For the past few months I've been working on a brand new app to help digital techs on set. Capturebot 2 is designed to help digital techs manage their sessions by building a shotlist and tracking files ensuring that everything is named and processed correctly.
The History
The premise behind Capturebot is something I, and others like Brian von Glahn, have been messing with for a while. I'd built scripts and small command line tools to traverse the file system matching RAW file and output file together, but they were always a little clunky. I'd get something working on my computer, send it to a friend to test, only to find they set their sessions up differently, so the tool didn't work. Each time I shelved the idea because the scope was too large.
The work on Capturebot really began when I got the dreaded call after a shoot asking about some files. I checked my backup only to discover that, indeed, at the end of a week-long shoot a couple shots were missing output. I used that session as a standard test when building Capturebot.
What Capturebot Does
Capturebot, at its core, searches for RAW files and output files in order to find errors that I'm sure every digital tech has encountered at some point. It's designed to be flexible enough for any workflow and fast enough that Capturebot can be used throughout a shoot to help catch possible issues early.
The entire system is built on a powerful token-based file matching system which scans your session for RAW files and assigns them to shots. It can also be used to automatically build your shotlist as you go, for those shoots where you don't have a pre-built shotlist. Any files that are in the wrong folder or have naming errors will be flagged foe easy review.
Capturebot can also read metadata from your RAW files. This is particularly useful in the cases where an art director needs to make selects on set as you can easily see what shots have tagged or rated images, and how many of each. The metadata can be read from Capture One settings files, XMP sidecars, and even directly from inside an EIP.
By leveraging the same token engine Capturebot can quickly identify any RAW files that are missing output. For each process recipe you define a corresponding output pattern which tells Capturebot exactly where to expect to find the file. Any missing files are shown in a list so you don't have to hunt for them.
Finally Capturebot can generate reports in a variety of formats for your session. The reports can be shared with the photographer, client, producer, or anyone else as a way to help verify that everything is as it should be. You can make reports for the whole session or for individual shots as needed.
Where to Get It
Capturebot has been in an extended beta by some of the top techs in the industry and is now available for download. There is a fully-featured two week trial available and it can be purchased for $99, which includes a full year of updates. Ongoing updates are available with a $49/year subscription.
The updates subscription is, of course, optional, and importantly you will always keep what you've paid for.
I have big plans for Capturebot with a long list of features to add like shot status tracking, metadata import and writing, customizable reports, rule-based output matching, additional summaries, and more.
Give Capturebot a try, read the documentation, and let me know how it fits into your workflow.
