We’re living in a rapidly changing world and we’ve heard from many of you that Frame.io has become more important than ever to keeping your work moving. Today, I’m excited to share Frame.io 3.7, which has some phenomenal updates for everyone.
Frame.io Transfer
Frame.io Transfer is now out of beta.
Transfer is a cross-platform desktop application that was built to handle large-file upload and download to and from Frame.io. But it’s nothing like your old FTP app—it’s built on the same acceleration technology that you’ve come to know and love from Frame.io.
In practice, this means we’re able to saturate all of your available bandwidth and make the very most of your internet connection. With Frame.io Transfer, you now have a robust way to move terabytes of data reliably. You could pay hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars a month for this acceleration technology in other products, but we believe that moving files quickly is table stakes, so we’ve made this feature available to everyone.
Also new to Frame.io Transfer are login-free downloads. If you’re working with vendors who need to download large batches of files from Frame.io (full-resolution visual effects plates, for example), you can now send them Review links, and they will have the option to download all files using Frame.io Transfer, no account or log-in required.
Enterprise Control
Next, we have some robust new security controls for our Enterprise product. Years ago I shared our mission to not only meet the most stringent security requirements of the Hollywood feature film market, but to far exceed them. Today’s launch is another significant milestone on that mission with some incredible updates to Watermark ID.
Internal Watermark ID
Watermark ID is our secure streaming service, which we released in May of this year.
Watermark ID burns your viewers’ personal identifying information—such as name, email address, and IP address—into every frame. This means that the moment someone presses play, Frame.io starts a real-time transcode. Using the power of the cloud, we’re able to make a 2-hour video available for playback in less than 2 seconds. And yes, we truly are doing a full transcode.
When we released Watermark ID in May, it was great for protecting assets that were shared externally via Share links, but what about everyone you work with internally? Now you can apply Watermark ID as a global setting across your entire account. This means that every piece of content that is played back in Frame.io will have a unique identifying watermark burned into every frame.
Watermark ID is a technology that has been many years in the making, and with this update in 3.7, Frame.io now brings you ultimate security and peace of mind.
While visual watermarks are a strong deterrent for bad behavior, they can sometimes obstruct your viewing experience. In Frame.io 3.7, we’re introducing end-user modifications to Watermark ID templates. It’s the best of both worlds.
As an administrator, you can set up Watermark ID templates for your entire team or account. When an individual user is sharing a piece of content, they can edit some aspects of the watermark, like its position, to ensure it’s not obscuring a critical piece of the picture.
Role-based Permission
In addition to Watermark ID enhancements, we’re also introducing new admin controls to configure critical security settings.
You can now configure which roles are allowed to download, and if Watermark ID is enabled, which roles can download non-watermarked assets. You can also tighten controls on sharing by specifying default security settings for shares, disabling public share links altogether, and if Watermark ID is enabled, setting up which roles are allowed to share non-watermarked assets.
HDR
If there’s one aspect of filmmaking that never changes, it’s the never-ending quest to produce higher quality images. Today that quest has been focused on High Dynamic Range.
In Frame.io 3.7, you can upload any file (ProRes XQ, DNxHR 444, etc.) in PQ or 2020 color space and we will give you a great HDR viewing experience across our suite of apps. There’s no setup, no configuration, and no one you need to call—it just works. While developing this feature we consulted top Hollywood colorists to ensure we were giving you a true, color-accurate pipeline that is suitable for cinema-grade review.
While HDR will work in supported browsers, managing color on the web is challenging at best. The most accurate displays most of our clients and reviewers have access to at home are iOS devices. You can now get a 4K HDR playback experience on supported iPhone and iPad devices. To ensure a great and consistent viewing experience, Frame.io will also tone map your HDR files on older Apple devices that do not meet full HDR requirements.
For a big-screen review experience, Frame.io 3.7 also supports HDR over AirPlay to any HDR10 compatible display. For ultimate quality, we’re offering end-to-end 4K 10-bit HDR review as part of our Enterprise plan. For all other plans, HDR will be displayed as 8-bit.
For more about HDR, watch HDR Explained or read our HDR documentation.
iOS Apps
While HDR is the headline addition to our iPhone and iPad Apps, both got some other notable enhancements.
Precision scrubbing
The first is our asset scrubbing experience. As pro video creators, we are constantly examining our video, which requires lots of tedious and precise scrubbing back and forth. We’ve introduced a hover scrub to our iOS apps that is 100 percent frame accurate.
You may be familiar with this feature in other popular players like YouTube. The difference with ours is that we display every single frame as you scrub, and when you release your finger you will land on exactly the frame you intended.
For more control and dexterity, we’ve introduced new gestures to move forward and backward in a video. Simply double tap the left or right side of a video frame to advance or go backward. These gestures can be configured in the application settings to any interval you’d like, from a single frame up to 30 minutes. That means you could set them to 1 frame, 10 frames, 1 second, 10 seconds—really anything you’d like.
Move and Copy
In May, we introduced new file management capabilities to our web app and today those same capabilities are available on iPhone and iPad. You can now easily move or copy items from one deeply nested folder to an entirely new location, allowing for robust file management on the go.
FCP X
Our Final Cut Pro X Workflow Extension is getting a great update to support new FCP X Workflow Extension capabilities. The most notable is that you can now drag clips from the Frame.io extension directly into Final Cut, and Final Cut will download them in the background.
As always, let us know your feedback. What do you hope we’ll add next?
Visit updates.frame.io to get the complete list of everything we’re releasing.
