Pro Media Tools 1.4.3 is a significant update to our suite of media management tools with some great new features for video professionals.

OS X 10.8 or higher required

Pro Media Tools now requires a minimum of OS X 10.8. If you are running a version lower than this, you can access older versions here.

Set QuickTime movie track names

You can now specify track names in QT Edit, allowing you to give a user-friendly description of the track's contents, such as "M&E" or "French language dialogue". These descriptions will show up in the Movie Properties pane of QuickTime Player 7 and any app configured to support them. We will be adding support to CinePlay soon.

Export edit points as still images

Edit Detector can now export full-size still images of the frame at each detected edit point, which are useful for creating thumbnails or adding to spreadsheets.

Run script upon render

Render Watcher can now run an AppleScript, Bash or Swift script, or alternatively an application, upon successful render. This is useful for connecting with other services such as Slack.

Other changes

 

• QT Edit - Improved support for importing FCPX markers
• QT Edit - Fixed an issue that could cause timecode to run at a faster rate than the movie's frame rate
• Render Watcher - Improved support for Compressor droplets

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

 

Today we are launching our new online store to streamline and simplify the payment experience.

You now have more choices with regards to billing and we've simplified the process of purchasing products like CinePlay which are linked to a Digital Rebellion account.

Furthermore, the new store provides us with a lot more flexibility and paves the way for new products later in 2016. This is just the beginning and we will be adding new features to the store as the year progresses.

2016 is now upon us so here's a look back at the past twelve months.

New products

CinePlay for Apple TV -  Play Kollaborate cloud videos directly on your TV.

(Note: It's not possible to link directly to Apple TV apps so we'd recommend searching for "cineplay" on the App Store to find it.)

Kollaborate Today extension - View what's new in your project at a glance directly from your desktop.

Kollaborate Folder Watcher - Automatically upload files to the cloud when copied to a particular folder on your hard drive.

Major updates

Pro Media Tools 1.4 - Major Auto Transfer overhaul with faster camera memory card offloading and embeddable metadata.

CinePlay 1.3 for Mac - We improved our professional Mac media player with audio waveforms, audio scrubbing and BWF timecode support.

We also released CinePlay 1.2 earlier in the year with support for playing back image sequences and drawing annotations directly over a video.

Pro Maintenance Tools 2.1 - Our suite of maintenance and repair tools received a Plugin Manager crash tester overhaul, improved FCPX repair capabilities and improved Avid and Adobe CC support.

Pro Versioner 2.1 - Improved support for backing up FCPX projects.

Cut Notes 2.4 for iPad - Enhance your note-taking workflow by sharing custom note button profiles between iPads.

CinePlay 1.5 for iOS - View media file metadata and approve/reject files stored on Kollaborate.

Video Space Calculator 1.2 for iOS - Our video storage calculator received a UI refresh and support for additional codecs.

In total we released over 100 updates for our apps.

Cloud enhancements

As well as increasing subscriber storage space three times, we made the following improvements to our Kollaborate cloud platform:

• Simplified team management
• Full-screen commenting
• Compare revision notes
• Drag and drop uploading
• Additional permissions
• Additional statistics for shared links
• Save / restore playback position
• Simplified file sharing
• Python scripting of Kollaborate Server
• Project alerts
• Import markers from FCP 7 / FCPX XML
• Larger thumbnails
• Kollaborate Encoder - Automatically transcode media files uploaded to Kollaborate Server
• Toggle email alerts
• Multi-factor authentication
• Archived projects are now locked to prevent changes
• Kollaborate Server admin area overhaul
• Comments now appear as markers under the video
• Comments can be sorted and filtered
• Comments can be exported according to color, author or favorite status
• Simplified task management
• Nudge users to remind them to view a file
• Manually set video thumbnails
• Improved playback navigation controls
• Import users from another project
• Revisions can now be made accessible in shared links
• File statuses can be batch-edited from the Files page
• Previously-entered settings are now remembered when sharing a link and exporting comments
• Files can be filtered by type or status
• Duration is now shown on the Files page
• Search for team members on the Team page
• Annotations now appear automatically when clicking a comment
• And many more

Stats

Our most-downloaded app was FCS Remover but our most-used app was Post Haste. Our most popular paid tool was Pro Maintenance Tools. Our most popular iOS app was Video Space Calculator. The number of subscribers and daily logins for Kollaborate doubled.

We also performed a complete redesign of our website from scratch, which allowed us to streamline our customer service and make it easier to find information you need. We're currently working on additional features that will make their way to the site in the next few weeks.

The most popular blog posts in 2015 were:

• Understanding render options in Adobe Premiere Pro
• Avid Codec Guide
• Premiere Pro memory settings explained

What's next

2016 will be a big year for us with brand new products, major updates to our existing ones and expansions to additional platforms outside OS X and iOS. You can keep up to date with new products, features and tips by subscribing to this blog, following us on Twitter or Facebook or by subscribing to our mailing list.

Today we launched Kollaborate Folder Watcher, a free tool to automatically upload files to the Kollaborate cloud platform from your desktop.

Choose a folder on your system to watch for modifications - you can watch multiple folders and link them to different projects, or even to different departments or subfolders within a project. You can also set various preferences such as choosing between automatically converting all videos to playable copies or uploading the files as-is.

The app works on OS X 10.8 and higher but users running OS X 10.10 and above benefit from Finder integration. This allows you to see color-coded file statuses (green = uploaded, orange = upload in progress, red = error, no icon = not queued for upload) and adds right-click options such as manually uploading files within a watch folder and viewing an uploaded file in your web browser.

Kollaborate is a cloud workflow platform to make sharing files and working with colleagues easy. To find out more, check out the quick overview, view the feature list or try the 15-day free trial.

We've just launched CinePlay 1.3 for Mac, a major new update to our professional media player.

Audio waveforms

CinePlay now dynamically displays waveforms for locally-stored audio files.

Audio scrubbing

Hear the current audio sample under the playhead as you drag it or navigate with the keyboard shortcuts. This can be disabled in preferences if desired.

Several timecode tweaks

• Timecode is now detected in WAV audio files with BWF headers
• Set the default timecode frame rate / format for audio files in preferences. Audio files are measured in samples, not frames, so setting this parameter manually allows you to match markers with the audio file when imported into your NLE.
• Changes to how drop-frame timecode is calculated, which fixes a couple of edge-cases where it was incorrect.

Other changes

• Markers can be exported to DVD Studio Pro chapter lists
• Overlay windows are now hidden when full screen or switching to another movie
• Full screen playback UI no longer auto-hides if the mouse is hovering over it
• Fixed an issue that could cause the UI to not appear in full screen
• Improved playback performance

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.

We've just released Kollaborate Server 1.4 and Kollaborate Encoder 1.0.2, which offer major new features that customers can use in-house on their own servers and storage.

Team overhaul

Inviting users to a project is now quicker and simpler. Add as many email addresses as you like, then setup positions and email preferences and invite them to the project in one step.

You can also duplicate users into another department without having to re-invite them.

Full-screen commenting

Hover over the right-hand side of the video in full screen to view comments, add new ones and annotate the image.

Compare revision notes

View comments from previous revisions to check that your notes on the previous cut have been addressed in the new one.

Drag and drop uploading

Easily upload files to Kollaborate by dropping them directly into a department or folder from your operating system.

Other changes

We've improved the color accuracy of Kollaborate Encoder and made several changes to improve reliability and performance.

We've also made some major architectural changes to Kollaborate Server to prepare it for PHP 7. We're not declaring it fully compatible yet but this is the largest change we needed to make and we will continue to make smaller changes in future versions to improve compatibility. It's likely that we will make PHP 7 the minimum requirement once we're fully compatible.

Kollaborate is a cloud workflow platform designed to help you work better with colleagues and clients. Upload files to the cloud, have them reviewed by others and then export their notes back to your editing application.

Kollaborate Server gives you all of those features in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, view the feature list or sign up for the free no-obligation 15-day cloud trial (no credit card needed). Trials of Kollaborate Server are available on request.

We're pleased to announce the launch of CinePlay for Apple TV, a free cloud video player for the fourth-generation Apple TV.



CinePlay allows you to browse projects and files on Kollaborate and play them back directly on your TV, complete with timecode and multi-speed seeking.

This means you can now watch Kollaborate videos in a comfortable setting that more closely mimics the final viewing environment of your end-users.

CinePlay is available free of charge on the App Store inside the Apple TV.

We will soon be phasing out support for OS X 10.6 in all of our products. While some of our customers are still on this older operating system, Apple's new annual rapid-release schedule means supporting 10.6 requires us to support five operating systems simultaneously and prevents us from using newer technologies that would benefit the majority of our users on more recent versions of OS X.

Over the next few months we will slowly phase out OS X 10.6 and 10.7 support and require a minimum of OS X 10.8, starting with apps that interface with Kollaborate first.

Older OS X 10.6 versions of our apps will still be available for download from the relevant software's page in our Support section.

We're now offering a free new tool to further enhance your Kollaborate cloud experience. With the Today extension, users on OS X 10.10 or higher can see project alerts directly in Notification Center without having to log into the site to check for them. This is a great way to see what's going on in your project quickly and easily from your desktop.

The extension can be toggled on and off from the Extensions pane of System Preferences. Full installation instructions are in the user manual.

The Today extension is available as part of Kollaborate Plugin Pack, which also allows you to upload directly to the cloud from your Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro X timelines. In addition to the new extension, we've also made the following changes to the existing upload plugins:

• Export plugins now encode at a higher resolution
• The FCPX plugin is now more intelligent at choosing a thumbnail for the movie
• Changed how Kollaborate credentials are stored. Some users may be asked to login again.

Kollaborate is a cloud workflow platform to make sharing files and working with colleagues easy. To find out more, check out the quick overview, view the feature list or try the 15-day free trial.

Last week we released Kollaborate 1.4 on the cloud, with some great new features as requested by customers.

Team overhaul

Inviting users to a project is now quicker and simpler. Add as many email addresses as you like, then setup positions and email preferences and invite them to the project in one step.

You can also duplicate users into another department without having to re-invite them.

Full-screen commenting

Hover over the right-hand side of the video in full screen to view comments, add new ones and annotate the image.

Compare revision notes

View comments from previous revisions to check that your notes on the previous cut have been addressed in the new one.

Drag and drop uploading

Easily upload files to Kollaborate by dropping them directly into a department or folder from your operating system.

More permissions

Control whether team members can download files and share them with others. We have also tightened the default permissions for clients and agency reps to be more restrictive.

Link downloads

See how many times a link was downloaded and who downloaded it.

Kollaborate is a cloud workflow platform designed to help you work better with colleagues and clients. Upload files to the cloud, have them reviewed by others and then export their notes back to your editing application. To find out more, view the feature list or sign up for the free no-obligation 15-day trial (no credit card needed).