The following features are new in CatDV 8.1 and CatDV 8.0. Please note that some of these features are only available in the professional or networked editions.
- HTML printing enhancements, including a new print settings dialog and proper page break handling
- Ability to create customised HTML layouts for the clip details panel
- The Export As Stills command now lets you choose which frame(s) to export, ie. the clip’s poster frame, all thumbnail frames, or all event markers (or event markers of a particular category).
- Fixes and improvements to the Verbatim Logger
- Integrated support for archiving and restoring files to a Cache-A LTO archive appliance (requires purchase of the separate CatDV Archiving Option).
- Support for importing and displaying common camera RAW formats
- Improved Exif support, including reading common MakerNote formats and importing metadata from a .THM file
- Support for specifying a batch of media files to import using a CatDV XML batch files
- Support for burning in DV exposure information, similar to the burnt-in DV date-time display. Also, the date-time display now takes into account camera clock adjustments.
- On the Mac, it’s possible to perform a Spotlight search to quickly find files from the file system even if they haven’t yet been imported into a catalog (right click on the folder you want to search in the tree, or select a folder and type into the quick search text box).
- Ability to enter a supplementary license code in the registration panel to support purchase of additional options after initial registration
- Integrated spell checking
- Scrolling with a mouse wheel now scrubs through a movie
- The event markers table now includes a description field, and a button to play the movie from the marker
- New Reveal Preview Command
- Smart folders can now be organised into folders by entering ‘/’ in the name to separate the components of the name.
- Use of colour and icons to simplify choosing fields when customising view layouts or performing queries (see making sense of property names)
- A new player architecture protects against crashes that can sometimes occur, for example when QuickTime plays a damaged media file.
The following changes are specific to the server version:
- The File menu displays a list of recent server queries and catalogs
- User field definitions and picklist values can be saved to a field definition set which can be shared between different production groups (so settings stay in synch without having to make the same changes in each group).
- Ability to lock particular user-defined fields so they can’t be edited by normal users (only those with permission to edit locked fields)
- Ability to mark particular fields as being mandatory, so you can’t publish catalogs to the server unless those fields are filled in. Fields with missing data are shown in red.
- Ability to configure the client so it ‘always connects to server’, so users need to log on as soon as the application is launched and always get the latest settings from the server.
- Option to automatically open the last server catalog that the user was working on.
- A new ‘Clip Owner’ field keeps track of who first created a clip. The ‘Status History’ field now keeps track of more changes to a clip, not just who approved or rejected a clip by changing its ‘Status’ field.
- It is possible to give users permission to add new values to a drop-down pick list without making them an administrator who can edit group settings or create new users (though individual pick lists can be locked down so they only have a fixed list of values).
- New permissions to control whether users can Delete Clips, Edit Locked Fields, Edit Picklist Values, Delete Other People’s Clips/Catalogs.
- Users now need to type in their user name when logging on to the server rather than picking a user id from a drop down as that is more secure. (The old behaviour can be re-enabled in Preferences if required.)
New features in CatDV 8.0
The features above are in addition to improvements that were made in CatDV 8.0:
User interface enhancements
- Timecode event markers can now specify a range, not just an event, and can be assigned to a category.
- The tree navigator side panel has separate areas to control what is being shown in the main window (the current catalog, clips from the server, or the contents of the scratch pad or a Final Cut project) and any filtering applied to those clips.
- You can define ‘Smart Folders’ in the tree to quickly apply filters (to the clips in memory) or perform queries (against the server).
- It is possible to combine multiple ‘Group By’ filter conditions by selecting multiple nodes in the tree (hold down the Cmd or Ctrl key when selecting extra grouping terms).
- The tree navigator now lists individual files on the file system, not just folders. Using the right click context menu you can play files from the file system and analyse them without needing to import them into a catalog first. You can also specify which importer to use when importing them using the ‘Import As’ menu. Use the Reveal In Tree command to find a clip in the file system tree.
- Folders in the tree are spring loaded to help you find the destination when dragging and dropping clips (for example, to move a file to a folder on the file system, to send clips to a Final Cut Pro project, to move clips to a bin or to apply other grouping value to those clips).
- Verbatim Logger Plus, with ehancements such as spell checking, event macros, resizable player and more
- Search improvements, including a new relative date search (eg. find all clips that were added in the past week). The simple search dialog now permits date range searches.
- General tidy up of behaviour when clicking or double clicking nodes in the tree navigator (for example, clicking on the name of a remote catalog or tape will quickly view clips from the server without having to open up the catalog in a new window) and also of context menu commands when right clicking on a node.
- New commands to copy and paste metadata from one clip to another, to create subclips from an existing media file by applying an ALE or tab-separated log file, to relink a sequence to source clips in the same catalog, and to navigate between a subclip and its masterclip.
- Final Cut XML enhancements, including creation of merged clips and use of UUIDs and ability to configure mapping between CatDV and Final Cut fields.
- Tidy up of “pro” appearance. The old “classic” appearance scheme is no longer supported.
- When customising the clip details panel you can choose whether to display the new ‘HTML Summary’ page and/or the ‘Other’ list of all available fields. You can also configure fields to wrap on to multiple lines.
- Ability to detach the clip details panel and move it from the top to the side of the window and also to resize the movie player independently of the details panel. The standalone clip details dialog now uses the new details panel.
- More flexible film strip views definition, with a new option to display all the available thumbnails for a clip.
- Improved pick list edit fields, especially keyboard driven operation
- Ability to paste lists of values into the picklist editor in Preferences. You can also manually rearrange the order of pick list values by dragging and dropping items in the list.
Improved media handling
- Support for additional codecs implemented by JMF (Java Media Framework). (A blue Q or red J is shown to indicate whether QuickTime or JMF is being used to play a clip.)
- New built-in parsers to extract metadata when importing MPEG and PDF files
- An optional module provides a parser for extracting metadata from MXF. In the case of Avid and P2 media, special MXF metaclips are created which automatically combine video and audio tracks from different files on the fly, allowing them to be played in synch without having to create a separate reference movie. (Third party QuickTime MXF codecs may be required in order to play the MXF media).
- Extract camera metadata from P2, XDCAM and EX1 XML files.
- New Advanced Media Handling preferences page to control whether QuickTime, JMF or both are used when importing and playing files and which of the built-in importers (OMF, ASF/WMV, MXF, MPEG, PDF) are enabled.
- Ability to record a voice over track
- Ability to select individual audio tracks for playback
- Media dialog now displays an audio waveform when playing a clip, permitting easier identification of points of interest
- A new quick view information dialog (the Media/File Information command) displays information about selected media and other files without having to import them, including QuickTime information, a quick viewer for text files and ZIP archives, a hex viewer for binary files, and so on.
- Support for adding QuickTime metadata annotations when exporting files
- Ability to add burnt-in subtitles from timecode event markers when exporting movies
- Support for creating QuickTime chapter markers when adding a text track
- Extract date-time metadata and perform scene detection when importing HDV transport stream files.
Server changes
The following improvements are available when using the CatDV Server. In many cases the Enterprise edition is required.
- Added a clip ‘Recycle Bin’ so that deleted clips can be recovered
- New server permission to control deletion of clips from the server
- Optional ‘tethered’ mode for automatically saving and loading changes to keep windows synchronized with the server.
- Improved performance when performing queries and publishing changes to the server
- Shared smart folders and clip lists can be stored on the server (Enterprise edition only)
- The ‘Browse All Clips’ node can be used to quickly browse and filter clips on the server (Enterprise edition only)
- Options whether to display query results in a new window or recycle the current window
- Automatic smart folders allow you to browse the server by attribute (grouping clips with similar values together)
- Option to autopopulate picklists based on values currently in use on the server
- Ability to broadcast messages to other users (Enterprise edition only)
- Ability to create named field definition sets and share these between production groups (Enterprise edition only)