Managing Items

It is easy to select more than one item at once. Hold the Shift key down while clicking the last item you wish to select. This will select all items in between the first and the last clicked item. To select all playlist items, use the Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut assigned by default or choose the "Select all" command from the "Edit" main menu.

The copy and paste commands are available from "Edit" main menu:

You can also copy items by dragging-and-dropping them inside the list. Select an item and hold the Ctrl key down during the action.

To copy the content of a read-only field for the playlist item, use the "Copy current field" command from its context menu.

To move an item to another playlist position, simply drag-and-drop it.

To replace an existing Cinegy Air playlist item with another one, drag a new item from the integrated browser or File Explorer over the item that you wish to replace and drop it while holding the Ctrl key down.

The following dialog appears asking you to define the parameters of replacement:

Select the "Keep secondary events" option to preserve the defined secondary events of the item after its content replacement. You can define to keep the secondary events only if they fit into the new item duration by selecting the corresponding option.

To keep the duration value of the item whose content is being replaced, select the "Keep original duration" option.

You can also define to keep the In and Out points of the original item if they fit into the new media duration. For example, there is a clip with 02:00:00:00 start timecode and its duration is 90 minutes. This clip has In point set at 02:30:00:00 and Out point at 03:00:00:00. This means that the playlist item duration is 30 minutes. If the new clip timecode is within 02:00:00:00 - 03:30:00:00 range, the In and Out points will be preserved after media replacement. Otherwise, the In point will be set equal to the new clip start timecode, the playlist item duration is preserved and equals 30 minutes.

If there is more than one instance of an initial item in the playlist, you can replace all of them by checking the "Replace all instances of this item" option. The number in brackets indicates how many instances of the same item are present in current playlist.

When an item is dragged-and-dropped on top of another playlist item with the Alt key down, only the media content of the item is replaced with the In/Out points, metadata and secondary events are preserved. This will be automatically applied to all instances of the item having the same Traffic ID value as defined for the playlist item on which the new material is being dragged-and-dropped. If Traffic ID value is not defined, the new material is applied to all the instances of the initial item in the playlist. The confirmation dialog appears if more than one item will be refreshed during this operation.

When an item is added to the playlist, its modification date is internally saved. If the file-based item or a node from Cinegy Archive is modified after being inserted to the playlist, this playlist item will be displayed in blue in the playlist table and it can be updated. Use the commands described below to update playlist item(s).

The *.MCRitem added to the playlist from the defined shared folder (e.g. Inventory) can be overwritten according to the latest changes applied via the Cinegy Desktop application. The modifications in file-based items and Cinegy Archive nodes are also monitored. Once the item is modified and saved into the same location, it can be automatically refreshed in Cinegy Air by using the "Update selected" command. To perform this action, select the item you wish to update and choose the "Update selected" command from the "File" main menu:

Select the "Update all" command from the "File" main menu to update the content of all modified items in the playlist.

If the item duration has changed, the following dialog will be open:

Here define whether the playlist item duration should be updated by selecting "Yes" or "No" correspondingly. Select "Yes to all" to update the duration of all instances of the same item present in the playlist.

Once the updating has been completed, the report window will be displayed:

To make a comment on an item, simply double-click the "Comment" field of the item in your playlist and add or edit the text. Hit Esc to cancel the operation.

You can change the item name by double-clicking the selected item name field and entering a new name. It is also possible to rename the selected item in the item name field on the selected item editor panel by using the F2 keyboard shortcut. You can cancel the operation by hitting Esc.

The "Orig Asp" column displays the original aspect ratio of an item. To set the source aspect ratio for files inserted into the playlist, select the required value from the "Orig Asp" pull-down list.

To change the target aspect ratio, choose the required format from the "Targ Asp" pull-down list. If the "Stretch" value is selected, the target video stream is stretched to fill the entire frame.

Cinegy Desktop allows adding custom metadata to video materials that are stored in the Cinegy Archive database.

The custom metadata descriptors can have text or Boolean values.

Video material along with defined custom metadata can be exported as MCRitem and then used in a Cinegy Air playlist. Custom metadata values can also be used in CG templates with corresponding macros for sending to playout.

Having inserted an MCRitem into the playlist, select the "Custom Metadata…​" command from the "Item" main menu:

Alternatively, use the "Custom metadata" command from the selected item context menu.

The "Custom metadata" dialog will appear listing all available descriptors and their values for the currently selected item. Check the corresponding descriptor, it will be displayed in the playlist table in the new column:

To show all available custom metadata, use the "Display all custom metadata" command from the "View" main menu:

It will analyze all playlist items and create a column for each available custom metadata descriptor with their values display.

The custom metadata values can be changed directly in the playlist table.

If there is a need to manually correct In and Out timecodes, simply double-click the "In" or "Out" table column you wish to change and enter a new timecode. You should keep in mind that the new duration value cannot be higher than the original or less than 0.5 seconds.

The following error messages appear if the In or Out points are not set correctly: