New features in Frame.io, with Emery Wells

In an exclusive video interview, we spoke to Frame.io's CEO Emery Wells about the services' comprehensive new additions that are being rolled out today, including very comprehensive new security features.

It's pretty fair to say that when it comes to online video collaboration and review services, Frame.io is seen to lead the way by a number of measures. The company's success is in part due to the way that it listens to its user feedback and requests, but also in the effective way that it implements the solutions.

The new 3.6 update to the service is comprehensive, most particularly when it comes to security. For example, one of the major new features, and one that the company is most proud of is a new Watermark ID system.

This could be the most important addition to the service that the company has made. Yet it is one of those features that will be mostly invisible to users, yet took a comprehensive amount of effort to implement. Watermark ID functions by embedding personal identifying information within every frame of a video.

Users can choose which information this is, such as usernames, IP addresses, email addresses etc. Yet despite the fact that this requires a realtime on-the-fly transcode to be performed by Frame.io’s servers, videos still stay responsive. For example a two hour video will still be ready to play within two seconds.

Why would you need this feature? Imagine you have a highly sensitive video, or even a new film that isn't ready for public viewing. By embedding personal information, if that video is then leaked into the world it will be clear who it was that shared it.

"This has been in the works for a long time... Probably north of a year. It's a really challenging thing to build and it had many different pieces that had to come together over a long time."

Introduction of Transfer

Security is important, but with most countries currently in lockdown, the company felt that it had to bring forward some features that were intended for later in the year. The clamour for remote workflows has increased exponentially.

For this reason the company has brought forward the release of its cross platform (macOS and Windows) Transfer software. Currently released in beta form, Transfer allows users to download large files and complicated folder structures in one click.

The system also supports EDL and XML files, so users can import these into, say, Resolve, and the software will only download the files that are used within a project, saving a lot of time and network bandwidth in many cases.

Emery told us "It's going to represent the future of how we enable people to get a lot of footage in and out of Frame.io." He went on to say "As you know, as video creators we work with ginormous files, and we've always had a really good upload experience... But downloading was always challenging, and that's because the browser always handles the downloads. We were always at the mercy of the browser. So now we're launching a cross platform app called Frame.io Transfer... It will become a central hub for upload, download, and all data transfer within Frame.io."

Watch our interview to find out more, including information about the new offline mode, smarter notifications and sharing options. With remote workflows more important than ever before, you'll want to hear what he has to say.