Change History

What's New in CatDV 14.2

Add support for querying clips by orientation.
Improve user experienece, lazy load thumbnail(s) when open server catalog.
Improved codec support, updated RED and BRAW libraries.

New features in 14.1

CatDV 14.1 features many incremental improvements, in particular with improved integration with Avid Media Composer (which requires Pegasus), including:

Significant improvements to the AVB importer (Avid bin reading) and AAF exporter so that virtually any file that can be imported or AMA-linked in Media Composer can be imported into CatDV and shared with other users or marked up in the web interface. It can then be sent back to Avid, where it will play and link to the the original clip (and come over with markers, log notes, subclips, and cuts-only sequences intact).
Ability to do first stage ingest of camera and other original footage into CatDV first and export this as a DNxHD proxy (in MXF OpAtom format) to the Avid MediaFiles folder, as well as as a CatDV web proxy if required. These proxies can optionally include burnt in timecode or watermark information. Users can log in CatDV, then send an AAF to Avid which will link to and play the DNxHD proxy. For finishing the Avid editor can then AMA-link to the original camera card folder and use the Media Composer Re-Link command to relink to the original hires.
Add proper support for subclips of spanned metaclips and image sequences (the underlying source media will refer to the full master clip, while the subclip bounds are defined by the In and Out points).
A new Restore To Original Catalog command in the Server menu to move clips that have been moved to the recycle bin, or to the "Deleted Clips" by a Worker quick folder scan action, back to the catalog they were in before (based on the details in the clip History field).
A new Search... command in the Server tree right click context menu to do a quick search within the selected catalog, catalog folder, or production group.
Improved codec support, including support for playing and transcoding CinemaDNG image sequences (DNG images with WAV audio), updated RED, BRAW and Avid libraries, and better GPU support.
Add support for playing and transcoding ARRIRAW MXF files (requires Pegasus).
Support for custom SAML/Okta login pages, and optionally allow self-signed https certificates when connecting to the server.
A new Image sequence export target in the Export As Movie dialog.
For movies with multiple video tracks the media panel popup menu lets you choose whether to play V1 or V2 etc.

New features in CatDV 14

CatDV 14 builds on CatDV 13 with significant technical changes under the hood to provide a cleaner, more modern codebase, plus a number of functional enhancements:

The bundled version of Java has been updated from Java 1.8 to OpenJDK 14. This fixes a number of long standing UI glitches on the Mac (such as menus sometimes being greyed out until you switch to another app and back) and allows the app to be notarised to be compliant with the much stricter signing requirements under MacOS Catalina and later.
Any last remaining 32-bit code (such as the AAFTool for processing AAF files) has been removed, as has other legacy code such as to handle special characters in XML files.
The native player has been updated to use a new rendering pipeline and other improvements:
- Use of OpenGL (instead of Direct3D9) on Windows, and Metal (instead of deprecated OpenGL 2.1) on Mac, allowing colour space conversion and other processing to be done on the GPU, and overlays such as subtitles to be rendered
- A new container architecture for low level tracks, making it easier to add new codecs and formats to the player.
- More efficient file handling when the same file is used in different tracks or more than once in a sequence, resulting in improved performance.
- Ability to turn individual channels on and off when playing files with audio tracks containing more than two channels.
The native player and transcoding library has been updated with additional codec support:
- Add support for encoding to Apple ProRes (on Mac and Windows) using Apple SDK.
- Add support for encoding to DNxHD and DNxHR using Avid SDK.
- New support for decoding Canon RAW.
These are in addition to the existing support for natively playing and transcoding most common camera formats including ProRes, DNx, Blackmagic RAW, ARRI, and RED.
CatDV 14 adds experimental support for using the CatDV desktop application in the field as an ingest tool:
- A new Preferences option (in the Import section) will prompt you to copy media files to local storage whenever you import files into CatDV (so you have a local copy of media from a removable storage card for example). At the same time, you are prompted to fill in basic metadata that is set on the clips, and you can choose whether to link to the copy or the original file path.
- Additionally, the new Upload Media To Server command will copy media to a suitably configured server: import files from a camera card, set up a destination on the the server using media store mappings, then copy files to the server and place them in the correct server location via http/web upload without requiring file system access to the server. Files can also be uploaded automatically whenever clips are published to the server with a new Preferences option (in the Server section).
Display a modernised thumbnail-only grid view optimised for video with widescreen thumbnails that fill the cell (by adding a blurred background if necessary). By contrast, the new "Photo Icons" view uses a square cell grid and is optimised for viewing still images and documents which might have a mix of portrait and landscape orientation.
Add support for quickly scrubbing through a movie by moving the mouse over the thumbnail image (using either the new filmstrip proxy image, used by Web 3, or the thumbnails stored against the clip, indicated by a red or orange cursor respectively)
Support for viewing and managing all the proxy and other files associated with an asset via the Media menu and the media panel popup menu. These include different types of proxies, filmstrip images, and different language tracks as used by the web interface and defined via media stores. Media stores are now cached in local preferences so they are available even if you are not connected to the server.
The Media/File Information command lists all the available files and versions for a clip, and there are improvements to the information dialog itself (including a Reveal In Tree button, better player support, a new panel to extract any JPEG images, better metadata display, and a larger hex display panel).
Add support for extended proxy file naming to cope with different files in the same directory that differ only in their filename extension. By default the proxy for a file called MyFile.mxf is now called MyFile.mxf.mp4 rather than MyFile.mp4.
Add support for displaying subtitles or closed captions in a VTT or SRT file, either as a sidecar file (alongside the movie) or defined via media stores. You can customise the appearance of the subtitles including their size, whether to merge multiple captions showing at the same time, and whether to ignore any position information and always display them at the bottom of the screen.
Display a checkerboard background when viewing still images or movies with transparency
Add support for displaying marker annotations that were created with Server 10.
Add support for displaying filenames containing emoji characters.
Improvements to the Find Similar command to make it easier to find and delete duplicate clips (by choosing which clips to select, and letting you delete directly from the result set).
The new media metadata FileHash field is calculated by sampling the file at various points throughout the file from the beginning to the end, providing an easy way to find duplicates or moved files, while being much faster to calculate than a full MD5 checksum.
The Disk Space Tool command now lets you compare two snapshots or two directories so you can quickly see why a directory or volume has grown since it was last scanned, and there are new commands to find any corresponding clips on the server and to filter the file list by file name.
Improvements to metaclips (containers or collections containing multiple files which can be combined and treated as a single clip) including:
- A new clip type of Playlist which plays the clips within it one after the other.
- A new clip type of Version Set which can store different versions of an asset and plays the last (most recent) clip within it.
- A new clip type of Folder which can group together an arbitrary collection of other clips so they can be treated as one item.
- Metaclips can now contain other metaclips, not just plain clips.
- Markers on the underlying clips are displayed against the metaclip. For playlists you can choose whether to display relative timecode within the playlist or source timecode in the marker table.
- You can view the different files within a metaclip by using the (right click) pop up menus on the media panel and in the main window.
- User-created metaclips now have a virtual media path consisting of any common root directory of the files within it and the metaclip name (allowing them to have a single proxy movie that covers the entire metaclip, rather than having to assemble it from separate parts each time).
These changes are in addition to existing support for camera card and MXF OpAtom metaclips.
Add support for lightweight image sequences, represented by a single clip rather than one clip for each file, so they are much more efficient for large image sequences. This option is enabled by a new setting on the Import tab of Preferences.
Improvements to lightweight Directory clips, an efficient way to represent all the files in a directory or Mac package as a single clip, including a new Import preference option to specify which file name extensions such as .app or .fcpbundle should be represented as a single directory clip (rather than separately listing and analysing all the files within it).
Metadata extraction rules to extract parts of the filename into metadata fields can now be stored on the server in the settings table so they can be shared between different users and the Worker Node. Metadata rules allow specific subdirectories in the file path to map to fields like Customer, Project and so on, or to pull out separate components of the filename itself if you use a strict file naming scheme. Different rules can apply in different parts of the file system tree.
The AAF importer now supports extracting embedded media (and saving it out as self-contained media files to the directory specified in Preferences).
Support for two-factor authentication when logging on (set up by editing the user profile in the Server 10 web interface)
Encourage the use of HTTP rather than RMI when connecting to the server as this is more reliable on certain networks, and encourage use of the web-based admin pages when creating users, groups, and roles as some new features are only available in the web interface.
Some items in the Tools and Logging and Import As menus have been rearranged slightly (and more items are hidden if you choose simple menus in Preferences).

Some of these features may require a Pegasus Client or a CatDV MXF license.

New features in CatDV 13

CatDV 13 includes the following main changes:

The native player (and the entire application) is now 64-bit only, for improved performance and handling of complex clips.
Remaining dependencies on Apple's deprecated QuickTime technology have been removed.
The NativeQT Exporter has been removed and is replaced by a new Advanced Exporter (see below), which has also been merged with the FFmpeg Exporter.
The QuickTime player has been removed and is replaced by the new Advanced Player (see below).
Support for receiving notifications from the server so that clips are highlighted instantly when they are edited by another user and display live progress information when they are being processed by a Worker Node task. To use this, add the Notification column to the required view(s). There is also a new Notifications tab on the Server Admin Panel to list the most recent notifications that were received.
A new Clip Title panel above the media player shows the current clip name and an activity indicator ('eye' icon) when viewing clips on the server. The indicator is highlighted when the clip has been recently viewed or modified by another or a notification for the current clip arrives.
If a user edits the values in a pick list these are propagated using notifications and become available to other users immediately.
There is a new Markers tab in the Details panel that shows all the event markers for a clip and supports filtering, highlighting of matching text, customisable columns, multiline display of long marker text, and direct editing of markers in the table. This makes it suitable for displaying transcripts as an alternative to using the verbatim logger, for example.
The version of Java has been updated (to fix printing and other issues on Mac), and certain UI issues in MacOS 10.14 Mojave have been fixed
Support for displaying the contents of a metaclip as a tab on the details panel (you do this by defining a panel layout with the metaclip columns you want to show, then prefixing the name of the details panel tab with "Metaclip:")
Support for importing and playing ARRI image sequences (as well as DNG, DPX, EXR, JPEG, TIFF, PNG etc.) (requires Pegasus Client)
Support for importing and viewing HEIF/HEIC still images (the native image format used by recent iPhones)
Other improvements to image sequences, including supporting arbitrary frame rates, subclipping, and a new Import option to allow non-consecutively numbered filenames.
A new Resync Catalog with Server command supports offline workflows. If you take a catalog from the server and save it as a local CDV catalog file then you can work on that locally and subsequently relink it to the server catalog: all changes that can safely be reapplied to the server catalog are, and only conflicting edits (because the clip was edited by another user in the meantime) are left for you to review and reapply manually as required.
Support for custom (user-defined) catalog fields (in views and panels, and when performing queries)
Support for looking up proxy and hi-res files using media stores defined on the server, instead of path mappings. This means path mappings will automatically be in sync with those used by the web interface.
Support for tape-based proxies (for legacy DV tape-based workflows) has been dropped
There is a new user-defined field type for displaying preformatted JSON data as HTML
Ability to read an SRT subtitle sidecar file to create markers when importing a movie
New options on the Apply Timecode Offset command to adjust timecode of main clip or of markers separately (including adjusting markers of a particular category, or renaming a category)
New Rename Media File command to simplify renaming a single clip (including all the related files in a metaclip)
New filter on the All Fields panel to help you quickly find a field by name or value
Internal changes to move away from the use of legacy user-defined field indices (panel and view definitions now use field identifiers rather than indices, and loading a .cdv catalog file will automatically define any missing user-defined fields that were saved with the catalog).
The way timestamps such as Import Date and Media Date, or catalog last modified date, are saved to the server has been changed to make it consistent with the web interface. (A side effect of this is that some times saved incorrectly with old versions of the software may now display in the wrong timezone.)
Wide list views will flow text to fill the available height of the row and can display large thumbnails, and the height of rows can be configured in preferences.
Many other fixes and improvements. See the change log in the Release Notes for full details.

Advanced Player

The Advanced Player (previously referred to as the "sequence player") supports native playback of most media files, including complex sequences, spanned clips and Op-Atom MXF metaclips. CatDV 13 includes the following changes:

It is possible to turn individual audio tracks on and off (by clicking on the audio icon), and play the movie at different rates with audio (using the JKL keys)
If you have the legacy Tin Man application from Calibrated Software installed this is used for certain formats.
The movie controller has new buttons to jump back or forward 10s (replacing the single frame step buttons, as that functionality is available using left and right arrow buttons)
New commands in the media panel popup menu to control slow motion playback rate of 50 fps and higher movies. The preferred rate is stored in the 'PlaybackRate' field and automatically applied next time that clip is opened.
It's possible to rotate movies on playback (eg. for mobile phone footage)
CatDV 13 has improved support for image sequences, raw images, and http proxies.
The player is 64-bit only for improved performance and handling of complex clips.

Advanced Exporter

The Advanced Exporter (previously referred to as the "segment-based exporter") makes use of FFmpeg and other technologies to provide creation of H.264 proxies and other formats.

The Advanced Exporter automatically splits complex clips and sequences into smaller segments and then combines them so it can cope with mixed format sequences, inconsistent audio layouts, and more.
A title slate (a fixed title prepended before the start of the movie) can be added if required, and event markers can be burnt in. Markers provide a way to add a burnt-in text overlay that varies over time (eg. from subtitles).
It is possible to preserve the original audio channel layout, mix it down to stereo, or automatically convert different source layouts to the required output format (eg. 4 mono tracks to 2 stereo tracks).
CatDV 13 includes a Fraunhofer FDK license to export high quality AAC audio.
On the Mac you can generate Apple ProRes movies in all the supported variants, including ProRes 4444 HQ.
On both Mac and Windows you can use the native platform support to create H.264 MP4 movies, and other formats such as HEVC, WMV etc. depending on the operating system. In most cases (on modern hardware) these will automatically use the GPU for hardware acceleration.
The version of FFmpeg has been updated to include H.265/HEVC (although still not as widely supported as H.264, HEVC typically results in files that are at least 30% smaller for the same quality).
The old FFmpeg Exporter has been merged into the Advanced Exporter but you can still use the old code path by checking the 'Direct transcode' option if required. The legacy exporter can be more efficient for simple transcodes as it goes direct from source file to the output in one go rather than splitting it up into segments, but it doesn't cope with complex clips or support features like markers and title slates.
There are new checkboxes and drop downs to control options like fast start (place the MOV or MP4 movie header at the start of the file so a web proxy can start playing before it has fully downloaded) or the libx264/265 preset to use (to maximise file quality for a particular bit rate use the slowest setting you can tolerate) without having to fill in the advanced options field.
There are new options to create a long thin film strip image (for use in the web interface) or an audio waveform movie (when exporting audio-only files to a movie).

Some of these features may require a Pegasus Client or a CatDV MXF license.

New features in CatDV 12.1

CatDV 12.1 includes a number of user interface and other improvements over 12.0:

New three column view (showing the tree navigator or catalog list, then the clip list, then the clip details and player panel, in three columns from left to right, like the iOS apps and Premiere panel)
Ability to turn off the tool bar buttons to make maximum use of the available screen real estate (using View > Show Tool Bar Buttons)
Improved grid and film strip view layouts (by default use a darker background to distinguish cells and thus allow grid spacing to be reduced)
Ability to show new Pegasus social media chat channels via the server tree. This allows you to have live discussions about a project with other users (using either the desktop or web interface) and include links to specific clips by dragging them in to the chat window.
Pegasus includes a completely rewritten AAF exporter and new AVB bin import capability for improved Avid integration
Improved player technology, including use of FFmpeg 3.4, NVidia GPU acceleration, and integration with optional third party Tin Man player from Calibrated.
Improvements to the FFmpeg exporter (including 'smart stereo' option to automatically combine two mono tracks into a stereo track now working with a wider range of audio configurations, a new option to force an intermediate transcode, and adding support for transcoding a sequence containing stills)
New segment-based FFmpeg exporter that allows sequences, metaclips, and markers to be transcoded and an optional title slate to be prepended.
New option on the Export As Movie command to automatically reimport the resulting file and create a mezzanine clip
Support for reading XAVC-S camera card structure, and for reading "fragmented" QuickTime movies.
Improved R3D metadata extraction
Support for reading IPTC metadata
New calendar chooser widget for user-defined date fields
New user-defined field type of select buttons for easy tagging of clips using coloured buttons on the details panel
The preference dialog has a new search box to help you quickly find the desired preference option
Improvements to javascript and variable expression syntax (allowing regular expression and array notation such to be combined, for example "$f[0]{s/.mp4$//}", and supporting REST-like syntax eg. "js:clip.name" or "js:media['FNumber']").
Add support for private or shared clip lists
New JavaScript API for use in Pegasus custom actions and UI scripts to integrate custom functionality
Improved sequence editing, including continuous thumbnail display and the ability to lock specific tracks from being edited when editing multiple tracks by clicking on the checkbox alongside the track name.
New option to use "widescreen" thumbnails if you mostly work with video and rarely use still images or other formats. This will avoid letterboxing in grid and film strip views and so make better use of the screen space.
Add support for custom catalog fields (defined on the server through the web interface).

New features in CatDV 12.0

These changes are in addition to the changes made in CatDV 12:

CatDV 12 is 64-bit only (32-bit legacy version is no longer available) for improved performance and memory handling
CatDV no longer requires QuickTime to be installed and can instead use FFmpeg as the primary playback engine (though if QuickTime is available it will still be used, as it provides access to third party codecs such as those from Calibrated and Avid)
More modern, simpler and flatter user interface
A simplified toolbar, with buttons that control the view being moved to the bottom of the main window, and most preexisting toolbar buttons moving to a pull down menu. (The old toolbar appearance can be restored via user interface preferences if required.)
A new graphical workspace editor to allow items in the toolbar and other common options to be easily customised (including tool tip text in the preferences dialog to identify the internal preference item id to allow other less commonly used settings to be overridden too if necessary)
The ability to have collapsible subsections in the clip details panel by defining new panels for each section with a colon in the name (for example Technical, Technical:Video and Technical:Audio will add separate video and audio subsections to the Technical tab). You can also append '*' to the panel name if you don't want the section to be collapsible.
Other improvements to the clip details panel, including the ability to turn the media panel on and off independently of clip details, automatically switching between one and two columns depending on horizontal space, and the ability to make particular fields read only.
The media player now supports an audio level (VU meter) display, and displays an audio wave form when viewing audio only clips
Hold down the Ctrl key (Mac) or Alt key (Windows) to scrub through movies (and audio wave forms) or to zoom in and pan around still images (hold down the Shift key to increase zoom from 3x to 16x)
Hold down Ctrl or Alt to show the clip popup details as you move round a grid view. This replaces the old 'i' icon in the corner, though you can re-enable that in Preferences if you prefer.
New simpler clip type icons showing the basic clip type (video, audio, still image, subclip, sequence, and 'other' non-media clips), plus a badge in the corner to indicate if this is a metaclip consisting of multiple underlying files. (The older clip type icons are still available and can be added if required by customising a view layout.)
Greatly improved Final Cut Pro X integration, including: the tree now lists events under each library and you can drag clips straight to the required event (without creating a new timestamped event each time); you can drag and drop clips straight from CatDV to a Final Cut window and vice versa while preserving metadata; you can now import and export MXF metaclips (with video and audio in separate files) as a single clip; you can set up an FCPX Keywords field in Preferences and automatically map Final Cut keywords that span the whole clip to and from a CatDV field. Some of these features require Final Cut Pro 10.3 and fcpxml 1.6 (selected in the Final Cut & Sequences section of Preferences).
Support for new Server 7 metadata schema, including ability to perform queries on arbitrary media metadata fields and to fully customise media metadata fields including changing their type and display label
Editing user defined fields and pick lists is more consistent between Enterprise Server and standalone operation by always using the Field Definitions panel in Preferences
The ability to define calculated fields and smart labels, plus new field types to perform arbitrary validation of entered text, including a new tool to preview and test variable expressions
Updated view layouts to make them more consistent and less cluttered (by slightly increasing spacing, removing the legacy 'Tape' field, and including new 'File Extension/Type' and 'Format' fields to display key technical metadata).
More consistent field naming ('Clip ID' becomes 'Clip Ref', 'QT Tracks' becomes 'Tracks', 'Format' becomes 'Format & Codec'), also 'Other fields' becomes 'All fields', 'Refine View' becomes 'Filters', 'Automatic Grouping' becomes 'Automatic Filters', and so on.
New coloured indicators to show whether the original file and/or proxy version is available online, and a new "Movie File" field that shows the current file path if it's online taking into account any path mapping.
Other user interface fixes and improvements, including more consistent use of background colours and focus indication, better mouse wheel scrolling, etc.
Improvements to custom actions so that they don't require an existing clip selection but can import files from a watch folder or select clips according to filter criteria. Custom actions can now be configured to appear in the toolbar as well as the tree. (Pegasus only)
Ability to configure a metadata extraction rules file to automatically populate metadata fields based on the file path when a strict filenaming convention is used. The format of these rules is documented in the Worker Node release notes. The rules are applied automatically when a file is imported and manually using the command in the Tools menu. (Pegasus only)
A new Consolidate Media command that will export those portions of media that are used in a sequence or project as new self contained files and relinks the clips to the new files. Note that this feature is primarily designed to work with QuickTime files and with QuickTime installed. (Pegasus only)
A new Create Audio Slideshow command that will take an audio only file with timecode event markers and a list of still images and combine them into a sequence, where the still images are automatically positioned and have their duration set to line up with the markers. (Pegasus only)
Improvements to the sequence editor, including more consistent colouring and ordering of tracks, the ability to edit sequences even if the files are offline, the ability to easily edit the duration of still images in a sequence by dragging the out point just as you would when trimming a movie in the sequence, plus the ability to display timecode markers in the timeline.
Improved support for transcoding sequences containing multiple video tracks using both QuickTime and FFmpeg exporters.
New sequence player engine to enable editing sequences using the FFmpeg and RED playback engines (for example, if QuickTime is unavailable)
Improved metadata extraction (eg. read iXML metadata from Broadcast WAV files, color space from JPEG files, chapter markers from MP4 files, etc.)
Extract audio waveform thumbnails when importing audio only files
Improvements to the Import and Export Preferences commands to allow specific preference sections to be exported (to back them up, or copy settings between systems)
When building proxies from a still image the FFmpeg exporter will automatically create a .jpg file rather than a movie
Moving media files will preserve relative folder structure, also move any corresponding proxy files
Support for full screen windows on Mac OS X
Improved support for two monitors, including new media playback option to automatically play movies full screen on second monitor when Cmd/Ctrl-P is used
Support for version 3 of the CatDV Server Plugin API (to allow CatDV's functionality to be extended by 3rd party integrators, for example by providing archive integrations)

If you are upgrading from CatDV 10 or earlier, be sure to review the extensive changes made in CatDV 11, including new player and transcoding technology, user interface changes including the use of customisable workspaces, 64-bit operation, and much more.

New features in CatDV 11

CatDV is subject to continuous improvement. CatDV 11.1 featured many improvements over 11.0, including:

New features in CatDV 11.1

Support for DPX and EXR image sequences (Pegasus only)
Support transcoding from any player to any codec, eg. from raw RED or AVCHD files straight to QuickTime, by decoding the source movie to an intermediate image sequence. Support for playing back sequences containing such a mix of formats. (RED support is Pegasus only)
Support for transcoding multi-channel audio
Raw camera card volumes (such as P2, XDCAM, XAVC, Canon XF, and AVCHD) are not intended to be accessed directly. If you break the folder structure files might still play in CatDV but not work in your NLE editing software so when you import such a volume CatDV now creates a camera card manifest metaclip to describe all the other files and empty directories that make up a valid camera card. A new 'CameraCardID' metadata field links all the clips from one camera card volume and when you copy or archive a raw camera clip you are prompted to include all the files from that volume.
Improved support for copying, moving, and deleting multiple files in one go, including preserving the relative folder hierarchy and making sure no empty directories are left behind
New import option to create placeholder clips for empty directories
The Windows installer is now bundled with its own embedded Java Runtime Environment
Ability to export and load exporter presets (Pegasus only)
Improvements to the Scan For New Files command
New Audio Channels command in the Tools menu to adjust audio channel configuration (for exporting to Final Cut and Premiere)
Add proper support for multiple audio channels when exporting clips to Final Cut Pro X
Changes to support exporting FCP XML files to Sony Vegas, and to Premiere CC 2015
New <Any built-in field> and <Any user field> search terms when querying CatDV Server 7
The Bulk Edit command can now use variables and regular expressions
Support for importing and exporting the new CatDV v2 XML file format (this feature is primarily designed with the needs of system integrators in mind, and is documented further in the CatDV Worker Node manual)
Use of star ratings from 1 to 5 (or 0) instead of the old "good"/"no good" indicator
Improved automatic scene detection (using visual image analysis)
Improvements to the built in log file viewer
Many other fixes and improvements.
As of CatDV 11.1.6 it is possible to use CatDV on machines without QuickTime being installed, although some features may be missing.

These are in addition to the following significant changes that were previously introduced in CatDV 11.0:

New player technology

One of the main changes in CatDV 11 is that it no longer relies on QuickTime for Java (as Apple have discontinued this technology). Instead, CatDV uses a brand new native player technology that can work with a variety of playback engines. This has a number of consequences:

CatDV will now run with 64-bit Java 7 for increased performance and memory handling when handling large data sets, and support for Macs with high resolution "retina" displays
A brand new native player is used for playing media. This replaces and improves on the old protected player. The native player supports playback using different player engines: QuickTime 7 (indicated by a cyan 'Q'), FFMPEG/libavcodec (indicated by an 'F'), AVFoundation (Mac only, indicated by an 'A'), Windows Media Foundation (Windows only, indicated by a 'W'), and native RED .r3d playback (indicated by an 'R'). Note that RED playback requires a Pegasus Client license.
Together these provide native playback without transcoding of almost all common media files, including QuickTime, MPEG2, H.264, AVCHD, DPX, XDCAM EX, XAVC, R3D, WMV, and many others.
Additionally, a new JavaFX player (indicated by a 'J') is provided as an alternative player for playing MP4 files if the native player is unavailable.
The built-in Java image player that can display still images has been extended so it now supports PSD, TIFF, PICT, BMP, ICNS (in addition to JPG, PNG and GIF and many digital camera RAW formats) without requiring QuickTime or the native player
There is a new preferences setting to configure which of the available players is used for different types of file, based on filename extension or video codec (this is intended for diagnostic purposes only, as in normal use the most appropriate player will be chosen automatically)
There is a new built-in parser for directly importing .MOV and .MP4 files (in addition to existing importers for MXF files, MPEG files, etc.), allowing most common media files to be imported without requiring QuickTime
There is a new native QuickTime exporter with additional formatting options for burnt in timecode and text overlays and the ability to preview the overlay
A new FFmpeg-based exporter is provided for exporting movies and building proxies from formats that QuickTime doesn't support

User interface and functional improvements

As well as new player technology, CatDV 11 includes a number of additional user interface and functional enhancements:

Support for tabbed browsing: instead of overriding the contents of the main window with temporary clips (or opening new windows) the main window can now display different tabs, with new commands in the View menu to dock or undock tabs.
The ability to define different workspaces (different toolbar buttons, view layouts, and other options) optimised for different workflows and to switch between them easily with buttons in the toolbar or via the View menu. (If you are missing your familiar toolbar and tree layout from CatDV 10, choose the 'Advanced' workspace and then configure it later as required.)
A reorganised tree navigator to make it more intuitive and easier to use. The Server section has been split into two, one for browsing the entire contents of the server and the other for performing various kinds of search, and the Catalog and Filter sections have been combined to emphasise that they are used to refine the view on the current catalog or search results. At the same time the tree has been made more configurable and new action shortcuts have been added.
In Pegasus you can define custom actions to automate elements of your workflow
A new popup clip details panel when you hold down the Ctrl key on Mac, or Alt key on Windows, and hover the mouse over a clip in grid view, including the ability to scrub the movie without selecting it and clicking to jump to that point in the movie. You can also click on the info icon in the corner of the clip to bring up the popup panel.
Support for Retina displays, providing clearer, sharper display of text and thumbnails on compatible Macintosh computers
A new Event Markers summary mode that makes each marker appear as its own clip in the main window, making it easy to highlight search results for example
Hold down the Ctrl key (Alt on Windows) while viewing a still image to zoom and pan around the image
Simplification of the user interface by removing separate Thumbnail, Movie and Proxy tabs in the details panel. Instead, you can use the Media menu and right click on the thumbnail if you need to delete thumbnails or select a new poster thumbnail, or if you want to switch between proxy and original movie.
Ability to define smart labels and display coloured labels based on any clip field
New commands in the Mark submenu to save and load clip marks to any user-defined checkbox field, providing an easy way to mark clips of interest and manage different sets of marked clips
Improvements to Export As Still command (options to control what to do if destination exists, to set timestamp, and to place files into subfolders, and whether to copy any movies or export still frames from them), allowing it to be used to organise photos for display on an iOS device for example. It is also possible to add burnt-in text when exporting stills, which can include clip fields such as ${NM1} for the name, and these settings are now remembered between launches.
New auto-suggest combo and preformatted HTML user-defined field types
Clips now remember their last play head position
A new PlaybackRate metadata field and preference option to support slow motion playback of 120 fps movies (such as produced by the iPhone 5S). Also, the 'H' key can be used to play back movies at half or quarter their normal rate.
Improvements to the Disk Space Tool, which now uses a three pane layout (hierarchically browse folders by the size of that folder and everything in it using the top left panel, view a flattened list of all the files in the selected folder in the bottom panel, and filter by file type using the top right panel if required)
A new 'Disk Speed Test' command in the Tools menu for performing a simple disk read and write test
Ability to import and view the contents of a ZIP file via the tree (controlled by options in 'Import' Preferences)
Scene detection accuracy improvements, including ability to specify a minimum clip duration
Support for exporting clips and sequences to Autodesk Smoke (using FCP X XML)
Change toolbar icons so that a magnifying glass on its own indicates refining the view by filtering the current catalog, whereas a magnifying glass with a question mark means perform a query to bring back more clips from the server
The tape library management feature for legacy tape-based workflows is now disabled by default unless you enable it via the Server tab of Preferences. Instead, the Cmd/Ctrl-T keyboard shortcut is used to toggle display of the tree navigator, and Cmd/Ctrl-D is used to toggle the clip details panel.
Other legacy features that are disabled by default but can be re-enabled if required include the Manage Proxy Movies command and marking clips as good or not (replaced by star ratings).
Label printing is no longer a Pegasus-only feature and is also available in CatDV Pro
Improved import and display of PSD, TIFF, PICT and other still image formats on both Mac and Windows

These are in addition to the improvements provided in CatDV 10.1 and earlier releases, and those available in Pegasus. For detailed list of changes in each version, see the Version History in the Release Notes.

Legacy 32-bit version

CatDV 11 is available in both 64-bit and 32-bit versions. Some older and less commonly used features which depend on legacy QuickTime libraries are only available in the 32-bit version. These include the 'Adjust Frame Size' command, adding voice over tracks to a sequence, tape-based proxies, legacy DV-based scene detection, and adding QuickTime metadata annotations when exporting movies. If you need access to any of the above functionality then please use the optional 32-bit version of CatDV 11.

A number of features which were unavailable in earlier releases have since been migrated to the 64-bit version, including: transcoding using QuickTime codecs, the media/file information command, the ability to add a timecode track (when exporting movies and to an existing movie file), visual scene detection, the audio channel popup, rotated movie playback, audio waveform display, preserving Exif metadata when exporting stills, and the ability to play and transcode image sequences.

New features in CatDV 10.1

The following features were added since CatDV 10.0:

Support for calculating and verifying MD5 checksums
Support for systems integrators to extend the functionality of CatDV through use of a new server plugin API
Improved third party archive integration
Support for user-defined date fields
New quick import capability for image sequences and folder metaclips to catalog files without doing full media analysis
Improved handling of TIFF and camera raw images such as NEF
Still metaclips to treat JPEG and RAW versions of the same image as a single asset
Support for spanned Canon XF and CF clips
Support for Cache-A library units
Sequence editing with multiple video tracks
Bulk import and export of .cdv catalog files to and from the server
Preserve folder hierarchy when copying or moving P2, XDCAM and RED metaclips.
Performance improvements and improved handling of Unicode characters in filenames
Other improvements to the Reanalyse Media command, scene detection, XML batch file support, integration with Adobe Premiere CC and Final Cut Pro X, the CatDV error log viewer, and more
New Pegasus Client application with support for RED metaclips, label printing, and AAF integration with Avid Media Composer

Some of these features are only available in certain editions or with the purchase of additional options.

CatDV 10.0 includes the following main changes since CatDV 9:

New "Slate" look and feel
New pluggable exporter framework to support transcoding using different media libraries
Improved QuickTime exporter, with better control over frame size, ability to specify additional QuickTime annotations (and set these from variables), and ability to add a second audio track with different settings.
Completely new Xuggle exporter (if the 3rd party Xuggle library is installed), giving support for additional formats (including ability to burn in text and timecode and deinterlace the video)
Support for importing, playing, and transcoding media using DirectShow (Windows only)
Simplified Export As Movie dialog and proxy settings in Preferences. Ensure user interface and capabilities are consistent between CatDV 10 and Worker Node 5.
New Disk Space Tool for scanning folders and reporting files that use the most space (by file type and location, and with support for identifying duplicates)
New Paste Thumbnails command to copy thumbails from one clip to another (similar to how Paste Metadata works)
Support for reading metadata and thumbnails from Adobe Illustrator and InDesign files, also from Office Open XML files (.docx, .xslx, .pptx, etc.)
Ability to create even larger thumbnail sizes (up to 512x384, from previous limit of 256x192), though these will increase the amount of memory used by the catalog
Support for HTTP streaming proxies as an alternative to mounting proxies via the file system by entering an http: URL for the current location in Media Search Paths preferences (requires separate HTTP media server).
You can now use JPEG stills (created in an external application for formats that CatDV can't natively play) as path-based proxy files. CatDV looks for proxies with the same name as the original file or with extension .mov, .mp4 or .jpg.
Support for logging on to server using corporate Active Directory credentials (requires CatDV Enterprise Server 6.7 or later with LDAP support)
Support for obtaining a client license code from the CatDV license server (requires CatDV Server 6.7 or later)
Improved integration with Adobe Premiere Pro (new Send To Premiere CS6 command, and a Premiere CS6 plug-in search panel to search for clips on the server directly from within the Premiere application)
Improved integration with Avid Media Composer (importing ALE files now links to the media; new context menu commands in the event markers table to copy and paste markers from Avid)
Support for Cache-A library (requires enhanced Archiving Option) and other Cache-A improvements such as a button to eject tapes, better messages when restoring files, and improvements to the Check Archive Status command
Support for reading metadata from DPX files, and better support for DPX image sequences if 3rd party Glue Tools codec is installed
QuickTime fixes and enhancements, including better handling of accented and long filenames when importing and exporting movies and the ability to create 'fast start' flattened movies
Audio scrubbing when the playhead is dragged (you can turn this on in Media Playback preferences)