What is a video bin?
Video bin is a new feature that we added to Fast video cataloger 5.02. A video bin is a virtual video folder in your catalog. Just like a folder on your computer, you can add videos to it, and you can easily browse all videos in a bin.
Why would you want to use a video bin in Fast video cataloger?
We added bins to help with workflows and reduce the number of temporary tags. Our intention is that you should be able to use video bins for video favorite lists, for temporary storage when working with videos, as steps when you automate with scripts and more.
Many of these usage scenarios could be solved before with special keywords. For example if you wanted to convert a number of videos, you could add a keyword to all videos to be converted and then just remove that keyword when you converted the videos. Video bins is another, sometimes superior, way to do the same thing. In this example, create a folder “to be converted”, move all videos you want to convert to that bin.
What are the advantages of the bin workflow?
If you compare the above keyword workflow to the bin workflow, the bin workflow has two advantages. First you do not clutter your keyword list with temporary keywords, and an uncluttered keyword lists makes it easier and faster to find the keywords you need. R remember that you can use color on your keywords to make it even quicker to find the keyword you are looking for. The second advantage is that you can have the bin Window open at the same time as the video catalog. That way you can easily use search to filter videos, and just drag them over to the bin step by step.
Ok, how to I create video bins?
Open the Bins Window from the windows menu.
In the bins window, there is a button at the upper right corner to manage your bins. Click this button to open up the bins dialog, and from here you can create new bins. When you created the bin from the dialog you can close it. Next, select the bin from the dropdown list in the bins window.
Now you have an active bin and can just drag videos from the video catalog window to the bins window. Select videos from the bins window by clicking on them and the rest works just like you would expect.
All well and good – but you talk about “work flow”. Hardly – especially when you cannot drag from one bin to another…
Also – although it appears you can drag files from the bin you can’t drop them anywhere but within the same window – and if you do it resorts the content and the file is placed at the bottom.
Pretty useless I’m afraid!
Thanks for your feedback. If you drag into the same window it really will do nothing except an unnecessary refresh and that is probably what you see.
The next FVC update will add support for drag n drop between bins.
Today you can drag from bins to other software programs, like video editors, and you can use bins together with scripting to automate workflows.