject, bin, etc. You can also sort or filter them as required.
•   Type text into the quick search field to filter the window and only show those clips whose name or comments include the text you enter. (You can also create more complex queries by using the Find command.)
•   The clip details panel provides full details of a clip and is used for logging your clips: you can enter a name or description, select a thumbnail frame, mark it as good or not, and enter other log notes. Under the movie tab you can play the clip and mark a selection within it, from which you can then create subclips.
•   The Clip Summary window displays all the properties of a clip in a convenient formatted view (this view is read-only; switch to Clip Details to edit the clip).
•   The Play Media command will play selected clip(s), individually or as a slide show.
•   Use the Media Information dialog to analyse a media file and display technical information about the format, such as a report of dropped frames or the codec used.
• You can re-earrange the order of clips by dragging and dropping them within the main window, or assemble a rough cut program by creating a sequence from them.

Outputting clips

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

• Export the clips as a movie, converting them using any QuickTime-compatible codec, including MPEG-4, H.264, DV, etc., and optionally add timecode or text tracks, such as burnt-in date/time display or subtitles
• Export them as an EDL or batch list to import into your NLE video editing application. (If you use Final Cut Pro use the FCP XML format.)
• Print the clips out (as a thumbnail "storyboard" or "contact sheet")
• Export a standalone HTML index with thumbnails and a link to the media files. (You could use this to publish a storyboard of an edited program, to distribute a catalog of stock footage to clients, or to maintain an index of promo clips for example.)

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

Managing catalogs

CatDV stores clip details and their thumbnails in a catalog:

• Use the New Catalog command to create an empty catalog.
• Use the Open Catalog or Open Recent commands to open an existing catalog.
• Catalogs may be saved as a normal catalog file, where clips refer to preview movies in the shared Preview directory, or as a self-contained preview archive (see below). Use Save As Catalog or Save As Archive to change the way the catalog is saved.
• Use the Always create backup checkbox in Preferences to automatically make a backup copy of the catalog file when saving.
• Use Catalog Details (in the Edit menu) 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 normally let you save catalogs (or export or print data).

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

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

Self-contained archives

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

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

Clips

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

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

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

Making sense of property names

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

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

• You can give user-defined fields any name you choose. These names could clash with a pre-defined property.
• In OEM versions of CatDV it is possible to customise the name of any field, including built-in properties.
• Certain metadata properties like Name or Date (read from iTunes metadata for example) might clash with a pre-defined property.
• If you import a media file then Import Source, Source Media and Name will all show the media filename. On the other hand, if you import an EDL or Final Cut XML file these fields may all be different - Name is the name of a particular shot or scene, Source Media is the media filename for that clip, and Import Source is the name of the EDL or XML file you imported the data from.
• Some special fields like "Name or Tape" show different data for different types of clips and are designed to make most efficient use of available space in icon grid views, for example showing the file name for stills and the tape name and timecode for movie clips.

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

Importing clips and movies

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

• Import as QuickTime 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 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 CMX 3600 EDL - import both source clip definitions and a sequence of program clips from an industry standard CMX edit decision list
• 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.
• Import as Windows Media File - import a WMV, ASF or WMA file, extracting all the metadata from the file.
• Various additional formats, such as Final Cut Pro batch files and OMF media files, are available in the Professional Edition.

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

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

Live Capture

For technical reasons, the old built-in Live Capture command is not available in CatDV 6. Instead, you can use the separate Live Capture Plus application, or capture a DV tape in an external application (such as your regular NLE software or the free iMovie or Microsoft Movie Maker applications) then import the resulting files into CatDV to catalog them and create high-quality offline previews.

Exporting clips and movies

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

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

• Export As Movie(s) - see below.
• Export As Stills - create JPEG still images 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.
• 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 - see below.
• Export as CMX 3600 EDL - export a CMX-format edit decision list. (This command works on sequences, not ordinary clips, so you might need to use the Create Sequence command first).
• Various additional formats are available in the Professional Edition.

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

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

Exporting Movies

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

• The Movie Format tab has options that govern the format of the exported movie(s). You can export without recompression, either as a small reference movie for each clip (which depends on the original source media remaining on-line) or as a flattened self-contained movie (which makes a copy of the source media). Or you can recompress the movie with a new codec (convert the movie to different settings, for example to play it on an iPod or upload to a web site). You can use any QuickTime movie exporter for this, but the most useful formats are probably QuickTime, MPEG-4 (or MPEG-4 Hinted Movie), DV Stream, AVI, or 3G (for playback on mobile phones). Once you have chosen the basic format you can choose a codec, resolution, frame rate and quality settings by pressing the Settings button.
• Under Batch Options you can choose whether all the selected clips are combined into a single movie or exported as separate files. Check the Exact clip names option to use the clip Name as it is for the filename without appending an extension such as .mov (this simplifies attaching the media in Final Cut Pro). You can export the whole of each clip or a selection within it. If you have gone through all your clips, reviewing them either by making a selection of the material you want to keep or marking the whole clip as good, then you can export a program containing the desired clips (similar to the Select Reviewed command).
• Under the Extra Tracks tab you can add a timecode track, or a text track containing the date & time of recording (for DV material only). If you export a flattened or reference QuickTime movie without recompression these are saved as separate tracks that you can enable or disable in QuickTime Player, whereas if you recompress the movie the text is burnt in to the image. With the Professional Edition you can also add a custom text track containing specific text (such as a copyright message), or containing one of the clip data fields, such as a title, scene number or subtitle text. This text can appear for a fixed duration or for the entire duration of the clip. You can choose the size for the text and timecode tracks and whether they should have a transparent or opaque background.

HTML Export

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

• In the simplest form, a single index page containing all the selected clips is output, to a file location that you specify.
• Alternatively, you can create an HTML index specifically for preview movies. This index is written in the preview directory and allows you to access the preview movies from a web browser without requiring the CatDV application.

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

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

Views

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

• 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.
• Film strip view - where each movie clip is shown on one line as a sequence of thumbnails.
• Grid view - a two-dimensional grid of clips, each shown with its poster thumbnail.

Main window

When using the main window you can:

• Click on the List, Film Strip or Grid toolbar buttons to select the next view of that type, or select a particular pre-defined 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 then right click (control-click on the Macintosh) to display a popup menu of operations applicable to the selected clip(s).
• 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.)
• Open the media file by launching it in its default application.
• Edit values directly in a list view by checking the Allow cell editing Preferences option.

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

Sorting clips

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

• 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 Random shuffle to randomize 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 manually rearrange their order in the catalog.

Clip details panel

Use the clip details panel to view and edit all the properties of a selected clip. This window also shows the thumbnails and media for a clip and is the main way of logging clips.

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

Viewing media

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

• Under the Thumbnails tab you can select a different poster for the clip from among the available thumbnails or delete unwanted thumbnails.
• Under the Movie tab you can play the media for the movie (if it's available online), mark In and Out points (or jump to previously set In and Out points), and create a new poster thumbnail from the current frame.
• The timecode of the current frame is shown. The duration of the clip or selection is also shown (in light grey). If you click on the timecode field you can type in and jump to a particular timecode value.
• The Preview tab is similar to the Movie tab but plays the preview movie rather than original media.
• If the clip represents an audio clip or still image the name of the tab changes accordingly.
• If the movie or preview tab has keyboard focus the tab label is shown with a darker background and you can use the keyboard to control movie playback, mark in and out points, and more. Click on the tab label (or in the player window) to give it focus.

Viewing and editing clip details

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

• Some fields may be read-only while others can be edited by clicking on them.
• If the value of the field is too big to fit comfortably on the display try double clicking on the field label to display the value in a separate window.
• Select multiple clips and edit a value to apply the change to many clips at a time. (Another way of doing this is with the Bulk Edit command.)
• In the Professional Edition you can customise the layout of the details panel.
• The Other tab provides an alphabetical listing of all available clip properties.

Logging menu

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

• Move up or down through the list of clips in the main window with a keyboard shortcut.
• After marking In and Out points create a new subclip from the selection.
• Split the current clip in two at the current play head position.
• Review the transition between the previous clip and this one (ie. play the last few seconds of one and the first few seconds of this clip). This allows you to check whether they should be two separate clips or one.
• If you want to combine them into one you can merge this clip into the previous one.

Timecode event markers

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

• Use the 'flag' button (under the Movie or Preview tab) to create an event marker for the current timecode value. (You can also use the 'm' keyboard shortcut if the player has keyboard focus.)
• The Event Markers table (under the Summary tab) lists all the markers for the clip. Click on one of the markers to jump to that point in the movie.
• When you save a catalog, event markers are stored as text (the timecode value plus a description) within the clip Notes field.
• You can import and export event markers from QuickTime movie chapter markers and Final Cut Pro projects (via FCP XML).
• You can convert to and fro between subclips and event markers using the Logging > Convert To Subclips or Edit > Merge commands.

Additional notes

The clip details panel is also used for sequence editing.

In older versions of CatDV the functionality of the details panel was provided by the clip details dialog. This is still available for compatibility, though in most cases the new clip details panel has improved functionality.

Tree navigator

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

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

Catalog node

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

• Drill down into the Group by to find the clip property by which you want to arrange your clips. Expand this node (for example, Date or Bin or Media Path) to list individual grouping values, then click on the value to show the corresponding clips.
• Click on All clips to view all the clips in the catalog.
• For editable properties you can drag clips onto another node to change the value.
• Drag files or clips from another view onto the Catalog node to import them into the catalog.
• The Sequences node provides a convenient way to access any sequences in your catalog.
• Drag clips onto the Sequence node to create a new sequence.
• You can combine the tree navigator with the grouping panel for two levels of grouping, for example by media path and then by format.

Server node

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

• You can browse the entire database by catalog or by tape.
• Quickly perform a custom query by defining named queries.

File system node

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

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

• Drives and network volumes, as well as your home directory and desktop are shown.
• Create additional shortcuts to your favourite locations by dragging a directory onto the main File System node.
• Double click a node to analyse the media files in the folder and display them as thumbnails or a filmstrip.
• Choose whether clicking on a node performs a quick file listing or detailed media analysis via the Advanced User Interface tab of Preferences.
• Directories which have already been analysed (and whose contents are therefore cached for quick access) are shown in bold.
• Right click on a directory to show options such as delete or rename directory, import it into the catalog, and more.

Final Cut node

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

• To add an FCP project file to the list, drag it onto the Final Cut Projects node.
• Double click a project to open it in Final Cut Pro and link to it.
• Once opened the project is shown in bold. Clicking on it will export the clips in your browser via XML and list them in CatDV (this may take a few moments).
• Drag selected clips or sequences that have come from FCP to a catalog window or the catalog node to add them to a CatDV catalog.
• Conversely, if you preselect clips for editing or create simple sequences within CatDV then you can send them to Final Cut by dragging them to an open project node.

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

Temporary views

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

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

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

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

Customising views

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

• 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 (film strip, list, grid, or icon only) and size for the view.
• Add as many columns as you like (some 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 or using the move up and down buttons.
• 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.

Adjust column widths

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

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

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

User defined fields

In the Standard Edition, three user defined fields User 1 to User 3 are available for additional keywords or notes. 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.

Metadata columns

When you import clips with QuickTime or WMV metadata, such as ID3 tags in an MP3 file, or Exif tags in a TIFF image, these metadata fields are concatenated and stored in a column called 'Metadata'. Common fields include Album and Artist for MP3 files, Copyright and Title for movies, Flash and FNumber for images, but the number of possible field names is almost infinite and depends on the files you import. In Preferences you can choose whether these metadata fields are expanded into their own columns (which you can add to your customised views as required) or stay in concatenated form only. (Note: this only affects how the columns are displayed, not how they're stored, so it's safe to change this option at any time.)

Customising details panel

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

• Create additional tab panels, either copies of existing ones or entirely new.
• Choose which fields are included on each panel.
• Choose whether long fields span both columns and whether fields are hidden if they are blank.

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

Clip details dialog

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

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

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

Viewing media

• 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 image) at full size.

Logging

• Review the clip and make a selection of the portion you want to keep by marking "in2" and "out2" points using the buttons in the "movie" tab.
• Review the selection by playing the selection, or playing the first or last few seconds of the selection.
• Select a clip status of "good" or "no good" to indicate whether you want to use the clip or not.
• Enter a name, notes, or user defined fields such as videographer or location, to describe the clip.
• Select a new poster frame by pressing the Set poster button in the "movie" tab.
• Select an existing tape or bin name from the combo boxes, or click in the box and type in a new name.
• If you select multiple clips and then bring up the clip details dialog you can edit all the selected clips in one go.

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. This will show 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.

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 any field label or row in the detail table to bring up a separate popup window showing the the value of the property (for example if it's too big to see on one line). For grouping fields a chooser listing all the valid values for that field is shown.
• 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 and Exif still images 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. (Availability of this feature depends on your camcorder and capture software).

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 Space to switch to the movie tab and start playing the movie. Use '1', '2' or '3' to select a particular tab.
• 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.

Clip summary dialog

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

• The clip summary window is read-only. You can mark clips of interest, but you need to switch to the Clip Details window if you want to edit the clip.
• If you have performed a query or applied a quick filter the clip summary window highlights where matching keywords occur within the text.
• The clip is formatted using HTML. If desired, you can copy the HTML text to the clipboard via the Edit menu.
• Use the Print button to print the clip details.

Previews and thumbnails

A clip can have different types of media representation: small thumbnail images, the original movie or media file, and a low-resolution preview movie. A clip contains a reference to the media, not the media itself, so 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, typically for the first, last and middle frame of each movie or scene, though there is a Preference option to control how many thumbnails are created (or even to turn off automatic thumbnail generation altogether).
• You can select the size of thumbnails in Preferences. (Note that larger thumbnails increase the size of catalog files and the time to open them.)
• 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.
• Use the Build Thumbnails command to rebuild the poster thumbnails of selected clips, after changing the thumbnail size for example. You can also create additional thumbnails, for example one every 10 seconds. (Again, please note that creating extra thumbnails increases memory requirements, and the time to save and load the catalog.)
• You can create an additional thumbnail manually, 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.
• Conversely, you can delete an unwanted thumbnail using the Delete Thumbnail button. You can also switch to a thumbnail view and delete unwanted thumbnail "clips" there.

Original media

• The original movie or source media files can be played if they are on-line (i.e. accessible on the computer's hard drive or a mounted network volume). 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 one project to make space for the next one, and that (given the tape name and timecode values) batch capture can be used to recapture the original files if they are ever needed again, without any loss of quality.
• Use the Attach Media command if you have recaptured the source media, or to attach a media file to a clip that didn't previously have one (eg. because the clip definition was imported from an EDL or batch list).
• 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 the first file - other files in the same directory are reattached automatically if they still have the same name and file size.
• Adding the original and new location as equivalent media directories (see Preferences) allows CatDV to locate similarly moved media files automatically without asking you.

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 CatDV's Preferences. Alternatively, rather than storing them in a central shared directory, previews can also be stored together with a catalog as a self-contained preview archive.
• Preview files should be treated as 'private' to CatDV but can be exported with Export As Movies if you want to use them in another application.
• Use Preview Manager to see which preview files are available, rename a tape, or delete unwanted previews. (This command is only available if you enable advanced menus via Preferences.)

Media dialog

CatDV uses the media dialog to play 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 then 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. See below for various other keyboard shortcuts you can use to control the media as it's playing.

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

Keyboard shortcuts

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

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 or 8x 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 a simple timeline or cuts-only edited program.

A sequence is created:

• when you import an EDL
• when you import a Final Cut Pro XML file, OMFI file, or Cinestream project containing sequence information (one sequence is created per program track "V1", etc.).
• when you manually select some clips and use the Create Sequence command.
• when you drag clips onto the Sequences node in the tree navigator.

A number of Preferences options are available to control the creation of sequences when importing a file.

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

Editing sequences

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

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

• If you select a clip in the sequence you can trim its duration by adjusting the in and out points. The sequence will increase or decrease in length accordingly. The window is labelled Trim.
• If you select a new source clip from the catalog that you want to add to the sequence (perhaps as the result of searching for more material to add) the window label changes to Source. You can set In and Out points and then cut it to the sequence.

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

• You can scrub through the sequence and mark In and Out points to delete part of the sequence.
• Switch to the Details tab to change the name or add a comment to the whole sequence.
• Use the Clip List tab to list individual clips in the sequence, including their timecode and duration.

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

• Click on a clip in the timeline to select the entire clip. You can then trim or remove the clip from the sequence.
• Click just above the clip (where the timecode and tick markers are shown) to move the current play head (indicated by a vertical red line) to that point.
• Drag the ends of the dark grey selection indicator to adjust the selection within the sequence (In and Out points).
• Rearrange the order of clips by dragging and dropping them within the sequence.
• The toolbar buttons below the timeline let you close the sequence window, select large or small thumbnails in the timeline, and zoom in and out.

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

Keyboard shortcuts

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

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

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

Printing sequences

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

• If you want to print the source timecode, open the tree navigator, choose the sequence you want (under the Sequences node), then right click and select View In New Window. You can then configure the type of view (List, Filmstrip or Grid, and which fields you want displayed) and use Print > Current View.
• If you want to print the sequence timecode, again use the tree navigator but this time right click and choose View Clips before printing the current view.

Additional information

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

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

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

Please note that the basic sequence editing provided in CatDV is not intended to replace a regular video editing application. CatDV provides cuts only editing of a single track only (video and audio are always locked together), with no support for effects or transitions, but in many cases this is all you need.

Marking and selecting clips

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

• Use Cut, Copy, Paste, Clear and Duplicate from the Edit menu to delete, move or copy selected clips (together with their thumbnails) between catalogs.
• You can also delete selected clips by pressing the Delete key (Command-Backspace on some Mac keyboards).

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

Marking clips

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

• 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.

Hiding clips

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

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

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

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

Searching and filtering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summary mode

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

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

• Clip Summaries
• Source Media View
• Thumbnail View

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

Clip summaries

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

• Use a Clip Summaries 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:

• Display a Clip Summaries summary view.
• Use the Auto-join DV clips if scenes are split across files Preference option to automatically join clip segments at the time of importing a DV movie
• Use the Join DV Scene Fragments 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.

Other summary modes

• Source Media View shows precisely one clip for each source media file.
• Each clip can have any number of thumbnails associated with it. Normally only one thumbnail, the poster thumbnail, is shown for each clip. In a Thumbnail View each thumbnail in the catalog is shown as a separate "clip".

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 one or two grouping columns, shown at the left of the window, or turn off grouping altogether).
• 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.
• Click on a value in that list. Only those clips from that date are shown.
• Grouping is also available via the tree navigator.

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 drag and drop selected clips onto another tape or bin name to change that value for all of them.
• You can create your own user-defined grouping properties in the User Columns Preferences tab.
• Similarly, you can select which metadata columns to group on in the Metadata Columns Preferences tab.

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

Printing

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

• Use Print > Current View to print the current window, whether in list, film strip 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 automatically 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. (The image is taken from 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.
• Use Print > HTML Formatted to print the current window or selected clips as an HTML formatted page. This type of printout is particularly suited to printing long log notes as they will flow over multiple lines. The basic print layout is fixed but which fields are printed and whether to include the poster thumbnail or not is determined from the current view.

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

To adjust the appearance of printouts you can:

• 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 to select a different page orientation or percentage reduction.
• Adjust the font and inter-cell 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).
• Suppress the printing of clip type and preview available icons when printing a list view by an advanced Preferences option.

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

Preferences

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

General tab

Whether to interpret timecode in a log file as PAL or NTSC; the format for displaying dates and times; whether to create a backup copy when saving catalogs; whether to hide less commonly used menu commands or show a simplified toolbar in the main window.

Import tab

Whether to recursively scan subdirectories when importing a directory; whether to combine clips with the same tape name, in and out values into a single clip reference; whether to perform scene detection based on changes in time stamp or image contents (check both for automatic operation); what naming scheme to use when automatically generating clips for each scene; whether to import clips based strictly on the DV timecode information embedded in the media (ie. whether to favour the DV or QuickTime timecode if they differ); whether to automatically combine start and end segments of a DV clip that spans more than one capture file.

Previews & Thumbnails tab

What size and quality settings to use when creating preview movies (use one of the presets, or customise your own in the Professional Edition); the root directory in which to create preview files; whether to display a preview instead if the original movie is unavailable; whether to generate thumbnails for imported media; what size thumbnails to create; whether to use the midpoint or start of clip as initial default poster; whether to create thumbnails on the first/last frame or inset by 5%/95% (to support shots that fade in from black).

Media Paths tab

Additional preview directories to search when locating preview movies for a tape (you can include the directory where self-contained archives are stored to search those also). Specify equivalent media directories to automatically locate media files where the path stored in the catalog is different from the path on the local machine.

Play Media tab

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

Appearance tab

Whether to open last catalog when launching CatDV; explicitly specify the default view and grouping when a window is first opened or whether these should automatically be the same as the previous window; define whether the media or details dialog is shown when double clicking on a clip; whether to use the advanced query dialog for searches within a catalog (Professional Edition).

Customise Views tab

Create or modify view definitions. The next tab lets you customise fields shown in the clip details panel (Professional Edition only).

User Columns tab

Specify names for user-defined columns or create additional columns (Professional Edition only). The FCP Preset button automatically sets user column names to match Final Cut Pro.

Metadata Columns tab

Choose whether metadata fields such as copyright and author information (extracted from the original media file from QuickTime user data, Exif and ID3 tags, or WMV/ASF attributes) are displayed as normal columns. Control how individual fields are used, or press Cmd-Delete to delete a field altogether.

Pick Lists tab

View or delete values previously entered for grouping columns.

Printing tab

What fonts and margins to use when printing (top, bottom, left and right); how much extra spacing to leave around cells; any custom title to be used.

Export tab

What line ending character to use when exporting batch logs; whether to use the whole clip or a selection within the clip when exporting clips; whether to prefix the name of exported movie files with the tape or bin name (or create subdirectories based on these names); what duration to apply to still images when exported as a movie or added to a sequence; the custom footer to include on each page when exporting HTML.

Advanced User Interface tab

Select the look and feel of the application; whether imports (and similar operations) can take place as a background activity; whether renaming a clip or changing its bin also renames or moves the media file; whether to keep the details dialog on top of the main window at all times; preferred units for displaying data rate; which import and export menu command should have a keyboard shortcut; whether to play WMV files using QuickTime/Flip4Mac or an external application; automatic save interval; whether to enable commands that publish data to the server; whether clicking on a directory in the tree navigator automatically analyses the files.

Advanced Functionality tab

Options that control how files are imported and other advanced functionality, including: whether debug messages are written to the log file; how much detail to use when importing OMFI and Cinestream files; whether to import a media file even if it gives a QuickTime error; whether to completely disregard timecode embedded in DV movies; how to decide the timecode format for imported formats; whether to import audio tracks from FCP XML files; whether to import unknown file types as 'generic' files; whether Build Preview Movies should automatically add a timecode track.

Registration tab

Enter the name and registration code you were sent to register CatDV, or clear an existing registration. It is easiest to copy both lines from your registration email and press the Paste button.

Tools

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

• 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 if your NLE editing software has batch capture but no command to capture a whole tape.
• 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.
• 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 property to copy or move 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 Search and Replace to correct errors in logging fields. With regular expressions you can apply complex transformations to the text. (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 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 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 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 created for each scene within the first clip. The sensitivity of the the detection can be adjusted. (Professional Edition only).
• Use Verbatim Logger to type in log notes and insert timecode markers while a clip is playing. Use this to prepare a transcript or to create subclips starting at each marker you enter. (Professional Edition only)
• Re-Analyse Media analyses a media file as if you had just imported it but will preserve any metadata you have previously added to the clip.

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, mainly 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.
• 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.
• Utility commands that apply to media files are discussed in the next section.

Source media management

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

Locating media files

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

• 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.
• Attach Media, by contrast, is used to attach a clip to a completely new media file, after it's been re-digitised for example, or if the clip was never associated with a media file in the first place.

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

Managing media files

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

• Delete Media Files will delete the media files for selected clips from disk and then also delete the corresponding clips from the catalog.
• With Move Media Files you can 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.) You can also Copy Media Files.
• 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 option is set in Preferences).
• 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.)
• Reveal In Finder (or Show Parent Directory under Windows) will show the location of the media file. Launch In Default App will attempt to open the media file using whatever external application is associated with that file type. You can also drag a clip out of the CatDV main window onto an external application icon (exactly as if you were dragging a document icon in the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer).
• With the tree navigator showing you can drag a clip onto a directory in the file system to move the media file.

Previews and thumbnails

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

• Use Build Preview Movies to build preview movies for selected clips from the source movies using the current settings selected in Preferences.
• Use Manage Preview Movies to see which preview files are available, or to delete or rename the previews for a tape.
• Use Build Thumbnails to build new thumbnails for selected clips, eg. after changing the thumbnail size.

Manipulating QuickTime movies

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

• Add Timecode Track will add (or replace) a timecode track to the movie based on the tape name and In timecode value of the clip. This simplifies using these movies in other QuickTime-aware applications. (Use the Manage Preview Movies command to add timecode to a preview movie, and see the section on exporting movies for details on how to add a text track.)
• Adjust Frame Size allows you to adjust the playback size of one or more QuickTime movies. This can be useful if a movie plays at the wrong aspect ratio when imported into another application. Note that only the playback size is affected, it does not re-render the movie.

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

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

Media file metadata

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

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

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

General metadata

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

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:

Media Information dialog

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

Metadata columns

The 'metadata' field shows all the QuickTime user data (and other textual annotations that's read from a file) together in concatenated form in one field. If you check the Enable metadata columns box in Preferences you can display each metadata tag as a separate column.

These metadata columns can include:

• Title, Album, Artist, AlbumArtist, Genre, Track and Year for MP3 and iTunes audio files.
• Name, Copyright, Producer, Software and similar annotations for QuickTime movies
• Make, Model, ExposureTime, ExposureProgram, FocalLength etc. for Exif images
• Title, Copyright, Information, Language for WMV or WMA files

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

Supported file formats

CatDV supports the following media file formats:

QuickTime file formats

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

• QuickTime .MOV files, with various codecs (Animation, Cinepak, Sorenson Video 3, M-JPEG, OfflineRT, DV/DVCPro, H.263, amongst others).
• Raw DV streams
• AVI files, with certain codecs only (primarily Cinepak, JPEG, and DV)
• MPEG-4 files, with various codecs (MPEG-4 Video, H.264, 3GP, etc)
• MPEG-1 files (import only)
• Still image formats (including JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, PNG, JPEG2000 and PSD)
• Audio formats (including MP3, WAV, AU, AIFF)
• Other files such as Flash SWF, or PDF documents (Mac only)

Additional QuickTime codecs

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

• Installing Apple Final Cut Pro adds the Pixlet, Apple Intermediate, HDV codecs (Mac)
• Purchasing the Apple MPEG-2 component adds support for importing MPEG-2, including region free DVDs (Mac & PC)
• Installing Roxio Toast adds support for exporting MPEG-1 VCDs (Mac)
• Adding the DivX ;-) QuickTime component adds support for importing and exporting DivX AVIs
• The Intel Indeo codec is often available if you install a multimedia CDROM that includes such content
• Flip4Mac have QuickTime components to support WMV and MXF files (Mac)
• Perian is a free QuickTime component that adds support for many additional formats (Mac)

OMF Files

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

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

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

WMV/ASF Windows Media files

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

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

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

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

Other file formats

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

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

• To import non-media files you need to enable the Import all types of document option in Preferences.
• A generic CatDV clip record is created for each such file. You can add your own comments and log notes to this record, and thus catalog all the supporting files needed for a project in the same way as your media files.
• You can launch the file in its default application (as if you double clicked it in the Finder or Windows Explorer) with CatDV's Open With Default App command.
• To help you search for non-media files in your catalog, any characters that look like meaningful text that is found near the start of the file is automatically extracted and stored in the Notes field. (Even though the file itself will often be in an inscrutable binary format it is common for useful text such as author or title of the document to appear in a header near the top of the document.)

Import warnings

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

Timecode jump

This indicates that the DV timecode in the captured movie is not strictly continuous, either because the original source tape has a timecode discontinuity, because frames were dropped during capture, or possibly because data corruption occurred or the movie was edited or rendered by computer. If the 'strictly base clips on captured DV media' import option is on each continuous segment is processed separately during import into CatDV.

Dropped frame(s) between ? and ?
Repeated frame(s) between ? and ?

These indicate shorter timecode errors of just a few frames. CatDV treats these differently and does not automatically create a new clip at each point.

Timecode differs (DV/QT=?)

There are two ways to determine the timecode for a particular DV frame: either based on the QuickTime 'timecode' track or on the digital data stored in the DV stream itself. Usually these will give the same result but if you have dropped frames or other anomalies occurred during capture the results may be different and CatDV displays a warning during import. If you have set the 'strict' import option then CatDV will always try to use the DV timecode and generate new clips whenever it detects a jump, otherwise it uses QuickTime's concept of the timecode (which may agree more with what other applications use) and displays the DV timecode for reference in the DV T/C field.

Incorrect length (? short of ?)

This means the length of the media in the movie does not match the overall length reported by QuickTime for the movie as a whole. This can occur if frames were dropped during capture but other frames are stretched out to maintain the overall movie length. Sometimes the movie is reported as being longer than it really is and the last frame appears as one long frozen still, stretching out to give the movie its overall length. In this case the length that QuickTime thinks the movie is is shown in the message but the clip in CatDV will be shorter and reflect the media that is actually present.

Audio sample rate mismatch

If a DV movie has a separate audio track this message indicates that the sample rate of the audio track doesn't agree with that originally recorded in the DV stream. This can happen if the audio was resampled during capture, or if you capture a clip where the audio sample rate changes mid way through, in which case QuickTime can sometimes get confused about the sample rate and create an unplayable audio track.

Unstable frame at start
Skipping unstable frame(s) at ?

When the camcorder starts recording a new scene the tape may not have stabilised fully and the DV data in the first frame or two may not have a valid timecode or date/timestamp. Where possible, the unstable data is ignored and the first valid date or timecode is used instead.

Video and Audio differ by ? seconds

This means the audio track is shorter than the video track by the amount shown. This may indicate dropped frames or some other capture problem, but it could also mean that the movie was edited or rendered, or that the camcorder doesn't precisely lock audio and video samples.

? fps invalid for PAL/NTSC DV

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

Average ? doesn't match nominal ? fps

The average frame rate (total number of frames divided by movie duration) doesn't match the typical frame rate (this could mean the movie has some dropped frames).

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

Controlling how movies are imported

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

• 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 any QuickTime timecode track and read the timecode from the DV stream instead;
• 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 may be 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.

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

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

Preview presets

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

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

Balanced

Video: Sorenson 3, 8 fps, medium quality. Audio: Qualcomm PureVoice 22kHz. (110 MB/hr)

Speed

Video: Motion JPEG, 6 fps, low quality. Audio: IMA 4:1 11kHz. (110 MB/hr)

Quality

Video: Sorenson, 12.5 fps, medium quality. Audio: QDesign Music 22KHz. (140 MB/hr)

Speed + Quality

Video: Motion JPEG, 8 fps, medium quality. Audio: IMA 4:1 22kHz. (250 MB/hr)

File Size

Video: Sorenson, 6 fps, low quality. Audio: QDesign Music 22kHz. (30 MB/hr)

Speed + File Size

Video: Motion JPEG, 5 fps, least quality. Audio: IMA 4:1 11kHz. (80 MB/hr)

Quality + File Size

Video: Sorenson, 8 fps, medium/low quality. Audio: QDesign Music 22kHz. (75 MB/hr)

Balanced (fast)

Video: Motion JPEG, 8 fps, low quality. Audio: QDesign Music 11kHz. (125 MB/hr)

MPEG-4

Full frame rate ISMA MP4 (at 550 or 300 MB/hr)

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

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

Managing multiple catalogs

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

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

• Press the Choose 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 last modification time of the imported files 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.

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

Searching catalogs

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

• 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 6

• HTML-based, multi-line multi-clip printing
• The new tree navigator provides a convenient way to group clips in the catalog by any field. Fields like date and media path are displayed hierarchically. (The tree navigator replaces the old grouping panel and is better in almost every respect, though the old interface is still available for users who prefer it.)
• With the tree navigator it is possible to open a temporary view to quickly browse directories on the file system, catalogs on the server, etc. The main window changes to show the temporary clips. Click on the All Clips node to go back to viewing your catalog. You can drag clips from a temporary view onto the catalog node to import them.
• The Server node lets you quickly browse catalogs or tapes on the server, or perform saved queries, with a single click without having to open up the catalog in a new window. (Workgroup and Enterprise edition only)
• Right clicking (or control-clicking on the Mac) a tree node displays options related to that node, for example to add or remove a directory as a short cut under the File System node.
• The Final Cut Projects node lists known FCP projects. Double clicking a node opens the project in Final Cut and shows the contents of the project in a temporary view. Dragging clips or sequences onto the node exports the clips to Final Cut using AppleEvents. (Macinosh, Professional edition only)
• A new Film strip view is available that provides a visual overview or 'skim' of a clip. The number of thumbnails shown indicates the length of the clip, for example 2 thumbnails may be shown if it's just a few seconds long up to 8 or 10 thumbnails for a 5 minute clip. The new 'automatic' thumbnail preference option creates the appropriate number of thumbnails for a clip based on its duration.
• The new Clip Details panel at the top of the main window (accessible via the Details toolbar button) replaces the old clip details dialog (though this is still available if required). This avoids the need for separate overlapping windows and conveniently organises all the available clip properties into different tabs. Toolbar commands from the clip details dialog are now available via the Logging menu.
• It is possible to customise which fields are shown in the details panel via Preferences (Professional edition only).
• The movie player in the clip details panel and when editing sequences is now resizable to any size and displays the duration of the selection as well as the current timecode value.
• Greatly enhanced sequence editing. This now uses a two window (source and record) metaphor, making it easy to browse clips (via the tree navigator and main window), mark IN and OUT points in the source movie, then append or insert it to the sequence.
• Support for 3-point edits using the overwrite button. Mark IN and OUT points in either the sequence or the source clip to define the duration of the edit.
• Support for timecode event markers to indicate poisitions of interest within a clip without having to create subclips (Pro version only). This features is accessed via the Clip Details panel.
• Drag and drop clips on to the Sequences node to create a new sequence. Double click a sequence to open it. Use 'Close Sequence Window' from the Sequences menu to close it.
• Support for new timecode formats 15.0, 23.98, 59.94 and 60.0 fps (in addition to existing formats 1.0, 10.0, 24.0, 25.0, 29.97, 30.0 and 100.0 fps) so timecode is displayed correctly when using 720p60 and other field based formats.
• You can edit the Aspect Ratio field for a clip to adjust its playback size.
• Many