EditShare Intros Flow 3.2 For Asset Management

EditShare, a provider of shared media storage and end-to-end tapeless workflow solutions, today announced version 3.2 of Flow, the company’s media asset management platform. Attendees to CCW 2014, held in New York City at the Javits Convention Center Nov. 12-13, can see the new Flow 3.2 at booth 1236.

Flow 3.2 boasts new features including support for industry-standard 4K codecs; unique file upload and download capabilities that expand the remote collaboration power of AirFlow, the Web-based portal into Flow; and new, fully-automated transcoding and delivery options.

“What sets EditShare Flow apart from other enterprise media asset management platforms is its ease of deployment as well as its ease of use for varying skillsets,” said Jeff Herzog, EditShare Flow product manager. “The breadth and depth of Flow features suits the needs of most media workflows without requiring an entire IT department to deploy. Version 3.2 expands the platform’s remote collaboration, automation and delivery capabilities while providing a broad range of enhancements including 4K format support and a high-availability database option enhancing both workflow versatility and end-user experience.”

EditShare Flow 3.2 includes the following new features and workflow capabilities:

New Format and Ingest Capabilities

Expanded 4K Support
Flow 3.2 adds support for emerging industry-standard formats such as ProRes 4K, RED R3D and XAVC, giving facilities the ability to scan and create proxy files for 4K formats.

Support for Single-File-Per-Frame Formats
Flow 3.2 adds support for scanning DPX, TIF, Cinema DNG, ARRIRAW, PNG and other file types with sequential file names. Flow can make a proxy of the image sequence and treat it as a single clip element.

Support for Up to Six Channels of HD-SDI Ingest in a Single Flow Server
A single Flow server now supports up to six channels of HD-SDI ingest, providing centralized ingest at a breakthrough price.

Support for Closed Captions in MOV format
Flow 3.2 adds support for Closed Captions during ingest of HD-SDI, preserving closed caption data for editing and playout.

Audio-Only File Ingest
Ideal for audio workflows, Flow 3.2 now supports ingest of audio-only from a video file into WAV and AAC formats, with proxy files generated in the background.

New Remote Collaboration and Automation Features

Enhanced Remote Collaboration Capabilities
AirFlow users can now upload and download files from a web browser interface, dramatically enhancing collaboration for users connecting remotely. When downloading clips, users can choose either hi-res or proxy resolutions. When uploading clips, users can specify a target media space to ensure that clips go into the desired location on central storage. Once clips are received, Flow Automation can handle further processing such as automatic scanning, transcoding and email notifications that new clips have arrived.

Fully Automated Transcoding and Delivery
New Watch Folders facilitate fully-automated transcoding or delivery workflows, including new delivery via FTP. Flow Watch Folders are compatible with EditShare storage and third-party storage, providing flexible options for moving content between disparate systems.

New High-Availability Database Option

Flow 3.2 now offers a redundant database option. If the primary database goes down for any reason, Flow automatically fails over to the backup database. Once the primary database is back online, Flow switches back and ensures all data is synced.

Flow User Experience Enhancements

Flow Project Improvements
Version 3.2 adds the ability to filter contents within EditShare Projects – sequences, clips and folders – making it easier to find content in large projects. Through Flow Control, administrators can also now choose which users have permission to create new Flow Projects.

Folder View of Assets
Previously, Flow always presented a flat view of a media space, which makes sense for some type of spaces. However, for managed and unmanaged media spaces, Flow now presents an unflattened view, showing the folder structure that was created by the user.

Individual File Scanning
Flow 3.2 allows the user to add files to a media space, perform a “quick scan” to register the clip in the database, and then select individual files (or a group of files) for a normal scan, which initiates proxy file creation for those files, facilitating faster logging and collaboration.