Today we’re excited to explore mind blowing technology, that together is redefining the video production workflow for remote collaboration. Cinedeck’s CineXtools itself is a game-changer for video post-production, but add LucidLink’s Cloud NAS services, and what you can achieve is nothing short of amazing.
Personally, we have been in the video production and post-production world since Adobe Premiere 2.0, and seen and experienced every production workflow since, good and bad. The major challenge we are facing now is with production and post-production teams all over the world, a really elegant and seamless collaborative experience has not existed – until now.
The challenge arises when you have a production team in New York and a post-production team in LA with producers and other team members spread all-over. Creative collaboration is extremely challenging to say the least, and you’ll get inundated with files, revisions, changes, updates, requests, with everything piling up everywhere, and no one specific file that everyone can work with, together. This is where Lucid Link comes in.
Enter LucidLink
LucidLink allows for large video files to be uploaded to your secure Cloud-NAS, with everyone on your team reviewing and working with the same assets. I can hear you thinking- but aren’t those files large? Yes- yes, they are. But Lucidlink allows you to sync files quickly, with the entire team working with the same assets, all locally on their machine. LucidLink does a little magic in the background, by breaking up the file into small chunks, so as those chunks are successfully uploaded, they are immediately available for review, even before they are completely uploaded.
Now with any creative project, there will be changes and revisions will be needed. The typically workflow would be to make the edits in your editing software, export the entire project, review the entire project, upload that large file to share with your team, they would review and request additional changes- starting this entire process over and over again. And that’s before you even get to QC and client reviews! I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted just thinking about this workflow.
CineXtools to the Rescue
Cinedeck’s CineXtools is the solution to this issue. By allowing you to make changes to finalized video files without rendering, you can quickly make a revision and “insert” that small change into your master file, without the need to re-render and entire project! This means you only have to review the small change you made, and not have to re-watch the entire video again. This immediately saves time, money and allows for more work to be done in a shorter amount of time. CineXtools allows you to insert audio, video or both into any file type:
- H.264
- ProRes
- DNxHD
- DNxHR
- XDCam35 and 50
- AVC-I
- XAVC
- JPEG2000
As you can see, all of today’s most popular codecs are supported. And this is really just the start of what you can do with CineXtools.
When the Powers Combine
When we combine CineXtools and LucidLink, this is where the magic really begins. Let’s review a typical corporate video application. Our production and post-production team is located in New York. The client is located in LA. The video has been completed and has been exported as an insertable ProRes file for round 1 of reviews. The client is using the LucidLink software, and has the video locally on their machine for review. The client loves the video, but sees a simple spelling mistake and asks for that to be fixed. The editor opens up their Adobe Premiere project, fixes the spelling mistake, and exports only the 5 seconds that the error was on-screen. They open up CineXtools, using the Master video from LucidLink as their Target, and then select the 5 second fix as the source, and Insert that change. Lucidlink notices that change, and begins to upload ONLY the parts of the file that were changed, NOT the entire video file.
This change happens immediately and is instantly available to the client for review- even if they had the video file open! Just playback and see the change immediately.
If you’re like me- when I first saw this, I was speechless. In my life, I never even thought a workflow like this would exist- and even now that I’m seeing it and using it with my clients, its still hard to believe. It changed my entire mindset for remote production and remote collaboration within creative teams. Instead of changes and revisions bogging down my production team, we are able to complete simple fixes right on the spot while in review sessions with our clients. We’re getting changes completed in minutes, not hours or days. Instead of re-exporting large, complicated and time-consuming renders, we’re exporting changes in minutes. Instead of uploading extremely large files, we’re uploading small changes. This keeps my editors doing what they do best, editing. This helps us get projects in and out quicker which immediately increases our revenue and profits. We’re no longer waiting for renders, bogging down workstations and tying up our team. We’re extremely efficient and way more effective for our clients.
As you can see- these workflows are simple to integrate and take no major IT or tech expertise. Your editors will love it because they don’t have to wait hours for renders. Your clients will be blown away and more importantly, you’ll see an immediate return on investment.
If you’d like to schedule a personalized demo to see how this workflow could help you- contact us today!