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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

foolcat / foolmeta - R3D catalogs and metadatas ingest

I like to upload the catalog to my web server at the end of the day, but usually have a crappy 3G signal wherever I'm shooting. It would be great to have an incremental upload feature, so I can have most of the thumbnails already uploaded before I get the last mag. Do you think rsync would work for this?
 
Hi Elliott

What is your workflow ? You do one catalog per mag or one per day with all mags ? If it is the latter and upload a partial catalog it might not work to replace html file and rsync the new 'complete' catalog thumbnails as they would all have same name but not same creation date... Unless we can tell rsync to ignore date and only sync missing file names (not sure it is possible...)

What you could do is create a main folder per day, run foolcat on each mag, upload the main folder once and then add new mags catalog and create an index of the day using the new catalog index feature (it won't take long to upload as the thumbnails in the index are just linked to the individual catalogs thumbnails)...

Feel free to contact me directly to discuss this if it's not clear while I try to think and see if a better /easier solution exists.
Maybe uploading only the pdf file could also be faster, or I could add an option to make smaller jpeg file so it can be uploaded quicker ?

Let me know what could work best ?
 
I am creating one catalog for the whole day. I think producers and directors don't care what files are on what mag, and I like to keep it simple for them. I love the index feature, but I still don't want people having to click around that much through all the mags.
Smaller file size would be great of course, but not if it means seeing compression artifacts. Maybe something similar to Photoshop's "save for web" tool?
If foolcat names the thumbnails the same each time, I think the rsync --size-only option would work but I haven't tested yet.
 
version 3.3 beta, only from this beta link for now :
http://foolcolor.net/foolcat_3beta.zip

- New option to make smaller size jpeg (reduce by at least 60-70% html and pdf file sizes). That one is for Eliott

- DRAGON support (Dragon clips should now work well with thumbnails and 6K formats / sensor name recognized as such). It requires to have RCX beta21 installed (for new dragon aware REDLine that is used to access some extensive metadata values). This one only for John right now :-)

- Fix for user meta data entered directly on camera (production, shot and camera info...), in previously release a bug would only allow to display those if the file had an RMD file. For everyone :-)

EDIT : beta now at version 3.4, fixing a metadata bug in 3.3. Same download link...
 
Any possibility off adding mxf file support? - more and more people are liking the C300 these days for smaller jobs.

This program makes awesome PDF reports for Quicktime and even better reports for R3Ds, loving it so far.
 
Hi Johnathan

I am shooting something on C300 myself this week so I will certainly have a close look at the MXF format and see how foolcat can support it :-)
 
Great, thanks for the small jpeg size option. But I'm glad you make it optional — when the bandwidth is available, it's definitely nicer to have the larger resolution for retina screens, etc.
I noticed the current beta hangs before making the PDF. It makes all the thumbnails and the HTML, but the status bar is stuck forever.
P.S. I don't like the new "take number" on each clip. It's really the clip number, which usually does not match the take number, so I find it misleading.
 
Eliott, please get in touch with me by email to help investigate the pdf issue you've run into with latest beta, strange as I don't remember having changed any pdf related functionality in this build... will need some details on your config (OS version) to try to reproduce / fix the problem

PS : take number metadata is automatically tagged in camera but I will see if it can be disabled when it is not a valuable info (similar to clip number)
 
Eliott, just uploaded a new beta 3.41 at same link (http://foolcolor.net/foolcat_3beta.zip) that will only show the take number if it is relevant (ie ignore the value if it is only duplicating the clip number)

thanks for the suggestion :-)
 
Mikael,

Any update on the development of the "Metabox"?

Thanks,
 
MXF support and more.

MXF support and more.

new 3.5 beta with LOTS of new features / updates (foolcat beta 3.5) :

- Support for MXF clips (tested with Canon C300, X305, XDCam and several other exotic files) [For Johnathan]
- Much faster Quicktime thumbnail creation
- support for double-byte characters (Japanese…) across the app. Let me know if anyone can further test this feature.
- Support for SONY F3 mp4 clips
- Support for source file / folder drag and drop on application icon / dock icon
- Improved Dragon metadata
- Increased stability + other small minor improvements
- Fix a PDF paper size preference / bug - [thanks Eliott]
- Fix a bug when source directory name had special characters (like a single quote apostrophe) - [thanks Jennifer & Art]

Thanks to all the users supporting and helping improve the app week after week. Keep sending your messages or requests !

Still a free upgrade for all registered users (just keeping it beta for a few days to make sure all is good)... price for new licenses will possibly go up before year's end as I'll keep adding more features for version 4...


Luis : as said by email Metabox will hopefully appear one day, after or before the Meizler module is ready, if not it will be after or before the RED's iPad app ships :-)
 
Wow you've been busy. Thanks Mikael.
I just saw your metabox video preview... Looks like it could be promising, as I've been looking for a better way to enter metadata, especially scene/take. But the usefulness of this depends on where the metadata can go after being entered... What are you planning for that?

Also — I see the RGB isolation feature shared with foolcontact. I'm curious to see how you or other people are using this feature. I realize looking at a single channel could sometimes help to find flaws with an image, but only if viewed on a larger, accurate monitor. AFAIK foolcontact doesn't support SDI output. How are other people using this feature, maybe I'm missing out on something.
 
Foolcontact was just a kind of 'conceptual demo' of the browser feature in metabox, nothing else, it can serve as quick file viewer to opem files in RC-X

Haven't worked on the metabox code for several months... Hopefully I will find some time to start working again on this project. The idea was to be able to add scene/take and any other RMD metadata to single clip or batch of clips in an easy way... Before running foolcat to document a shooting day / card.
 
new version 3.6 (release) - I've been shooting in Argentina all week but managed to fix some small bugs while waiting for an airplane :-)


- fixed a bug introduced in beta 3.5 related to wrong calculated total or clip’s file size.
- added file path info for MXF clips (as requested by Johnathan)
- app should be more robust generating large MXF catalogs

Thanks for all recent purchases guys ! And keep the bug reports / suggestions coming, will do my best to address them asap
 
Thanks for the constant updates, Mikael. foolcat keeps getting better and better. One more feature request: automatic updates! =) You're so on top of things it would be nice if stuff just happened automatically, you know? Keep up the good work!
 
Hi Drew
Yes auto download and update install is something I'm willing to add. Actually started working on it few months ago so will push it up on the 'things to-do' list.
:-)
 
3.8 should fix some remaining bugs with some QT files being stuck on "reading metadatas" stage

and a big thanks to all those who got a license recently
 
phantom support...

phantom support...

Due to many requests, I investigated the possibility of having foolcat work with phantom files but unfortunately the phantom SDK is PC only at the moment...
Only solution would be for me to buy a license of Gluetools phantom and code something using their .cine support but everyone would also need a Gluetools license on their foolcat machine to generate catalogs....


On a "brighter" note, 3.81 now let's you choose a darker theme for the catalogs, instead of the original light theme.

Here is a preview :

dark.png

classic.png
 
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