Sales and Support FAQ

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CatDV uses two methods to detect scene changes.

It detects the start and end of each scene or shot in a DV movie using the digital date and time information recorded to tape by DV and Digital8 camcorders. As a result it is normally 100% frame accurate in the scenes it identifies in captured footage. On rendered footage and analog material, on the other hand, this extra information is missing and so CatDV won't be able to detect any scene changes using the DV method.

CatDV also has the ability to compare the actual visual content of successive frames to detect scene changes. This allows you to import and log footage captured from an analog capture card for example. By its nature this method is not foolproof, however, and is liable to detect false changes when there is rapid movement within a scene, and to miss changes, for example if the camera is held on a tripod between shots and there is very little change between them, or if you have applied a fade or dissolve between two clips. It is also slow and computationally intensive, and so whenever you have the choice you should prefer to use the DV-based detection on original footage.

You can control which detection algorithm(s) are used when importing movies in the Preferences dialog.