MM, still use it. Most intuitive. Set Thumbnail Position; Search on where Media was used .. many many other Boolean type searches/options.

G

Nick, Grazie, thanks. I've tried MM several times over the years, but it regularly crashes Vegas and that annoys me to no end. In fact, I gave it another chance yesterday... and crash. For me it is similar to the way clicking on the Help function used to crash Vegas. Why??

Vee-Hive makes me nervous because it looks like a one-man-show. I subscribe to the "hit by a bus" theory and I hesitate to spend hours and hours uploading information on one man software.

Daminion looks promising... thanks again for the suggestions.

Barry, you might need to update your Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Each time I install MM on a new computer I end up in a confusing mess of what to install, as there are so many related downloads out there. See this thread which has a screenshot of what I have currently installed. Unfortunately I can't tell you exactly what package I had to install to get there.

I have always found MM to be extremely robust. It's a pity that its development was abandoned. With a little effort on the user interface it could have been really slick (my wishlist is in the 3rd post of this thread). Bear in mind that you can drag media from MM into other programs, so even if it is no longer supported in future versions of Vegas (if there are any), you could still run an instance of VP8-13 just to use Media Manager.

There is a hole in the market for a good media manager. I share your concern about Vee-Hive. You might also check out Adobe Lightroom and see if it will do what you want. It's not likely to work as a fully-fledged database but the tagging might be enough, media preview should be good, and at least it has a future.

Has anyone used or looked at this cataloging software? It costs $200 but if it does what it appears to do it's probably worth the cost.

Jack

This software has been out for awhile - does seem overpriced but that all depends on what it can actually do and how flexible it is.

Here be one gotcha for these kind of interfaces. It all depends on having a Windows OS player link for any given codec you want to catalogue. So if you were interpreting many common .avi containers it would probably be ok.

But here's the problem - try linking Sony XAVC Long Gop sources or Panasonic AVC Intra codecs - there is no common available player/viewer.

Good point, videoITguy. The following is taken from the company's web site:

"Fast Video Cataloger uses Microsofts Direct Show technology for video frame capture and in the integrated video player. Just about any video format is support provided you have a direct show codec installed on your computer. If it plays in windows media player it usually works in fast video cataloger. Our test suit includes videos in mpg, mpeg2, mpeg4, avi, qt, rt, wmv, flv among others. From Fast video cataloger 3 the following video file format extensions are recognized:

avi, wmv, asf, mp4, m4p, mp41, m4v, mpeg, mpg, vob, qt, divx, mpeg2, rm, 3gp, flv, f4v, flv, mkv, mov, mxf, ogm, ogv, rmvb, swf, mts, m2ts, mxf, lxf, gxf"

Jack

Yes, and this exactly where given all else the FVC implementation like many is mostly about cataloging common consumer play review formats....and then again not so much about helping a video producer sort thru source footage from prosumer cameras.

NOTE that the Catalyst Suite from SCS does have a very elementary catalogue of sorts to go thru Sony XAVC sources. That makes the suite closest to what a producer needs to catalogue source footage if they are totally devoted to the Sony camera production and workflow combination.

Hello Barry,

Have no first hands on experience/knowledge of this Software, Metus MediaCube.

At first glance appears to have pedigree.It does sound reasonably robust meeting
your criteria.Just throwing this into the ring

If takeoff & landing are critical flight factors,one would be want to be knowing
a bit more about the maker's domicile involved. I am sure there is nothing dodgy.

Metus MediaCube is designed to be installed onto an affordable Windows server platform.

MediaCube is simple to administer and use, yet is easy to integrate with edit stations
and graphics workstations.
It gives local and remote users fast access to all their files and projects,
both live and archived.
Metus MediaCube Workgroup Mini Asset Manager

Metus MAM Media Asset Management,

Integration in EDIUS – NAB-Report 2015 in 4K

( approx 42 secs into interview is English onwards)

michael

Thanks Michael, I'll give MediaCube a look.

I've spent the last few days trying out the other suggestions, Daminion and Fast Video Cataloger. Right now I'm leaning toward Daminion.

Michael,

I took a look at the Metus software and it looks very good. The price is not listed on the web page. You must contact them for a demo, which leads me to believe that it is very expensive, maybe designed for large studios and the like.

Do you have any idea what the price is?

Barry, Google "metus mam price". The pdf in the top hit shows it starting at GBP 1,010 for 10TB and a single user licence.

It really doesn't look much different than Media Manager.

Thanks Nick. I didn't even think of the obvious _ Google for cost.

Nick,always appreciate your time spent on well researched & informed posts.

michael

METUS Ingest Turnkey System - Four Channel HP Capture and Transcode Station

Euro € 6,600

So are any Vegas users actually using Daminion in anger?

The longer this search goes on, the more I think that MM isn't so bad, as long as you get the underlying Microsoft SQL server installation sorted out and updated for your machine. MM has foibles which are frustrating because it seems many of them could be so easily fixed, but you can learn to work within them and get serious work done. I have a video library with 17,000 clips in it, and an audio library with 3,000 files in it, gazillions of tags in a deep hierarchical structure and I'm successfully using it every day. The database is robust. Mine has never become corrupted despite numerous Vegas Pro problems over the years.

The other thing to bear in mind is that media from MM can be dragged to other programs including players and NLEs. So even if Sony Vegas (or Catalyst or whatever the future is) ceases to support it, you'd still be able to run an instance of Vegas to host MM and drag media from it. You could even run a "lightweight" old version like Vegas Pro 8 if your playback codecs are supported in it. If you wanted to actually get the data out and into something else, there is some cause for optimism on that front, especially if you had the budget to pay a database guru to help.

Perhaps the Catalyst line will include a new, improved Media Manager one day.

After a week or so bouncing around between all the suggested cataloging software I settled on Daminion.

Nick, I’m not sure if I’m using it out of anger, but I suppose I might be. I did finally get MM working (first time ever) without crashing and I like some of the features, but I found Daminion seemed to fit the way my brain works better.

My file collection is not near so large, with most of them in only a few overall categories, although I do have some nice footage from inside the cockpit of an F/A-18 :-) . Nevertheless my cataloging requirements are not so great, and furthermore, working with video is not how I earn my living, so I get that your cataloging requirements are more serious.

Grazie, it has all the Boolean search features and after adding a few keywords, locating files was a breeze.

It allows me to view my Windows folder structure from inside the software which helps me stay mentally organized. It has the other searches too, places, color codes, categories, etc., all easy and intuitive.

I did have a big concern over the question, “OK, now that I’ve located a video in the software how do I get it into Vegas?” That is not as easy as MM, but almost. You simply highlight the video, click CTL Enter and it opens Windows Explorer with that file selected. You can then easily drag it into Vegas.

Fast Video Cataloger opened the Windows Explorer directory, but the file was not highlighted, so if the folder contained many files I still had to search through all those tedious file names in the folder to find it.

I tried all of the ones suggested except Metus. The price made it a non-starter. I did like the video preview features of Fast Video Cataloger, but the interface was clunky for me. It seemed less intuitive.

Daminon is professionally designed and undergoing continual updates currently. I already will be pestering them with suggestions, but overall I like it.

Now to get all that keywords loaded up, tired already…

Good luck with your choice Barry, which sounds sensible.

How about getting multiple clips into Vegas? Is that straightforward? That's almost always what I do, as opposed to one at a time. e.g. All the clips of one species, or from one shooting location.

By the way, apologies for my use of "in anger", which I didn't realise is a Britishism (it means used "for real" as opposed to testing etc.).

> "You simply highlight the video, click CTL Enter and it opens Windows Explorer with that file selected. You can then easily drag it into Vegas."

just select clips in Daminion window and drag them into Vegas (timeline or project media window)

altarvic, dragging directly didn't work for me, tried it again, now it does, nice and easy. Thank you.

Brits. Funny.

And Barry, every time you drag those clips to the timeline, be happy that (if) they land in the right order. In MM they land in reverse order.

Been using Daminion to catalog all my media. Main point for me was that it edits the metadata directly, or indirectly thru the .xmp sidecar files. Tag data is not kept in the catalog.

I can rearrange folders all I want and not upset the catalog data. All the catalog tags are kept either directly in the media file metadata, or the .xmp sidecar file.

I can also keep as many distinct catalogs as I want. I normally catalog each year separately to keep the size down. (About 7 - 9 K items per year).

Drag an drop right onto timeline is great.

My need though is to isolate sub clips within a piece of media and apply tags at that level. Forces me to use trimmer to create sub-clips that I can use with the media manager for a single project. Alternative is to try to split my media files at the time of import - total pain.