Collaboration has always been a key theme at EditShare and since our launch back in 2004 we have worked hard to enable editors to share both media files as well as NLE projects. After all, making films and videos is usually a group effort, and the whole process is much more efficient when everyone on a production team can work from the same common canvas. That’s why over the years we have developed our own sharing solutions and we have also supported any native sharing capabilities that are baked into the various NLE applications.
So naturally we are very excited about Adobe’s new “Productions” feature that gives editors the best Premiere Pro “project sharing” experience ever.
I am pleased to report that over the past two months, EditShare has been testing a beta version of this new feature, and this very significant upgrade for Premiere Pro users does indeed work flawlessly with our EFS shared storage.
“Project Sharing” is a rather broad term, and for those of you who may not be familiar with the concept, I thought it might be helpful to explain it in some detail, so that you can appreciate the somewhat different approaches taken by NLE developers.
Project sharing is a collaboration system that divides up larger non-linear editing (NLE) projects into smaller mini projects, each of which represents a part of the whole. For instance, if a group of editors and assistants is editing a large documentary, they might create individual mini projects for “Rushes”, “Assemblies”, “The Show Open”, “Act 1”, “Act 2”, “Act 3”, “Conclusion”, “Fine Cut”, “Effects”, “Sound Mix”, etc.
As soon as a user opens up one of these mini projects with write access, Premiere Pro creates a “prlock” file next to the project file, effectively “locking” that project to ensure that other Premiere Pro editors on the same project are automatically flagged to open the mini project as read-only, so that they can’t overwrite or corrupt someone else’s work in any way.
When the user with write permission closes the project, the prlock file goes away and now the project becomes available for editing by another user. The system allows users to see each other’s work and collaborate safely. Avid has had a similar sharing feature for a long time, called “bin locking”, and it has been widely used for big projects that require large scale collaboration. In the Avid environment, bins are files on disk inside a project folder, so it’s possible to set permission on each bin file independently. In Premiere Pro, bins are virtual folders inside projects – so you have to do the locking at the level of an entire project file.
EditShare was the original pioneer of “project locking” for non-Avid NLEs back in 2009. Our objective was to enable editors to collaborate in a similar way to Avid but using Final Cut Pro 7 and Premier. At the time, the capabilities were not available in either Apple or Adobe. So we developed our own concept of dividing projects into multiple mini projects (it was mind shift in the way editors needed to think about their projects) and then we created two different systems for ensuring that only one user at a time could get write access to a project.
In our first system, we stored Final Cut Pro 7 and Premiere Pro project files in “User folders” to ensure that only that user had write access to anything inside, and we provided a way to move project files between user folders.
In our second system, we made an automated way to change permissions on a project file as soon as a user opened it, so only that user could write to the project. These were pretty effective solutions to the collaboration problem. But they weren’t native to the applications and couldn’t support some of the features that are desirable in project sharing.
Adobe introduced its own version of project sharing in 2017, but it had some drawbacks. For example, each user had to enable “project locking” in their own project settings. If one user forgot, projects could get locked for some users but not for others.
And one user couldn’t open another user’s sequence and copy a small part of their timeline into their own project, because Premiere wouldn’t let them set in and out points on a timeline from a read-only project. Users had to import the entire sequence into their own project, which also resulted in every clip of the sequence getting imported into their own project space. This wasn’t ideal.
Adobe listened to user feedback and came back with a massively improved method for project sharing, called Productions.
With the new feature, when the first user creates a “Production”, this makes a top-level folder inside which everyone now puts their related projects. Just beneath the Productions folder, you also get some master settings files – specifying things like the location for media and scratch folders. Every Premiere Pro project created inside the Production will now inherit these same settings – so you get total continuity across all parts of the project.
Perhaps most significant, you can now copy small sections of sequences from one project and paste them into other projects, without unwanted clips being copied to the destination project.
Premiere Pro projects created inside a Production also understand the relationship between projects, and what items came from where. So, if you match frame on a clip that was copied from another project, and then reveal the file for the match frame, Premiere will open up the original project where the clip was located – just like Avid does with bins. Adobe has even added a feature that notifies editors when a project opened as read-only has been updated by a read-write user, prompting the read-only user to refresh their view of the project to make the latest changes visible.
The new Productions feature is a major improvement for users of Premiere Pro and we are excited to see this built into Adobe’s editing product. Best of all for EditShare users, we have tested this new feature extensively with EditShare EFS storage and can assure our customers that Adobe’s new method of project sharing works flawlessly with our native Windows and macOS file system client.
EditShare EFS + Premiere Pro continues to be a winning combination!
For a sneak preview of how we support this new feature, visit us at NAB 2020 or contact us at sales@editshare.com.
04 MAR 2020
EditShare leans in with open and secure solutions – cloud-based capabilities and comprehensive APIs power advanced workflows and extensive media ecosystems
Boston, MA – March 4, 2020 – EditShare® invites NAB 2020 attendees to join us at booth SL7920 for workflow demonstrations and theater presentations that showcase how EditShare scale-out shared storage and collaborative media management solutions – EFS and FLOW – simplify the process of storytelling. EditShare’s open solutions and extensive set of APIs support an ecosystem of partners enabling storytellers to utilize their preferred tools to build production workflows that seamlessly and securely connect individual creators and entire workgroups across cities, countries and continents.
“Our customers want an open, secure platform that will work from day one with the creative tools they use day in and day out. They want the flexibility to configure their media infrastructure either on-premise, hybrid or in the cloud, with capabilities to customize or spin up an entirely new workflow at any time. Simply put, they want to be liberated from legacy infrastructure that limits their creative freedom and business options,” states Conrad Clemson, CEO, EditShare. “EditShare solutions are ruthlessly open. They remove boundaries, jump time zones and enable customers to collaborate with the tools they want – and whoever they want – to create incredible stories. We look forward to meeting with our customers and partners at NAB 2020 to share the incredible new innovations, partnerships and programs that enable us to create amazing together.”
New EFS and FLOW technology innovation highlights shown on the EditShare NAB booth include end-to-end production in the cloud, deeper integration with creative tools like Adobe® Premiere® Pro to enable advanced, collaborative editorial workflows, and practical applications of AI to enrich archives.
FLOW 2020: The Foundation of Your Workflow
FLOW 2020 manages the entire media technology stack. It tracks and supervises asset movement across tiered storage environments including on-premise, nearline, object storage and cloud. In addition to showcasing the wide range of cloud workflows and full-featured panel support for tight integration with Adobe Premiere Pro and other creative tools, EditShare will demonstrate practical applications of AI within the FLOW environment, including the ability for users to index and organize thousands of hours of video content, eliminating manual logging while standardizing content indexing for richer search capabilities.
EFS 2020: The Industry’s Most Resilient and Scalable Media Optimized File System
EFS 2020 powers faster EditShare storage nodes and networks on-premise, in the cloud and in hybrid configurations. Fully compatible with FLOW 2020, EFS 2020 enables media organizations to build extensive collaborative workflows, shielding creative personnel from the underlying technical complexity while equipping technical teams with a comprehensive set of media management tools. The media-optimized file system features security improvements at every layer and enhanced throughput performance gains across the board. In addition to the powerful storage management tools built into EFS, our extensive set of RESTful APIs opens the door for customers and technology partners to automate advanced storage management workflows in a secure environment.
EditShare NAB Theater – The Latest Trends and Technologies
In addition to demonstrations of EFS 2020 and FLOW 2020 capabilities and workflows attendees can join us for presentations in the EditShare theater covering the following industry trends and technology topics:
Remote Productions: On Ramp to The Cloud
The EditShare cloud presentations will share how real-life productions can utilize the cloud to unleash new, flexible, on-demand workflows to fit a range of different production needs. In addition to learning how Editshare is helping organizations move their productions into the cloud during the EditShare theater presentations, attendees can learn even more about EditShare cloud capabilities in the NAB Conference. EditShare CSO Andy Liebman and CTO Stephen Tallamy will present “The On Ramp to Video Production in the Cloud – How Openness, AI and Security Will Facilitate Better Storytelling Workflows” on Wednesday, April 22nd at 2:20pm PDT in Room N258 at the LVCC.
Advanced APIs: The Power of Openness
EditShare’s extensible platforms feature advanced APIs, supporting the integration of a wide range of industry solutions and an even wider range of customizable workflows. Theater presentations in cooperation with several industry partners will highlight the use of EditShare’s powerful and publicly available APIs to manage thousands of users and enable mass collaboration while maintaining fine-grain control over media and projects.
Security Best Practices: Keeping Content Safe and Creativity Flowing
EFS auditing puts a digital fingerprint on every file, from inception through to delivery. Unlike other auditing approaches, EFS auditing is designed for media intensive productions and does not impact the real-time operations or creative workflow. It meets the highest standards set out by widely recognized security guidelines from the media and entertainment space. Auditing delivers peace of mind to facilities dealing with highly valuable and sensitive content. Attendees can learn more about these and other important security capabilities during EditShare theater presentations.
Moving Media Professionals Ahead with EditShare Certification
EditShare Academy encompasses all stakeholders and constituencies from engineering and support to marketing, sales and administrators to the team that ships EditShare products and the creative and talented customers who use them. EditShare will have members of its customer success team on hand to discuss how EditShare Academy empowers our employees, partners, and customers with comprehensive knowledge enabling success at every step and at every skill level.
Meet with EditShare at NAB 2020
Attendees to NAB 2020 can book a meeting with the EditShare team at:
https://editshare.live/nab2020pr
About EditShare
Editshare is a technology innovator in media engineered storage and advanced workflow solutions for storytellers that need collaboration without boundaries. EditShare’s open solutions and APIs enable secure collaboration and maximize efficiency every step of the way. The award-winning product portfolio enables end-to-end workflows, on-premise and in the cloud, through media optimized shared storage, workflow aligned media management solutions, robust APIs, and an Emmy award-winning non-linear video editing application.
©2020 EditShare LLC. All rights reserved. EditShare® is a registered trademark of EditShare.
Press Contact
Alex Molina
Zazil Media Group
(e) alex@zazilmediagroup.com
(p) +1 (617) 834-9600
