We’ve all faced it – late night edit sessions, final cut-downs, revisions, revisions and even more revisions. The video spot is almost done, it’s uploaded to your online media-sharing software, and time to deliver a version to your various audiences so they can make decisions and provide feedback (post, VFX, review, approval).
You have the master ProRes file but you need to deliver in various formats to three or more distinct audiences. You need to send the master version to the editor so they can work with the source. You need to send a web-friendly version to the client so they can view it in a specific browser, and you also need to send a version to the producer who only views media on their phone. What to do? Time is of essence and you need to deliver the right version to each person to meet your deadline.
Playing a video on any device is imperative to collaborate effectively and save time
One solution can be to transcode in-house all audio and video files before you upload it for storage to make sure it plays back right on every OS and browser. That’s time-consuming for a couple of reasons.
First: Transcoding is more of an art than a science. Every video is different. Some have fast action scenes. Some have flat dialogue around a dinner table. Each video requires different specifications to make it look as good as possible and to ensure that the file will play on most browsers and devices.
Second: Transcoding is very computer processor intensive and can be complicated. It is possible to make multiple transcoded versions of a file using basic software and a Mac, but this will take time, processing power and available storage on your in-house and cloud systems. Even if you managed to do it, you would create dozens of files, using up precious processing power and memory space on your own system.
Third: Time. Over a week, transcode/upload activity can cost you hours if you don’t have a tool like Wiredrive to automatically transcode files for you so that your audience can view them– time you can’t afford to lose.
Selective transcoding and fast uploads with Wiredrive
Why spend extra time, processing power, and storage when it’s not needed. Wiredrive’s media sharing and production collaboration tool is specifically designed to make it faster and easier for you to share and collaborate with teams, clients and prospects. All you need to do is upload your audio or video files to Wiredrive in their original format – and get on with other creative, exciting work.
Our system scans every video and audio source file to check if it plays back smoothly. Nine out of ten files are generally fine. For files that won’t play in their original format, we create a transcoded version of the file. Our transcoding process is both faster and smoother as we use ‘selective transcoding’ – which means we only transcode the parts that need it. For example, if the video is fine but the audio needs to change, then the video stream remains untouched. This keeps the transcoded version as close to the original version as possible while enabling it to play in a browser without problems.
Let’s say you have a 1GB ProRes file that you want to share from your London office. Transcoding and uploading can take you from 50 minutes to a couple of hours. With Wiredrive you could have it transcoded and ready for playback in under six minutes. From LA, you need just four minutes. The Wiredrive system takes under a minute to transcode a 1GB ProRes file, and just 40 seconds for an H.264 file.
Compare this to how long it takes to transcode a file on your own. What’s more, the transcoding takes place on our processors and is stored on our servers – leaving your in-house systems available for more important tasks. Even very large, high-resolution files like ProRes, will play back with the highest possible resolution (even with high bitrates!).
We also keep your original files so that your team can easily share them, track them, and always download the source file that was uploaded, leading to a collaborative workflow. This is especially important when you are all working from different locations and timezones.
Postproduction is tricky business. With all of the codecs, software options and workflows available to us, it’s hard to know if we’re being as efficient as we can be and any solution that eliminates unproductive tedious tasks for your team is a good thing.
