DIT Essential Software for On-Set Metadata, Viewing and Transcoding

DIT Essential Software: On-Set Metadata

April 12, 2017

Get a tour of essential software a DIT uses on-set to execute the important tasks of handling (and handing-off) metadata, playback of clips and transcoding.


Series
Essential Data Downloading Software: Part 2

Capturing On-Set Metadata
(And Delivering It To Postproduction)

In Part 1 of this two-part look at essential DIT software, DIT Rich Roddman C.S.I shared his core tools for downloading footage off cameras (and making several multiple backups… simultaneously). Those tools allow him to deliver Reports to clients about every clip he offloaded (even if they call 3 months later).  In this Insight, Rich shifts gears to another part of the DIT’s job, metadata.

Handling metadata, checking File Integrity & Creating Transcodes

  • Pomfort Silverstack – Metadata, download, color grade, oh my!
  • VLC Media Player – A swiss-army-knife of media players. It plays practically every codec you might encounter.
  • Switch – Another versatile media player that prominently displays embedded timecode. It comes in Free and Pro versions.
  • Scratch Play – It’s free. It plays just about everything. And it has that impressive Scratch UI.
  • Premiere Pro CC – If you’ve got it, then it’s a good tool for checking the integrity of your images.
  • EditReady – This app is great to have in your data download kit for those days clients suddenly need to do transcoding, too.

Other apps mentioned in this Insight

Did Rich miss something here? Is there one tool you want to see in action and more fully explained? Use the Comments!

Member Content

Sorry... the rest of this content is for members only. You'll need to login or Join Now to continue (we hope you do!).

Need more information about our memberships? Click to learn more.

Membership options
Member Login

Are you using our app? For the best experience, please login using the app's launch screen


Comments

Homepage Forums DIT Essential Software: On-Set Metadata

  • Hey Rich, thanks for this insight.
    I just wanted to ask you how come you didn’t quote Resolve as transcoding software option. It’s that because there’s some kind of issue within the transcoding task in DVR?

  • Hey Rich, thanks for this insight.
    I just wanted to ask you how come you didn’t quote Resolve as transcoding software option. It’s that because there’s some kind of issue within the transcoding task in DVR?

  • Hi Luca,
    I left Resolve off of this list primarily because I was just talking about programs that did straight transcoding and did not give you options for adjusting the colors to much. I do plan on creating another insight focusing on the tools that a DIT would use for handling color management which is kind of where this one leaves off of handling the data management and Resolve will be a big part of that. Plus I have found in my experience that once you open Resolve on the set, the DP or Director can not help themselves from making adjustments to the images which opens a grey area of when a Data Manager becomes a DIT and all the responsibilities that go along with that.

    Thank you for the question and I hope you find the insight useful.
    Rich-

  • Hi Luca,
    I left Resolve off of this list primarily because I was just talking about programs that did straight transcoding and did not give you options for adjusting the colors to much. I do plan on creating another insight focusing on the tools that a DIT would use for handling color management which is kind of where this one leaves off of handling the data management and Resolve will be a big part of that. Plus I have found in my experience that once you open Resolve on the set, the DP or Director can not help themselves from making adjustments to the images which opens a grey area of when a Data Manager becomes a DIT and all the responsibilities that go along with that.

    Thank you for the question and I hope you find the insight useful.
    Rich-

  • Rich … great info. Like the Switch … quick query: for general player jack-of-all-codecs, have you tried PotPlayer? Curious as to how it compares to VLC for this work.

  • Rich … great info. Like the Switch … quick query: for general player jack-of-all-codecs, have you tried PotPlayer? Curious as to how it compares to VLC for this work.


  • Jelle Helwig
    Member

    Nice insight, I would’ve loved more info on how to get all the metadata from these programs into your NLE and also Resolve.


  • Jelle Helwig
    Member

    Nice insight, I would’ve loved more info on how to get all the metadata from these programs into your NLE and also Resolve.

Log in to reply.

1,000+ Tutorials to Explore

Get full access to our entire library of over 1,100+ color tutorials for an entire week!


Start Your Test Drive!
Loading...