BROWSE CATDV SUPPORT MANUALS

Use the clip details panel at the tope of the main window to view a selected clip. This includes playing the movie, viewing all the properties of the clip, and entering your own log notes.

You can show or hide the clip details panel by toggling the clip details toolbar button or using the View menu. You can also choose whether to split the panel and move the fields list to the right of the window by selecting Detached Details.

In earlier versions of CatDV the functionality of the details panel was provided in a separate window by the old details dialog. This is still available, if you enable the old-style details dialog in Preferences, though in most cases the new clip details panel has greatly improved functionality.

Viewing media

There are three tabs that show the different media representations available for a clip: thumbnail images, the original movie, or a low-resolution proxy 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 Proxy tab is similar to the Movie tab but plays the proxy movie (previously referred to as a “preview” movie) rather than original media.
  • If the clip represents an audio clip or still image the name of the tab changes accordingly.
  • Use the Avoid pre-loading movie in media panel option in Preferences if you don’t want to automatically open the movie file as soon as you edit a clip’s details (for example, if opening the movie takes a long time).
  • If the movie or proxy 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 if necessary to give it focus.

Movie controller

When you play a movie (using either the clip details panel or the standalone media dialog) the following controls are available:

  • Use the space bar or click on the ‘play’ icon to play (or pause) a movie.
  • The current playhead (time position within the movie) is show by a red line. Click on the timeline to jump to another point in the movie.
  • The timecode of the current frame is shown in red. The duration of the clip or selection is also shown (in blue) but only if there’s enough room. Click on the timecode field to jump to a particular timecode value.
  • Slide the in and out point markers to make a selection within the movie, or press the ‘I’ and ‘O’ keyboard shortcuts. Many other keyboard shortcuts are available also (hover the mouse over the controller buttons to display tool tip text to see which functions are available, or see the description of the media dialog).
  • You can play movies using codecs provided either by QuickTime or other media framework. A letter such as ‘Q’ shows which playback component is being used. Clicking on this button opens the Media Playback tab in Preferences where you can choose whether to use QuickTime or JMF and other options that affect how movies are opened.
  • When you play a QuickTime movie that has multiple audio tracks an audio icon appears. Click on this to choose which audio tracks to enable. Shift-click on a track to “solo” that track (disable all tracks apart from that one). If you make any changes from the default the icon changes to red to indicate a special setting is in effect.
  • If a clip contains timecode event markers these are indicated in the movie controller timeline. Use the keyboard Up and Down arrows to jump to the next event in the timeline.

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. The name field changes to say how many clips are selected. (Another way of applying a change to multiple clips in one go is with the Bulk Edit command.)
  • The Other tab provides an alphabetical listing of all available clip properties.
  • In the Professional Edition you can customise the layout of the details panel.

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 using Cmd/Ctrl-Up/Down.
  • 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 with Split Clip.
  • 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.
  • Use Toggle Subclip Limits to expand a subclip so you can view the entire source media file. The old subclip limits are stored as a selection in In2/Out2, so you can turn the clip back to a subclip again.
  • Use the Find Master/Subclip command to search for other clips in the catalog which refer to the same media, ie. to move between a master clip and its subclips.