Kollaborate Server 2026.2.1 - new player and file viewers, side-by-side playback, improved accessibility

Kollaborate Server 2026.2.1 is out of beta and ready for general use. This is a major update to our self-hosted workflow platform with a lot of new features.

New video player and image viewer

Our video player and image viewer have been completely rewritten from scratch. The new versions are considerably more powerful and easier to use. We’ve made lots of UI improvements and everything feels smoother, more polished and more intuitive.

New controls

There is now a button to skip forward 5 seconds, as well as new keyboard shortcuts comma and period for back and forward 5 secs, respectively. Opening the Seek to Timecode dialog can be accomplished with Shift + T.

The JKL keys function more like an NLE, with slow-mo support when holding K and J or L, as well as fast forward and rewind speeds up to 16x.

You can also change the playback speed separately without having to fast forward.

Switch between proxies and the original file

The new player allows switching between different file proxies, so you can now create multiple proxies and switch between them. It will also allow you to play back the original file (assuming it’s browser-playable) as long as you have download permissions for the file.

Better error handling

The new player is more resilient to playback or network issues. If something does go wrong, error messages are much clearer.

Accessibility

The new player has the ability to speak captions out loud. This allows you to bring in an audio description SRT and have Kollaborate speak it audibly as the video plays.

You can customize Kollaborate’s behavior when speaking captions, including automatically lowering the volume while the caption is spoken, or pausing playback completely. You can also set it to pause playback if the speech overruns the length of the caption and then resume again automatically.

Better mobile support

The player functions better on smaller screens and touch-only devices.

Overlays

Our new player supports overlaying 4:3 and 16:9 safe areas, as well as various aspect ratio mattes.

Side-by-side comparison

You can load a second file alongside another. You can compare any type of file with another, but if it's the same type it will automatically sync with the other player. Video and audio will sync playheads with each other and switching which file is active will switch audio source. Image viewers will sync zoom and pan position between each other, and document viewers will sync page numbers.

This behavior is customizable via the new Sync Settings panel. You can switch off synchronization and automatic audio and comment switching.

Comments switch automatically depending on which file is active, but you can also manually change this with a new dropdown in the Comments tab.

New document viewer

The document viewer for PDFs has been overhauled and now supports full screen and annotations.

New text viewer

There's a new viewer for text files that supports dynamic loading, meaning it can support very large files. It also supports full screen and there are options for line numbers and word wrap. You can comment on a specific line too.

Annotations

Annotations have been completely overhauled and are considerably more sophisticated now.

Instead of a basic drawing pen that can’t be edited, we now have multiple tools including boxes, circles and arrows. After drawing, the shape can be moved about, enlarged, rotated or deleted. There is also a text tool that allows you to write directly on the image.

Shape colors are now independent from the comment’s color and different shapes can have different colors. There is also undo and redo functionality.

Improved accessibility

Kollaborate works much better with accessibility tools like screen readers. We also added a lot of quality-of-life improvements for accessibility including additional navigation links for screen readers, improved keyboard navigation, and audio captchas on the login page.

Other changes

• New advanced search fields: frame rate, orientation (portrait / landscape) and uploader
• The H.264 level is now shown in the Metadata tab of the player (for new uploads)
• The old and new backends now communicate and synchronize with each other, which fixes an issue where encoding jobs might not start immediately after you set up the encoder
• The player page is no longer static, which means it loads faster and actions like setting workflows or switching between files can happen without a page refresh
• If the player can't play back and it shows a download overlay, it shows a message to explain why it couldn't play (e.g. if "force download" was set on the file)
• You can now click on the duration field of the video player to toggle time remaining
• Player - Allow dot characters when seeking to timecode. Dots at the start skip that digit and make the timecode relative. Dots at the end substitute for 00. So ..10. seeks 10 seconds from the current position

You can view the full list of changes here after logging in.

Kollaborate Encoder 2.1

We also released a major new version of Kollaborate Encoder recently. New features in this version are:

• WebP is now used for hoverscrub thumbnails instead of AVIF
• Improved support for handling redirects when communicating with the web server
• Several fixes for jobs looping unnecessarily
• Overhauled the file downloader for improved speed and reliability
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

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).