• Blogs
• Forums
• Tradeshows
• Partners
• White Papers
• Events

Improved media management provides structure and future proofing.

Producers of World Birth Day, a 2002 television special, used the CatDV Pro 3.0 video log database to scour through some 600 videotapes.

Postproduction can quickly get complicated. As a project grows, finding the right clips, tracking edit versions, and browsing graphics and audio files becomes more and more complex. Sure, you try to keep good notes, maybe even going as far as making an Excel or FileMaker spreadsheet to keep track of things. But isn't there a better way?

As a matter of fact, there is. The latest video loggers and media manager software, some new and others updated, offer the improved workflow that just a few years ago only came from having a good editorial assistant.

Don't confuse these products with full-blown digital asset management (DAM) systems. While the systems we'll talk about actually accomplish many of the same organizing tasks, DAM systems work on a different scale. For example, most employ dedicated servers to handle a much wider variety of asset management tasks, such as digital rights management (DRM), something far from most readers' needs.

Thankfully, getting started with practical media management software won't cost you the tens of thousands of dollars those big programs go for. For example, take CatDV from Stratford-upon-Avon, England-based Square Box Systems. This entry-level edition of the company's video logging and media asset database software lists at only $80.

As media is digitized, CatDV creates a catalog of clip data. This includes automatic creation of thumbnail previews when the software detects scene changes. The program is versatile: For digital still camera users, the software will extract the camera's Exif information to display date, time, and camera exposure details within the database.

All CatDV editions offer a range of media I/O formats, auto logging, media management, integration with the major DV NLE programs, and the ability to create slideshow presentations. The low-rez logging proxies take up only 200MB per hour of video and audio, making it ideal for in-the-field use on laptops.

Released last fall, the CatDV Pro 3.0 Professional Edition ($275) allows users to create as many metadata attributes as they want for clip annotation. The improved search dialogue now allows multiple conditions and logical expressions, named filters, and regular expressions. Also new are additional import file formats, including Avid OMF and Pinnacle Purple files; and additional export file formats, including Avid ALE, Leitch dpsVelocity, Final Cut Pro, and XML.

Want to work with more than one NLE at a time? Add the client/server CatDV Pro 3.0 Workgroup Server ($700). The server software permits a Pro version user to search a central media catalog. Multiple users working at the same time can update that catalog.

The server version came in handy during a production of World Birth Day, a 2002 television special produced by Granada Television and New York Times Television, the production unit of the newspaper.

The show involved sending more than 20 shooters to eight different countries for two weeks. Logging and editing the resulting six hundred tapes needed to be done ASAP, so producers began pre-screening the clips and flagging the best takes. Assistant editors then pulled the original material to post on the workgroup server so the production team could have three edit rooms working double shifts.

“In our production, we also needed to coordinate material from eight different time zones,” says Richard O'Regan, senior producer of World Birth Day. “CatDV's built-in adjustments for locations, time zones, and camera times enabled us to do something that we could never do before — to establish synchronicities amongst our different locations.”

Another lower-cost media management product comes from Carmel, Ind.-based Imagine Products, a pioneer in logging software with its long-running The Executive Producer (TEP) program. Imagine now offers the next generation of TEP, TEPX for Windows. (The company also makes Mac versions of its software.)

TEPX, which is available in three versions, includes FireWire (DV), MPEG, and analog video logging and search, TEP-Mail (email exchange of log files and notes), and seamless interaction with media asset management systems such as the company's Image Mine, as well as Artesia Technologies' Teams. New features include optional support for large-screen video monitors, programmable variable shuttle speeds, and jog for DV mode. TEPX also supports multiple users over a LAN.

Video logging and media management software are also integrated into NLEs. For example, Incite Multimedia's initial approach to media management included integrating such software into its flagship NLE, Incite Editor 3.0, in the form of a feature called Media Manager.

However, M², a standalone version of Media Manager to be released this spring, will add the ability to browse through a whole network — not just whatever files are on the server. That includes scanning for files on other workstations connected to the network.

M² allows more useful file searches, says Jared Harrelson, director of online support services at Incite's Franklin, Tenn. offices. The software can create multiple views of a network's content. Users might try a Table view, which opens files to present their metadata as the main element.

“[The Media Manager] includes extra metadata fields outside of simple comments, tape name, that sort of thing,” says Harrelson. “You have access to the codecs, data rates, as well as five customizable metadata fields.”

Here are a couple of nice touches: The browser's built-in codecs will open a wide range of clips and files throughout the network, including video, audio, graphics, and other specialized file formats. This way the editor doesn't import clips blindly. Instead of stuffing the NLE's bins with a hodgepodge of files that might hold the needed clips, the editor keeps things simple by preselecting prior to importing.

Producers of M2, the standalone version of Incite Multimedia’s Media Manager software, not only enables users to browse anywhere on the network, but allows them to adjust clip-related audio.

At IBC 2002, Incite and Thomson Grass Valley announced that they would develop integrated support for Grass Valley's native Profile file format with Incite Editor 3.0 and Incite Media Manager. The development plans include browsing, previewing, and inserting Profile media assets on the Profile SAN via Incite's applications for media management, nonlinear editing, and compositing.

The Next Step

Data sharing in video sounds like a boring topic, but new international standards for metadata will help move video production and post to new levels of efficiency and creativity.

If you want to get the most from post, expect to use and understand terms such as UMID (unique material identifier), MXF (material exchange format), AAF (advanced authoring format), and XML (extensible markup language) over the next few years. For example, a UMID code on a cassette will help organize camcorder footage from the moment it's shot. NLEs read that data and use it to populate a clip file database.

“The industry is moving toward open standards for exchanging media and exchanging information about projects because of the efficiencies it brings,” says Matt Allard, senior product marketing manager at Avid.

See our upcoming May issue for an article on UMID, MXF, AAF, XML, and other new standards relevant to today's and tomorrow's production workflow.

For more information, visit:
www.squarebox.co.uk
www.inciteonline.com
www.imagineproducts.com.

• Home
• Contact Us
• Email Webmaster
• For Advertisers
• For Search Partners
• Privacy Policy
• RSS

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.