Why Catalyst Production Suite?
You’ve heard it already: “The Catalyst Production Suite fuses powerful media preparation and fast, focused video
editing to provide the backbone for your video productions.” What does that really mean to you? Why do you
need the Catalyst Production Suite, and what’s the workflow?
While every situation is different, all workflows share a general process of moving media from your camera
through to final delivery, and the Catalyst Production Suite takes you through that process with critical tools that
help you do your work more efficiently.
Let’s take a look at that general workflow so we can understand when and why you can use Catalyst Prepare andCatalyst Edit in order to do what you do best. In the process, you’ll begin to understand how you will use theseapplications to cover the details of your unique workflow.

The post-production process
Of course, you have a million things todo to get your production underway.
You know how to develop a story,
choose the right gear, plan and executea shoot, and so on. Once you’ve covered
all of that, you need to work quickly andwith confidence in your tools to turn yourraw materials — footage from a variety ofcameras, second-source audio, still images,etc. — into a cohesive story that not only
makes sense, but also compels your viewers
to watch.
You could just jump right into your nonlinear
video editing software and start choppingaway at your footage. Sometimes, thedeadline demands this exact approach.
Sometimes you just have to get that story on
the air as fast as you possibly can, but that’s notalways the most efficient way to work. Othertimes a project’s success requires a more organized approach.

© 2015. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved.

The Catalyst Production Suite can cover you both ways. If you just need to start cutting and deliver at lightning
speed, you might feel compelled to jump straight to Catalyst Edit and use its focused timeline cutting toolset todeliver the job. Even in those instances, Catalyst Prepare offers tools that help you quickly get your media into
post production. Since the more measured, organized approach that other projects require really encompasses
all of the steps of the run-and-gun approach, let’s concentrate on that workflow. When you understand that,you’ll decide which steps of the process you can eliminate to get the lightning-speed turnaround that thoseurgent project demand.

Organize your work with Catalyst Prepare
Catalyst Prepare operates under this simple
belief: the less time you spend organizing
your work, the more extra time you spend
to get it done. With Catalyst Prepare, youorganize your work up front so that you canavoid the headaches and wasted time thatlack of organization causes later.
SET YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
The first step in the post-production process
might actually start before or during theshoot. Catalyst Prepare can help you on set in a number of ways. First, before you even arrive on location, youcan create a new Catalyst Prepare library on your laptop that includes bins for all of the shots you plan to take.
For instance, you might have a Close ups bin, a Wide shots bin, a B-roll outside bin, and a B-roll inside bin —whatever structure helps you organize. With that done, let’s head off to the shoot.
ON-SET CONFIDENCE
Once on set, particularly if you shoot in RAW or S-log, you want to make sure that each shot looks the way you
want it to look before you strike the set or dismiss the actors. Before you move on to the next shot, connect yourcamera media (either from the camera directly or with a card reader, etc.) to your laptop and use Catalyst Prepare
to view what you just shot. Sony CineAlta and newer XDCAM cameras embed metadata into the files that contain
look-up table information to define the color space you shoot in. Catalyst Prepare automatically reads that color
information from the clips so you instantly see your footage in all of its high dynamic range and wide color
gamut glory. In other words, you see what you shot exactly as it will look so you know immediately whether you
got what you were after. Of course, you can experiment with other color look-up tables and make other color
adjustments to clips to get what you need.
If you have a color reference monitor on set,
send the video feed from Catalyst Prepare toyour monitor to get a true view of what you
just shot. If you’re not happy with the colors
or the shot for some reason, it’s a lot easier
to adjust the lighting or your camera now —with everyone still in place — than it will be toreconstruct the scene later if you realize thenthat you have a problem.

© 2015. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved.

Now that you’re happy with everything you shot, you might run into another problem: you might fill up yourcamera media completely. Before you move onto the next shot, you might want the safety of a secure backup ofwhat you already shot in order to cover for you if you mistakenly record over your keeper footage. Use CatalystPrepare to copy one or more files from your camera media to a safety hard drive, or — for the ultimate safety— quickly save a backup of your camera media image onto your hard drive, complete with the confidence ofchecksum verification. After you have a backup, you’re free to wipe the camera media clean so that you canshoot more footage.
The on-set confidence that Catalyst Prepare provides can not only make your shoot a lot less stressful, it can start
your post-production process before anyone else on set even realizes that they’re done shooting a scene, andthat translates to less work you’ll have to do later.
ORGANIZE, LOG, APPLY COLOR ADJUSTMENTS, AND SPECIFY AUDIO CHANNEL MAPPINGWith the shoot complete and you back at the shop, the post-production process really kicks in. You probably have avariety of camera media or hard drives that contain the footage you shot and now you need to get organized. Infact, you might start this process while still on set, especially if you have a dedicated Digital Imaging Technicianon set with you to help manage all the media you create, but for this discussion, let’s assume you’ve waited until
you’re back from the shoot to start this. Now you can start populating all of those bins you created earlier.
Use Catalyst Prepare to navigate to your assets. If you still have the footage on your camera media or atemporary hard drive, back it up to the location you want to pull it from while you edit. Copy the footage to thenew location in bulk, or preview each clip to find the ones you want and copy just those. With copies of all theassets you want, drag the footage into the bins you created earlier. Now you’re getting organized!
Once you have your footage in the proper bins, use Catalyst Prepare to log the keeper portion of each clip. If aclip has more than one important section you need to use, create subclips for each section. Pop into Adjust Colormode and tweak the colors of any clips that need help. Need to change the exposure, tint or Kelvin on S-Log
or RAW clips? Check. Need to change brightness, contrast or saturation? Check. Need elegant tone curve, lift/gamma/gain controls, and color wheel controls? Catalyst Prepare covers you there, too.
Now, map the audio channel structure for each file. If the files contain more audio channels than you used,disable the unused ones. Then, name the audio channels you did use with names that make sense to you, suchas Overhead Mic, or Lav Mic 1 and Lav Mic 2.
Catalyst Prepare logs all of these adjustments and settings into the active library automatically as you makethem, and the time you take to do it here saves you significant time later when you get to Catalyst Edit to cut
your story together.
CREATE A ROUGH CUT
If you have an idea that you want to quickly
cut together, create a new storyboard, add
clips and subclips to it, and rearrange the clips
to the order you want. You can further log andmake color adjustments to the individual clips
in your storyboard and these adjustments
remain independent of the adjustments you
make to the clips outside of the storyboard.

© 2015. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved.

TRANSCODE AND EXPORTAt any time during your process, you can transcode your library clips to a wide variety of important formats.
This “bakes in” all the logging decisions and color adjustments you made so you can use them in another tool
down the production process line. The Catalyst Production Suite offers you a huge advantage here because
you can skip this transcode step entirely if you use Catalyst Edit to cut your video together later. Catalyst Edit
automatically recognizes and uses all of this nondestructive information.
You can also transcode your storyboards either to separate files (one for each clip in the storyboard) or to asingle file that contains all of the clips in the storyboard sequence. You can also send your storyboard up to theSony Media Cloud Services Ci network and invite your clients or collaborators to review your work and provide
feedback. If you plan to use a different tool than Catalyst Edit to work further on your project, export yourstoryboard as an EDL for various tools.

Create your story with Catalyst Edit
With all of this organizational work done inCatalyst Prepare, it’s time to create your story.
You can use Catalyst Prepare regardless of thetool you use to edit your project, but to takefull advantage of your organizational and prepwork, fire up Catalyst Edit. As we discussed
above, when you use a different tool, youneed to transcode all of your media in order
to “bake in” the logging decisions you made,the color adjustments you decided upon, andso on. When you use Catalyst Edit as yournonlinear editor, all of the work you did in Catalyst Prepare comes over “for free.” In other words, you don’t needto spend the time and storage space that an extra transcode requires. Catalyst Edit seamlessly — and instantly— recognizes your Catalyst Prepare library including all of the bins, logging decisions, color adjustments, audio
channel mapping, and storyboards that you created. This requires no transcoding, so it saves you significant
time and hassle. Since Catalyst Edit supports the same wide range of formats from Sony and other camera
manufacturers as Catalyst Prepare, you can always add clips directly to your timeline in order to mix and matchthe best clips from any camera.
Use the Catalyst Edit Media Browser to navigate to your Catalyst Prepare library just like you would navigate
folders on a hard drive. Browse into each bin and preview your media. When you find what you want, notice thatthe in and out points you logged in Catalyst Prepare appear here, and you can adjust them further if you need to.
Add the file to the Catalyst Edit timeline. All of the color adjustment work comes along and only the material you
included between the in and out points you logged come into the timeline. Of course, if you change your mind,
you can change the in and out points of the clip on the timeline to include more or less of the clip.
Your project’s main timeline properties automatically match the properties of the first video clip you add to it,
including the audio channel mapping you completed in Catalyst Prepare. Naturally, if again you change yourmind, use the tools in Catalyst Edit to make the adjustments you need.

© 2015. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate to one of the storyboards you created and add it to your timeline. The storyboard appears as a single
clip on the timeline you added it to, and Catalyst Edit automatically creates a new nested timeline that you candrill into if you need to access each individual clip within the storyboard to trim clip length, rearrange clips, or any
other edit you want to make.

Finish and deliver
Now you’re on your way to finishing your project. If you need to, you can easily bounce back and forth between
Catalyst Edit and Catalyst Prepare as you work. When you’re done with your edit, you can render your project
into the delivery formats you need.
Hopefully, this gives you a solid understanding of the Catalyst Production Suite and your workflow when you
use it. Of course, you’ll find your own ways to make the tools work more effectively for your specific project orworking style, and that’s the beauty of a system: the pieces work in a tightly integrated manner that enables
you to change the process as little or as much as you need to so that you can get your job done. The tools in theCatalyst Production Suite work together seamlessly to take the necessary practical tasks out of your way so thatyou can explore fresh ideas on your creative journey.

© 2015. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved.