K-Watch & K-Manager Pro

Application Software

User Manual
K-Watch & K-Manager Pro

Patent Information
This product may be protected by one or more patents.
For further information, please visit: www.grassvalley.com/patents/

Copyright and Trademark Notice

Grass Valley®, GV® and the Grass Valley logo and/or any of the Grass Valley products
listed in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of GVBB Holdings SARL,
Grass Valley USA, LLC, or one of its affiliates or subsidiaries. All other intellectual property
rights are owned by GVBB Holdings SARL, Grass Valley USA, LLC, or one of its affiliates or
subsidiaries. All third party intellectual property rights (including logos or icons) remain
the property of their respective owners.
Copyright © 2021 GVBB Holdings SARL and Grass Valley USA, LLC. All rights reserved.
Specifications are subject to change without notice.

Terms and Conditions

Please read the following terms and conditions carefully. By using K-Watch and K-
Manager Pro documentation, you agree to the following terms and conditions.
Grass Valley hereby grants permission and license to owners of K-Watch and K-
Manager Pro to use their product manuals for their own internal business use. Manuals
for Grass Valley products may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any
purpose unless specifically authorized in writing by Grass Valley.
A Grass Valley manual may have been revised to reflect changes made to the product
during its manufacturing life. Thus, different versions of a manual may exist for any given
product. Care should be taken to ensure that one obtains the proper manual version
for a specific product serial number.
Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not
represent a commitment on the part of Grass Valley.
Warranty information is available from the Legal Terms and Conditions section of Grass
Valley’s website. (See www.grassvalley.com.)

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K-Watch and K-Manager Pro

Acknowledgements
"Microsoft® product screen shots reprinted with kind permission from the Microsoft
CorporationTM."

Before Starting
This User Instruction Manual will help you through each stage of the setup, configuration
and operation. If you have any questions regarding the use and operation of your K-
Watch software, please refer to the Service Support contact details listed at the rear of
this manual.

Before you can use this Product

 Make sure that your Kahuna Mainframe is running V9.3r1 software or greater.
Important:
 You have to load Kahuna MSP software onto your PC to have access to K-
Watch. When Kahuna MSP is loaded correctly, K-Watch will automatically be
installed onto your PC and you will see a K-Watch icon in your PC’s
desktop.

K-Watch application software can be used in two modes:

(1) In stand-alone mode where the PC converts stills, clips or audio files and stores
them on an internal or external memory device.

(2) With K-Manager Pro (licence purchase for Kahuna required), the PC converts the
stills, clips or audio files and sends them to the Kahuna mainframe over a network.

Minimum System Requirements

Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J3355 @ 2.00GHz, 2001Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical
Processor(s)
Installed Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB (3.85 GB usable)
System Type: 64-bit Operating System, x64-based processor
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Graphics: Intel(R) HD Graphics
HDD: 64GB.

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Table of Contents

Patent Information ............................................................................................................................. 1

Copyright and Trademark Notice ...................................................................................................... 1

Terms and Conditions ....................................................................................................................... 1

K-Watch and K-Manager Pro ............................................................................................................ 2

Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 2
Before Starting .............................................................................................................................. 2
Before you can use this Product ................................................................................................ 2
Minimum System Requirements ................................................................................................ 2

Overview ........................................................................................................................................... 4

K-Watch Quick Setup ........................................................................................................................ 5

Step 1 - Setup K-Watch Menus ................................................................................................. 5
Step 2 - Naming the Incoming .TGA Files ................................................................................. 7
Supported Formats .................................................................................................................... 7
Step 3 - Naming the .MOV File .................................................................................................. 8
Step 4 While K-Watch is Running .............................................................................................. 9

K-Watch File Naming Conventions ................................................................................................. 10

Creating Stills ........................................................................................................................... 10
Creating Clips .......................................................................................................................... 10
AVI Files .................................................................................................................................. 11
Naming the Clip ........................................................................................................................... 12
Start K-Watch Running ............................................................................................................ 12
Additional Information .............................................................................................................. 13

K-Watch Menu Controls Explained ................................................................................................. 14

K-Manager Pro Settings .................................................................................................................. 17

1. SysLog Server ...................................................................................................................... 18
2. K-Watch Network ................................................................................................................. 18
3. IP Gateways ......................................................................................................................... 19
Technical Information .................................................................................................................. 19

Other Parameter Buttons ................................................................................................................ 20

Grass Valley Technical Support ...................................................................................................... 21

Corporate Head Office .................................................................................................................... 21

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Overview

K-Watch works by constantly looking at a “WATCH” folder on your PC. Any video or still
files which are placed in that folder will automatically be converted to the Kahuna .SWS
format and the required video standard (as set by the user). The converted files are
placed into a “DESTINATION” folder.
The New Kahuna Watch software is faster than the original K-Watch software. All
popular video, and still formats are supported.

Important Note: Newer files of same name placed in watch folder, will update previously converted file
in destination folder or any existing files with the same file number will be overwritten if
newer!

With K-manager Pro these files can be automatically uploaded to your mainframe via a
network (mainframe option file licence required).

You can have several of these watch services running at the same time – each can
have different conversion settings.

The .SWS files are sent to a project in a specified “Destination Folder” on the computer.
If the computer is networked to a Kahuna mainframe, the .SWS files will be uploaded to
a specified project on the Kahuna mainframe.

.SWS
.AVI .JPG

.TGA .BMP

Stills & Clips

Loaded into the PC

K-Manager Pro
(Option license)
Ethernet Connection

Kahuna
.SWS Mainframe Hard
Drive

PC Hard Drive

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K-Watch Quick Setup

This is a basic step by step overview of how to setup and use K-Watch to convert .TGA
files (video clip) into the Kahuna .SWS native format. Convert a .MOV file into a Kahuna
.SWS file.

Step 1 - Setup K-Watch Menus

The first thing to do is to setup a “Watch” folder and a “Destination” folders on your PC.
This is so that K-Watch can receive, convert and place converted files into a Destination
folder.
Important: When done, double click on the K-Watch icon.

Open K-Watch software

and the first menu to be
displayed is the Kahuna
Watch menu. 1. Click “Add” to open Add New
Watch

2. Name the file, so the clips can be identified in

the Kahuna Watch table in the menu above.

3. Click browse for the Watch Folder

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Note: All the menu parameters will be explained in detail in the following sections.

Finally, setup the “Add New Watch” menu to convert the incoming files.

4. Click browse for the Destination Folder

5. Select the type of Video Standard the files will

be converted to.

6. Select the File Attributes

7. File Management - Select “Split Large Files

(FAT32)”
Note: Only necessary when importing large files
via an external USB device.
Make sure that this is selected at all times just in
case the converted .SWS file is larger than 4Gb in
size. If it is larger than 4Gb it cannot be loaded into
Kahuna.
K-Watch software will split the files down and
place them in a .SWS folder, the folder is
recognised as a clip when loaded into Kahuna.

8. When finished, click on “OK”

The Kahuna Watch menu will now look like this with the Watch and Destination folders setup:

Note:
If you close down the K-Watch user interface, any watch folders that have been
scheduled, will carry on running in the background as a service, if new files are
dropped into the “Watch” folder.

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Step 2 - Naming the Incoming .TGA Files

Supported Formats

A list of supported media file formats can be found at:

https://www.ffmpeg.org/general.html#Supported-File-Formats_002c-Codecs-or-
Features

It is important to understand how to name .TGA files before placing them into the
Watch folder. For more detailed information, read the “K-Watch File Naming
Conventions” section of this manual.
When creating a sequence of .TGA files to create a .SWS clip, please follow the naming
conventions example below:

Name of the Clip. “A” Tells K-Watch to look for an

The number will become the file Audio file in the list of files.
number of the .SWS file.

Clip1A_6_000.TGA
The number sequence of the
The total number of .TGA files in the .TGA files i.e.
clip which = total number of individual 000.TGA
Frames in the clip. 001.TGA
002.TGA etc.
Note: Number indicates the number of
frames in clip sequence.

Important: When giving the clip a name i.e. “Clip1”, after the first character in the name, do not
have any other capital letters because if an “A”, “F” or “K” is added after the first
character the software will think that the file contains Audio, Fill or Key files and the .TGA
files will not be converted to .SWS.
Note: If the .TGA files have embedded Key data (alpha channel), then there is no need to let
the sequence know about ‘F’ Fill or ‘K’ Key data and un-checking the “Ignore Alpha
/Key Data” function would use the embedded alpha data in the file for the key
channel.

The .TGA file sequence will look like this: The .SWS file will look like this:

Clip1A_6_000.TGA
Clip1A_6_001.TGA
Clip Sequence of .TGA
Clip1A_6_002.TGA files = 6 Frames long Converted
Clip1A_6_003.TGA 1.SWS Clip
Clip1A_6_004.TGA
Clip1A_6_005.TGA .WAV Audio File
= 6 Frames long
Clip1A_6_006.TGA
Audio1_6_001.WAV

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Nearly all .TGA Stills and Clips already have Fill and Key (Alpha) data, so the following
steps would only need to be taken if a file has no Key data.
If the sequence of .TGA files are made up of 50% “Fill” files and 50% “Key” files, then the
naming convention should be as follows:
Remember: After “Clip1” in each .TGA file, “F” = Fill, “K” = Key and “A” = Audio

Clip1FA_6_000.TGA
Clip1FA_6_001.TGA
Clip1FA_6_002.TGA
This will create a clip Converted
Clip1FA_6_003.TGA
with “Fill” and “Key” 1.SWS Clip with
Clip1K_6_001.TGA portions, with 1 frame of Fill, Key
Clip1K_6_002.TGA “Audio” attached to the and Audio.
Clip1K_6_003.TGA Fill portion of the clip
Clip1K_6_004.TGA
Audio1F_1_001.WAV

Step 3 - Naming the .MOV File

Naming the .MOV file is very simple.

Example: Newsclip1.MOV

Name of the Clip. Converted

The number will Clip
become the file number
of the .SWS file.
Newsclip1.MOV = 1.SWS

Any Audio, Fill or Key information will be embedded into the file so that the file will just
convert to .SWS.
Note: If the .MOV file is 2.5Gb or more, the resultant .SWS file will be larger than 4Gb. K-Watch
software will split the file down and place the split files into a .SWS folder (shown below).

Original .MOV clip

SWS Folder - The user will see The .SWS folder

this file in the Destination folder. contains these files that
are split down to be
smaller than 4Gb in size

Note: When loaded into Kahuna, the .SWS folder is seen as a clip and will run just like any
other clip.

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Step 4 While K-Watch is Running

Place the .TGA or .MOV files into the “Watch Folder” and K-Watch will start to convert
the files to .SWS format.
Look in the Destination folder for the converted files.

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K-Watch File Naming Conventions

Creating Stills
The creation of a still requires the source file name to have the following naming
convention fields at the end of the file name:

{Output File Number}

{Optional ‘F’, ‘K’ or ‘A’ character for fill, key or audio}
{Optional ‘F’, ‘K’ or ‘A’ character for fill, key or audio}

Note: A key channel will automatically be created, if the source file contains a fill and key.

Examples:

Ex 1.
Still001.TGA - This will convert the still to “1.SWS”
10.TGA – This will convert single .TGA file to “10.SWS”

Ex 2.
Still001F.BMP
This will look for a Key source file “Still001K.BMP” before creating “1.SWS” with Fill + Key

Ex 3.
Still001A.TGA
This will look for an audio source file “Still001.WAV” before creating “1.SWS” with Fill + Fill
Audio.

Ex 4.
Still001FA.TGA
This will look for key source file “Still001K.TGA” and “Still001.WAV” before creating
“1.SWS” with Fill + Key + Fill Audio.

Creating Clips
The creation of a clip requires the source file name to have the following naming
convention fields at the end of the file name:

{Output File Number}

{Optional ‘F’, ‘K’ or ‘A’ character for fill, key or audio}
{Single Non-Numeric Character}
{Maximum Number of Still/Audio files}
{Single Non-Numeric Character}
{Sequence/Audio group number}

Note: Audio group number in channel pairs:

Audio group number 1 is for channels 1 and 2
Audio group number 2 is for channels 3 and 4
Audio group number 3 is for channels 5 and 6
Audio group number 4 is for channels 7 and 8

Examples:

Ex1.
Still1_3_0001.TGA
Still1_3_0002.TGA
Still1_3_0003.TGA

This converts all the .TGA files above into a clip called “1.SWS” that is 3 frames long.

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Ex 2.
Still2F_3_0001.BMP
Still2F_3_0002.BMP
Still2F_3_0003.BMP
Still2K_3_0001.BMP
Still2K_3_0002.BMP
Still2K_3_0003.BMP

This will convert all the .BMP files above into a clip called “2.SWS”, that is 3 frames long
and contains Fill + Key data.

Ex 3.
Still3FA_3_0001. BMP
Still3FA_3_0002. BMP
Still3FA_3_0003. BMP
Still3K_3_0001. BMP
Still3K_3_0002. BMP
Still3K_3_0003. BMP,
Audio3F_1_0001.WAV

This will convert all the files above into a clip called “3.SWS”, that is 3 frames long
containing Fill + Key + Fill Audio data.

Ex 4.
Still4FA_3_0001. BMP
Still4FA_3_0002. BMP
Still4FA_3_0003. BMP,
Still4KA_3_0001. BMP
Still4KA_3_0002. BMP
Still4KA_3_0003. BMP,
Audio4F_1_0001. WAV
Audio4K_1_0001. WAV

This converts all the files above into a clip called “4.SWS” clip that is 3 frames long and
contains Fill + Key + Fill Audio data + Key audio data.

AVI Files

The creation of a clip requires the source file name to have the following naming
convention field at the end of the file name:

{Output File Number}

Note: Audio data will automatically be added if source file contains audio.

Example:

5.AVI

This will convert the .AVI file into a clip called “5.SWS”

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Naming the Clip

In this example a 53 frame clip will be created using a .TGA file format (3840 x 2160)
with embedded alpha channels and a .WAV file for the audio.

Example .TGA = wipe1A_53_0000.TGA

Note The ‘A’ character is used to let the K-Watch sequence know that it requires an “Audio”
file will be associated with the .TGA files..

“A” Tells K-Watch to

Name of the Clip. look for an Audio file in
The number will the list of files.
become the file number
of the .SWS file.
wipe1A_53_0003.TGA
The total number of .TGA The number sequence
files in the clip which = total of the .TGA files i.e.
number of individual Frames 000.TGA
in the clip. 001.TGA
002.TGA etc.

Important Note: When giving the clip a name i.e. “wipe1”, after the first character in the name, do not
have any other capital letters because if an “A”, “F” or “K” is added after the first
character the software will think that the file contains Audio, Fill or Key files and the .TGA
files will not be converted to .SWS.

Example:

The audio file example name = audio1_53_0001.WAV

The audio file should be placed in the “Watch” folder at the same time as the .TGA files
so that it can be associated with .TGA files

Important Note: If the .TGA files have embedded Key data (Alpha channel), then there is no need to let
the sequence know about ‘F’ Fill or ‘K’ Key data and un-checking the “Ignore Alpha
/Key Data” would use the embedded alpha data in the file for the key channel.

Start K-Watch Running

After finishing naming the files, place all the .TGA files into the “Watch” folder and the
conversion process will automatically start.

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Additional Information

Note: This information would only be needed if the files do not contain a Key (Alpha) data.
From the information above, if the sequence of .TGA files are made up of 50% “Fill” files
and 50% “Key” files, then the naming convention should be as follows:
The number of .TGA files needs to increase to 54 to have an even number of Fill and
Key files.

wipe1FA_54_0000.TGA
to
wipe1FA_54_0027.TGA
wipe1K_54_0028.TGA
to
wipe1K_54_0054.TGA
audio1F_10_0001.WAV

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K-Watch Menu Controls Explained

Double click on the K-Watch system tray icon in the bottom right of the Windows
Desktop and the K-Watch table will be displayed.

To setup the K-Watch process, Press the {Add…} button, and the Add New Watch
menu will appear.

The Add New Watch menu is where all the parameters are set for the conversion of the
incoming files.

Watch Name – is the name given to the individual Watch project – the name will also
be displayed in the K-Watch table.

Watch Folder – here, the user selects the Watch Folder on the PC hard drive, where the
incoming stills, clips and audio files are placed.

Destination Folder – here the user selects the Destination Folder where the files are
placed after the conversion process.

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Output Video Properties:

Frame Size – there are two options for this.
 Original - In this mode Watch will not perform any resizing of the image.
 Match Video Standard - When this is selected, Watch will resize the image to
match the video standard using the parameters below.

Output Video Standard – this drop-down menu selects the video standard for the
created .sws file

Input Aspect Ratio –

 4:3 or 16:9 - defines how images are interpreted for its aspect.
 Square Pixel - assumes that the pixels in the input image are square. This setting
is ignored for HD video standards.

Position & Scale – this sets the position of the out-going .sws file relative to the Input
Aspect Ratio.
 Full Width will set the input image width to follow the output video width while
maintaining the aspect ratio.
 Full Height will set the input image height to follow the output image height
while maintaining the aspect ratio.
Interpolation – selects the type of filter to be used for resizing input image.
 Best Quality - recommended interpolation filter designed for resizing video
images.
 Fastest - standard resize interpolation filter

File Attributes:
In the File Attributes section, the settings will be applied to all the files converted.

Exclude Audio – will only allow the video portion to pass

Ignore Alpha / Key – Nearly all still and clip files will contain Key (Alpha) data. So keep
this box un-ticked. This function is only required if Key (alpha) data is not required when
converting files.
Playback Settings:
Auto Play – a clip will automatically play when it is loaded into the Kahuna Store
Loop Play – Loop Mode is selected and the clip will continuously play when it is loaded
into the Kahuna Store.
Override play rate – adjusting this parameter will set the play speed of the clip when it is
loaded into the Kahuna Store.

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Playback mode:
 Field – switches playback to interlaced
 Frame – switches play back to progressive
 Field 1 & 2 Only – will play either interlaced frames 1 or 2 only
 Field Swap – will swap Field 1 and Field 2 around at playback

File Management:

Split Large Files (FAT32) – this will split down a clip that is over 4Gb in size. The split files will
go into a .SWS folder so that the folder can be imported into a Kahuna mainframe.

Note: Splitting Large Files - Only necessary when importing files via an external USB device.
Not necessary when importing via MSP.

Delete source after conversion – when selected will delete the source file from the
Watch Folder.

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K-Manager Pro Settings

K-Watch can work with media files on both local and network drives. If you intend K-
Watch to process files on network shares, credentials may be necessary to gain access
to those folders, and those credentials need entering above. In many organisations,
credentials will be required to access network drives.

A dialog box will appear the first time you open the K-Watch software. This allows you to
add “Network Share Credentials” to allow K-Manager Pro to connect and use K-Watch
on a network. If you only want to use K-Watch locally on your PC, click on the {Skip}
button.

With the optional K-Manager Pro licence installed in your Kahuna Mainframe, K-Watch
can transfer the converted files directly into a specific project on a mainframe.
This is setup using the “Mainframe Connection” settings.

The file “browse” buttons will display a list of available Mainframes and Projects on the
selected Mainframe.

Any files in the destination project with the same number will be overwritten.

Once you have set up your Watch, click OK on the dialogue.

Select your new Watch in the table and click on the Run button.

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1. SysLog Server

K-Watch is capable of using an external Syslog server to save its diagnostic output.
Syslog can be used to display log files showing information about files that have been
converted or any error messages.

Below is an example form a SysLog server showing a list of files that have been
converted through K-Watch.

2. K-Watch Network

Control of network adapters, IP port number info and resetting connections to services.

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3. IP Gateways

Technical Information

The following is list of K-watch ports that require privilege on your network. The MSP
installer currently sets up group policies to enable this, however your IT department
ought to be aware of the following:

Kahuna Watch fixed ports 5990 & 5988 - UDP communication between K360
mainframe and Kahuna Transfer Service.

Kahuna Watch fixed ports 43740, 43741, 43742 – TCP communication between Kahuna
Watch GUI, Kahuna Watch Service and Kahuna Transfer Service.

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Other Parameter Buttons

Remove - To remove a file from the K-Watch table, click on a file to select it, and
then press the {Remove} button.
Edit – Will display the “Edit Watch” menu, which will allow you to change parameter
settings; for example File Attributes or File Settings,
Pause – this can be used to pause the conversion process and K-Watch will wait.
Run – will start the conversion process running once more.

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Grass Valley Technical Support

For technical assistance, contact our international support center, at
1-800-547-8949 (US and Canada) or +1 530 478 4148.
To obtain a local phone number for the support center nearest you, please consult the
Contact Us section of Grass Valley’s website (www.grassvalley.com).
An on-line form for e-mail contact is also available from the website.

Corporate Head Office

Grass Valley
3499 Douglas-B.-Floreani
St-Laurent, Quebec H4S 2C6
Canada
Telephone: +1 514 333 1772
Fax: +1 514 333 9828
www.grassvalley.com

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