Kollaborate 2.7.1 - Oct 3 2018

• Admins can now restore deleted files and projects for up to 14 days
• Set file expiration dates. Files will be deleted after the date expires but can be restored by an admin for up to 14 days
• View comments in a printable view with thumbnails
• Linked accounts can now optionally access all projects created by the subscriber
• New Share option: Force users to download - This forces the user to download the file instead of playing it in the browser.
• New Share option: Automatically relink to latest version - This makes Kollaborate always display the latest version of a file even if the link was created for an earlier version.
• Share - When emailing a link, you can now choose to send the password in a separate email
• New Upload Workflow action: Don't combine versions - Ensures the file is always independent and not part of a version stack
• New Upload Workflow action: Remove original file after conversion - This automatically deletes the original file after it has been converted by our encoding servers and replaces it with the highest-quality proxy
• New File Workflow action: Set file expiration date - Modifies the file's expiration date
• Improved Adobe panel UI
• Disable Alerts has been renamed to Incognito Mode to make its function more obvious
• Folders and departments now show a blue circle icon if they contain unviewed files
• No more black thumbnails - Kollaborate now rejects black frames or frames with little information (like slates) so that thumbnails are more representative
• Storage space now updates dynamically in the bottom right corner when uploading or deleting files
• Views and downloads are now logged on a per-user basis and shown in the Users tab of the player
• Quick Look shows the name of the file at the top
• Quick Look automatically switches to the selected file when user selects a new file with the mouse and closes when files are deselected
• Quick Look - Added a button to open file in player
• Subscribers can change ownership of a project to themselves if it is owned by another user linked to their subscription
• Files - You can now see whether a file has been favorited without needing to hover over it
• Files - Improved resizing of the file table on smaller screens
• Files - Added a button to clear the current search
• Files - You can now choose to go back to the source folder when moving files instead of being taken to the destination
• Player - Individual views / downloads are now visible in the History tab
• Tightened permissions so that non-admins cannot move others' files and you now need upload permissions in order to create a folder.
• Many other bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

Post Haste for Mac 2.6.4 - Sep 14 2018

• Fixed an issue where color coding may not work correctly
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

Pro Maintenance Tools 2.2.6 - Sep 7 2018

• Project Repair - Adobe Premiere projects can now be downgraded to open in earlier versions
• Plugin Manager - Support for running scripts inside plugin installers both pre- and post-installation
• Fixed an issue where some apps may not show the Open dialog at startup
• Updated Crash Analyzer definitions
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

Kollaborate 2.7.1 is now live on the cloud, with lots of great new features.

Restore deleted files and projects

Files are no longer deleted instantly and can now be restored by an admin for up to 14 days. To view deleted files, click the Show dropdown at the top right of the Files page and select Deleted Files (note: only admins can see this option).

Deleted projects can be restored by choosing Deleted Projects from the dropdown at the top right of the Projects page. You will only see projects you created here and they can be restored for up to 14 days.

File expiration

To protect your content, files can now be given an expiration date from the Metadata page. The file will be deleted once this date passes, but can be restored by an admin for up to 14 days.

Comment print view

You can now view comments in a printable view complete with thumbnails. To do this, click Actions in the player, then go to Export Comments and choose Print. 

Linked accounts can now see all projects

When linking a subscription to your account from the Linked Accounts page, you can now choose whether the user can automatically access all projects you create. If this box is unchecked, they will be able to create new projects but will need to be specifically added to the Team page of each project in order to see them. 

Note: users linked in this way will become admins on every project.

New Share options

There are two new options on the Share page:

Force users to download - This forces the user to download the file instead of playing it in the browser. This is useful for situations where you don't intend to keep a file up for a long time and want to make sure the client downloaded it before it gets deleted.

Automatically relink to latest version - In earlier versions of the site, if you sent out a link and allowed the user to view all versions, the link would still default to the version it was originally linked to even when newer versions exist. This option makes sure that the first file shown is the latest version but still gives the option to view earlier versions.

There is also a new option when emailing a link to send the password in a separate email. This was requested by users who were concerned about link recipients forwarding the link to others.

New Workflows

There are two new Upload Workflow actions:

Don't combine versions - This prevents the uploaded file from being part of a version stack, even if the filename matches that of an existing file in the folder. Files will always be independent with this option switched on.

Remove original file after conversion - This automatically deletes the original file after it has been converted by our encoding servers and replaces it with the highest-quality proxy. This is useful for saving storage space. Note that deleted original files cannot be restored by the new file restoration features. 

There is also a new File Workflow action:

Set file expiration date - This allows you to automatically change the file's expiration date. This is very useful for creating content lifecycles - you can now create multiple File Workflows and set expiration settings automatically depending on the file's sensitivity or importance. 

Improved Adobe panel UI

We've improved the UI for the Adobe panel to make it easier to download files and import markers. 

Note that this is a server-side change so you don't need to update the panel plugin itself.

Incognito Mode

We've renamed the previous Disable Alerts option to Incognito Mode to make its function more obvious.

Incognito Mode allows you to prevent your actions on the site (e.g. uploading a file or making a comment) from sending email alerts to others on the project. It is available by clicking your avatar at the top right of the screen and toggling Incognito Mode.

Unviewed folder icons

This is one of those very simple small changes that can make a big difference. You will now see a blue circle next to folders that contain unviewed files. This can be really useful when working on a big project where lots of changes are happening, so you can just follow the blue dots to find files you haven't looked at yet.

Other changes

• No more black thumbnails - Kollaborate now rejects black frames or frames with little information (like slates) so that thumbnails are more representative
• Storage space now updates dynamically in the bottom right corner when uploading or deleting files
• Views and downloads are now logged on a per-user basis and shown in the Users tab of the player
• Quick Look shows the name of the file at the top
• Quick Look automatically switches to the selected file when user selects a new file with the mouse and closes when files are deselected
• Quick Look - Added a button to open file in player
• Subscribers can change ownership of a project to themselves if it is owned by another user linked to their subscription
• Files - You can now see whether a file has been favorited without needing to hover over it
• Files - Improved resizing of the file table on smaller screens
• Files - Added a button to clear the current search
• Files - You can now choose to go back to the source folder when moving files instead of being taken to the destination
• Player - Individual views / downloads are now visible in the History tab
• Tightened permissions so that non-admins cannot move others' files and you now need upload permissions in order to create a folder.

In addition, we have conducted some server upgrades to make the site faster and more responsive.

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

We recently released Pro Maintenance Tools 2.2.6 with some great new features.

Downgrade Adobe Premiere projects

Project Repair can now downgrade Adobe Premiere projects so they can be opened in earlier versions of Premiere. After downgrading the project, Premiere will report that it was saved in an earlier version and asks you to save a copy. After doing this, the project will now be openable by Premiere.

If you use Premiere features not supported in earlier versions they will of course not work in the earlier version, so be aware of this as Adobe has recently made major changes to features like the titler.

Run scripts inside plugin installers

Plugin Manager can create installers for plugins. This is not just useful for plugin developers to distribute their plugins but can also be an easy way of backing up your plugins or moving them to another computer.

You can now run scripts both before and after installing the files in order to perform additional tasks like running a licensing step, copying or moving files or launching a web page. You can run Applescripts, Bash scripts or Swift scripts (note that some Swift scripts may not work on earlier versions of macOS). The scripts must return 0 otherwise Plugin Manager will abort the installation, which is useful in situations where you want to stop installation if a license or security check fails.

Pro Maintenance Tools is an invaluable toolset to help working video professionals get up and running again quickly in the event of a problem. To find out more, see the feature overview, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free 15-day trial.

Pro Maintenance Tools 2.2.6 - Sep 7 2018

• Project Repair - Adobe Premiere projects can now be downgraded to open in earlier versions
• Plugin Manager - Support for running scripts inside plugin installers both pre- and post-installation
• Fixed an issue where some apps may not show the Open dialog at startup
• Updated Crash Analyzer definitions
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

We've just updated our site to allow users to remotely release licenses in order to relicense a product on a new computer if they forgot to unregister it on the old one first. (This was previously possible only by contacting us.)

This currently only applies to CinePlay for Mac but we plan for all products to eventually move to the new licensing system upon their next major release.

You can access this function from the Licenses page of your account area and it will only appear if you have licenses bound to at least one computer. Customers are allowed up to two license releases per year.

In case you missed it, here are some recent software updates for our products.

Pro Media Tools 1.7.2 - Aug 1 2018

• Auto Transfer - Added a transfer log showing information about each file that was copied. Transfer logs are per-project and can be accessed from the View menu.
• Auto Transfer - Added a right-click menu to the Destinations pane allowing you to reveal a destination in Finder
• Auto Transfer - Remaining disk space indicator now updates more frequently
• Auto Transfer - Only alert to offline volumes if they are enabled in the Destinations pane
• Auto Transfer - Fixed a crash that could occur if you tried to transfer to a non-existent volume
• Timeline Tricks - Improved the naming of modified sequences in FCP7 XML
• Timeline Tricks - Fixed an issue where FCP7 XML might not import into Premiere correctly
• Video Check - Support for exporting the current frame as an image file
• Video Check - Fixed a hang that could occur when flash frame checking is switched on and there was an error reading the file
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

CinePlay 1.5.3 - Jul 30 2018

• Added Shift+number shortcut keys for marker colors
• You can now seek through the movie by scrolling with the trackpad/scroll wheel
• Exporting clips with in and out points set now includes the in/out timecodes in the filename
• Exported still frames now show the frame position in the timecode format you selected in the View menu (timecode, elapsed time or frames)
• CinePlay now remembers the previous marker color chosen and defaults to it when creating new markers
• The Markers window now scrolls and selects the new marker when you add one from the player
• CinePlay now remembers the last-chosen still image format
• Improved the visibility of black markers in the timeline
• Fixed an issue where the marker edit popup may still appear even if you hold down Shift to suppress it
• Fixed an issue that could cause TIFFs to be exported incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where annotations would refuse to save
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and improvements

Kollaborate Transfer 1.5.2 - Jul 27 2018

• Users are now prevented from submitting a batch if they don't have upload permissions for the project
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and improvements

FCS Remover 3.1.5 - Jul 27 2018

• Improved compatibility with newer versions of macOS

Marker Import for Mac 2.1.9 - Jul 16 2018

• Improved compatibility with FCPX

Cut Notes: Kollaborate Edition 2.5.2 - Jul 13 2018

• Moved the export / reset button sets options from the settings page to the button set editor. They are now located in the Actions menu to the right of the Sets pane.
• Free run timecode no longer pauses playback when switching to another app and back again
• Fixed an issue where button sets with special characters in a .cnbuttons file may not import correctly
• Minor bug fixes and tweaks

Cut Notes for iPad 2.5.2 - Jul 13 2018

• Moved the export / reset button sets options from the settings page to the button set editor. They are now located in the Actions menu to the right of the Sets pane.
• Free run timecode no longer pauses playback when switching to another app and back again
• Fixed an issue where button sets with special characters in a .cnbuttons file may not import correctly
• Minor bug fixes and tweaks

Pro Media Tools 1.7.2 adds useful new features to our suite of media management tools for video professionals.

Auto Transfer transfer log

Auto Transfer, our camera memory card offloading tool, now includes a transfer log. This is a text file that shows you checksums and metadata for each file that was copied. Logs are stored on a per-project basis and you can view the log by going to View > Transfer Log.

Export still frames from Video Check

Video Check, our QC-checking tool, now allows you to export a still image of the currently selected frame, which is useful when you need to show someone a visual flaw in the video.

Other changes

• Auto Transfer - Added a right-click menu to the Destinations pane allowing you to reveal a destination in Finder
• Auto Transfer - Remaining disk space indicator now updates more frequently
• Auto Transfer - Only alert to offline volumes if they are enabled in the Destinations pane
• Auto Transfer - Fixed a crash that could occur if you tried to transfer to a non-existent volume
• Timeline Tricks - Improved the naming of modified sequences in FCP7 XML
• Timeline Tricks - Fixed an issue where FCP7 XML might not import into Premiere correctly
• Video Check - Fixed a hang that could occur when flash frame checking is switched on and there was an error reading the file
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

 Pro Media Tools is an essential toolkit for media professionals. To find out more, view the feature list, read the user manual or download the free 15-day trial.

CinePlay 1.5.3 offers some great new additions to our Mac media player aimed at video professionals.

Marker color shortcut keys

You can now use Shift in combination with a number key to add a marker of a specific color.

Additionally, the last marker color chosen is now remembered when adding a new marker, making it quicker to add colored markers to a video.

Trackpad seeking

Scrolling left and right on your trackpad will now seek within a file, as will adjusting the scroll wheel horizontally for those using a mouse.

 Improved default filenames

When exporting between in and out points, CinePlay will now include the range of the in and out points as part of the filename, making it easier to export multiple parts of a movie quickly without having to keep renaming the default filename. It will even take into account your timecode display settings (timecode, elapsed time or frames) when showing the range.

Other changes

• Exported still frames now show the frame position in the timecode format you selected in the View menu (timecode, elapsed time or frames)
• The Markers window now scrolls and selects the new marker when you add one from the player
• CinePlay now remembers the last-chosen still image format
• Improved the visibility of black markers in the timeline
• Fixed an issue where the marker edit popup may still appear even if you hold down Shift to suppress it
• Fixed an issue that could cause TIFFs to be exported incorrectly
• Fixed an issue where annotations would refuse to save
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and improvements

CinePlay is a powerful playback and note-taking tool for video professionals. To find out more, see the feature list, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free 15-day trial. Kollaborate customers get cloud functionality in CinePlay free of charge.

Cut Notes: Kollaborate Edition 2.5 - Jul 1 2018

• Time-of-Day timecode is no longer available from the New Project dialog and can now be found in the Sync menu. This makes it more flexible and means you can now use Kollaborate comments streams with TOD timecode.
• Increased the maximum visible button label length
• Fixed an issue where markers exported with drop-frame timecode may not import correctly into DaVinci Resolve
• Fixed an issue where the "Note Saved" overlay may not appear
• Moved Time-of-Day timecode from the New Project dialog to the Sync menu
• Various minor bug fixes and tweaks

Cut Notes for iPad 2.5 - Jul 1 2018

• Time-of-Day timecode is no longer available from the New Project dialog and can now be found in the Sync menu. This makes it more flexible and means you can now use Kollaborate comments streams with TOD timecode.
• Increased the maximum visible button label length
• Fixed an issue where markers exported with drop-frame timecode may not import correctly into DaVinci Resolve
• Fixed an issue where the "Note Saved" overlay may not appear
• Moved Time-of-Day timecode from the New Project dialog to the Sync menu
• Various minor bug fixes and tweaks

Kollaborate Server 2.7 - Jun 14 2018

IMPORTANT: Kollaborate Server now requires PHP 5.6 or higher.

Server-specific changes:

• Admin Dashboard - Added controls to empty mail and encoding queues
• Admin Dashboard - The number of available encoding licenses is now displayed
• Installer - You can now specify the first and last name of the super admin
• Installer - Added support for specifying a proxy server when licensing
• Fixed an issue where uploads could hang when uploading lots of files at once

Changes in Kollaborate 2.7:

• Upload Workflows - Setup actions to occur automatically when uploading a file
• Embed LUTs, watermarks and overlays into proxies
• Workflows are now called File Workflows to differentiate them from Upload Workflows
• Send out a link from a File Workflow
• Trigger workflows from tasks
• Images like BMP and DPX are now converted to viewable formats so they can be viewed directly in the browser
• Workflow import / restore
• DaVinci Resolve marker import/export
• Folder uploading
• Link recipients can now edit / delete their comments for up to 1 hour after posting
• View / upload limits for links
• File history is now shown directly in the player
• Batch create aliases
• Batch favoriting from the Files page
• Added an option to hide the play icon overlay when a video is paused in Playback Settings
• Full-screen auto advance - if you are in full screen mode and Kollaborate is set to automatically advance to the next or previous file, full screen mode will be maintained when switching to the new file.
• Removed the comment submit button - press Enter to submit comments
• Tags are now duplicated when creating aliases
• Link expiration dates can now be removed after being set
• You can now opt out of being automatically subscribed to files you interact with (e.g. by commenting) from the Profile page
• File Request recipients are no longer asked for their name to improve the user experience. If the link is not sent through the site, their uploads will be tagged with their IP address
• You can now favorite, link and download files directly from the QuickLook dialog
• Default avatar is now the user's initials
• Team - Changing a user's role updates all their other roles within the project
• Files - Show the folder name when the file exists somewhere outside of the currently viewed directory (useful when files are being automatically moved by File Workflows)
• Files - Overhauled path bar with new design and the ability to drag files onto it to move them to a parent folder
• Files - Fixed an issue where black couldn't be assigned as a color to a file
• Files - Fixed an issue where cancelled downloads couldn't be retried
• Metadata - Fixed an issue where tags couldn't be removed
• Projects - Fixed an issue where some archived projects may not display
• UI - Various tweaks to the Task view
• Player - Moved Actions button below the video
• Files - If an action is performed on a file not selected, it is now only performed on that file instead of selecting it and applying the action to all
• Files - Fixed an issue that could allow a folder to be moved inside itself
• Files - Fixed an issue where revisions could go missing if you combine revisions between two items that each already have revisions
• Files - Fixed an issue where project admins may not be able to see all departments in some dialogs
• Files - Playing a revision now selects the file when you go back to the Files page
• Player - Changed the button title to Set Name to make it more obvious that users are not supposed to enter comments in the name box
• Player - Images that fail to load now correctly show a download dialog
• Player - Fixed an issue where the player could arbitrarily start playing after seeking
• Thumb generator - Audio waveform thumbnails are now normalized to fill vertical space
• Player - More robust click-to-play processing which fixes several issues where click-to-play may not work as expected
• Share - Link name now defaults to "Untitled"
• Thumbnails - Fixed an issue where thumbnails could not be generated manually
• Many UI improvements and tweaks
• Many other bug fixes

Kollaborate Encoder 1.2 - Jun 14 2018

Note: Kollaborate Encoder now has an encoder_supporting_files folder that must be copied to the same directory as the JS file.

• Support for Kollaborate Server 2.7
• Support for converting images
• Support for embedding text and LUTs into files
• Large log files are now cleaned up automatically
• Fixed an issue that could cause certain files to timeout when ffmpeg tried to scan them
• Minor tweaks and optimizations

Cut Notes 2.5 is a significant update to our iPad app for taking timecode synced notes during a screening.

The biggest change in this version is that time-of-day timecode is no longer set from the New Project pane but instead is available from the Sync menu. This is a more logical place for it to reside and it also means you can now use time-of-day timecode when taking notes from Kollaborate comment streams.

Other changes include increasing the maximum visible button label length and preventing it overflowing if it's too long, plus improved compatibility with DaVinci Resolve when exporting marker EDLs.

The full list of changes is available here.

Cut Notes is an iPad note-taking app for video and audio professionals. It syncs to timecode in common apps and helps your minimize the time spent looking down when making notes on a screening. To find out more, see the feature list, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download it from the App Store. There is also a free cloud-only version for Kollaborate customers.