- New pro-look appearance (dark grey background) to make prolonged working more comfortable (choose between ‘classic’ and ‘pro’ colour schemes in the User Interface tab of Preferences)
- The main clip type icon now indicates whether a movie is a master or sub-clip and whether it is online or not.
- The Reset View command removes filters and temporary clip views to quickly restore the view to a known state where you can see all the clips in a catalog.
- A new preferences option lets you preserve pitch when playing movies at different speeds (for example using JKL jog-shuttle controls or in the new verbatim logger)
- Improved sequence editing, including a new static playhead option. Sequences now respect the aspect ratio of the first clip within them. A new Match Frame command (f key) will locate the current sequence frame within the corresponding source clip. Sequences can now support multiple tracks.
- Support for Image sequences and metaclips (Pro version only)
- New clip ID field and Find Similar command
- Tree navigator now shows a Recently Added node to quickly identify the last clips to be imported or the scenes created when you use the Detect Scenes command
- Other improvements to the tree navigator, such as listing which Final Cut projects are currently open (Mac only), improved handling of file system tree nodes, ability to create new bins and customise which ‘Group By’ attributes are shown
- A new clip Scratch Pad allows you to build up a temporary collection of clips of interest. These clips can come from different catalogs, as a result of querying the server, from browsing the file system, and so on. Simply drag clips to the Scratch Pad node in the tree navigator or use the Scratch Pad tab of the Clip Details panel to add them to the scratch pad.
- It is possible to move media files across file systems by dragging them to another node in the file system tree. To copy them, hold down the Alt key while you drag.
- Greater flexibility in locating proxy movies (they can now be based on the full file path, as well as on tape name and timecode).
- When playing a movie in the clip details panel a new movie slider lets you mark In and Out points and displays the location of any timecode event markers. A new button lets you loop movie playback.
- The old Map Tape Offsets command has been renamed to Apply Timecode Offset and now adjusts internal pointers correctly so the clip continues to play normally. (This command only affects clip references within CatDV, it doesn’t alter media files themselves. To adjust the timecode of a QuickTime movie use the Add Timecode Track command.)
- You can now use the Bulk Edit command to rename or renumber a batch of files in one go (enable the ‘Auto rename files when setting Name or Bin’ preference option and edit the clip ‘Name’ field)
- New Toggle Subclip Limits command which will turn a subclip into a master clip with a selection in it representing the original subclip (and back again).
- The contents of drop down pick lists for clip fields can now be maintained explicitly via the Preferences dialog. Choose whether a field is restricted to only contain values from the list or is extensibe (ie. new values can be typed in), and, if so, whether these values are automatically remembered to populate the pick list in future.
- New option to add burnt-in timecode and/or tape name when creating proxy movies
- Metadata fields can be made editable via an advanced Preferences option
- Improved keyboard shortcuts when playing movies (for example, Home and End to move to beginning or end of the movie)
- The Export As Movie command now gives access to the new high-res, multi-channel audio options available in QuickTime 7.2
- Minor rearrangement of items in the Tools menu and Preferences dialog.
- Live Capture Plus and the CatDV Worker Node can automatically open up and append clips to a CatDV catalog
- You can import additional metadata by providing an XML file alongside a media file (with the same name but extension ‘.xml’). The following standard tags are supported: NAME, NOTES, BIN, TAPE, MTIME, ORIENTATION, USER1, USER2 etc. Other tags and attributes will be placed in metadata columns of the same name.
- Exif metadata improvements (preserve Exif tags when exporting stills, added support for GPS geotagging of images)
- Numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements, including grey squares when printing thumbnails, copy and paste keyboard shortcuts not always working, preventing multiple instances of the CatDV application running under Windows, and more.
- Under Windows the location of CatDV’s preference files and log files are now based on %USERPROFILE% and %APPDATA% (or %LOCALAPPDATA%).
There are a number of improvements when using the CatDV Server:
- Enterprise server permission ‘groups’ have been renamed to ‘productions‘, reflecting the fact that many organisations are likely to work on multiple productions concurrently.
- Preference settings such as pick list values, user column names, view definitions, proxy settings or file system shortcuts are now stored on the server so all users on the network will have the same settings. Group settings are stored against a particular production, so if you are a member of more than one production it will load different settings when you switch to another production. Administrators can save preference settings to the server using the Productions node in the tree navigator.
- The Productions node in the tree navigator is also used to create and view group documents. Group documents relate to a particular production and can be used as a powerful communications tool in many different ways, for example as a shared “to do list”, a repository of team information such as telephone lists, a discussion forum, or a production “blog”. A group document consists of a series of entries which can be made by different people, and can contain web URLs and links to specific clips as well as text.
- The Connect To Server dialog remembers a list of recent server addresses. Connecting to the server will warn you if the clocks aren’t set correctly or if you are connecting in ‘safe’ mode (with write access disabled).
- There is new option to poll the server periodically and display a message if someone else has modified a catalog which the user is working on.
- Catalogs on the server can be organised into folders.
- The Find Similar command has an option to search the server for duplicate clips similar to those selected.
- Greatly enhanced tape library management screen, including better barcode support, additional tape fields, support for printing, and a new command to search tapes.
Some of these features, in particular group documents and network preference settings, are only available in the Enterprise edition and when using version 6 of the server.