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Collaboration tools? Anyone used syncVUE?
I’m looking for a way to view QT movies in-sync with a director who will be out of the country while I’m editing on FCP. Basically, we need to review QT movie exports of my sequences three times a week and discuss them. We’ve tried using iChat to view the movie files together, but the image quality isn’t good enough for our purposes (he wants to see full 480P versions of the movies with little compression).
A friend referred me to a product he’s been beta-testing called “syncVUE” (www.syncvue.com), but he was under NDA and couldn’t tell me too much. They claim they’ll be showing the product at NAB, but I can’t make it to the show to see it. Has anyone seen this app or had any experience with it? It seems to be exactly what I need, but I’d like to find someone who may have had their hands on it.
JCook
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9 Replies
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IF it isn’t due until NAB, and he is under a NDA, then it isn’t out yet and no one has it. And if they do, they probably have the same NDA.
Shane
Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net -
Over the years there have been plenty of very smart, very driven people who’ve worked very hard trying to come up with a product that does exactly what you’re looking for (remote review and approval). Since our workflow depends on this, I’ve tested, reviewed, tried, and played with many of these systems. My conclusion is that the systems that work are either prohibitively expensive or require proprietary hardware at both ends. Have you asked your director how much he’s willing to pay for the privelege of distant collaboration? I’m willing to bet that you haven’t addressed this issue. Until you have a confirmed committment (budget) for this kind of connectivity, iChat is going to be your best option.
In the mean time, do a google search for “remote review and approval”. You’ll find tons of options.
Mark
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Mark,
My company is behind this product so I’d like to clarify some things:
First of all, you’re right, most of the “live” streaming of type review and approval tools are very expensive – which puts it out of the reach of most editors. At this time, syncVUE is not designed for live streaming an FCP or Avid output via IP to a remote location. Of course, people are doing this using iChat, but image quality isn’t good enough for more demanding applications. But, it does do what Mr. Cook described – it allows people to collaborate remotely and frame accurately on local copies of the same media file at any frame-rate or resolution their computer is capable of playing. Basically, all participants see and hear exactly the same thing, and any one or all can have control of all the playback functions. They can also add TC based locators with notes that can be exported to Final Cut Pro.
That’s it. If you want more information, you can visit our site (www.syncvue.com) or come visit us at NAB (SU3220). And though the final price has not yet been set, it will be well under $199 per seat.
Michael Buday
Intelligent Gadgets
http://www.syncvue.com -
I think you may have misunderstood my original post. I’m not looking to edit “live” with the director looking over my shoulder from 5000 miles away. I just want to get on with my cut and post it as a very high quality QT file each evening, which the director and I can then review together the next morning, but review it in sync.
I don’t see why this has to be such an expensive proposition.
JCook
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[JCook90210] “I don’t see why this has to be such an expensive proposition.”
Less than $199 per seat is expensive?! That’s a ridiculously fair price for what this tool is going to do. I’ll definitely be at their booth to check it out.
If you want something cheaper, then use iChat, that’s basically free.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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For anyone who’s interested, I had an NAB demo today of syncVUE and I came away extremely impressed. Very simple, very elegant interface – and at the price, it was kind of a no-brainer for me to dive in and buy a few licenses (they were offering five licenses for $100 each only for the duration of the show).
Basically, you ship a QT file to your director (or producer, or whomever else you want to “work” with), then you all launch your syncVUE players and “connect” to each other. At that point, you’re both watching the same media file (local copies of it) in sync. It had all the basic FCP stuff like JKL, etc. Anyone in the session can add locators with notes, and by the time they ship (next month), they claim they’ll have a drawing layer as well (lines, circles, arrows, etc. though I didn’t see this in action) You can also export all the locators back to FCP as an XML file.
In the demo I saw, they were syncing 480P and 720P files encoded as H.264 and they looked incredible. The whole app plugs into SKYPE for connectivity, and as a result, it has built in voice conferencing to all your participants in addition to the syncd movie playback.
Very cool..
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There is an alternative to syncVUE, called cineSync. https://www.cinesync.com.
“cineSync version 1.1 is a major release of cineSync that introduces many significant new features, such as a playlist organiser, uploading and downloading movies from FTP sites, arrow and circle drawing tools, navigation markers, greatly improved video playback performance, transparency and Wacom support on Windows, a built-in whiteboard and blackboard, and an improved look and feel. cineSync on Mac OS X is also a Universal Binary, and now runs natively on both Intel and PowerPC Macs.”
cineSync has been available commerically since November 2005.
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You can also check out “QT Movie NoteTaker”- the new version (.5) has these features:
* loads anything that can be played in Quicktime
* automatically enters movie name and length in notes
* automatically enters movie time in notes when stop button is clicked
* NEW! Click on any note to jump directly to that point in the movie!
* NEW! Movie time display
* NEW! cool keyboard shortcuts – shuttle transport control – Cmd/Cntrl left, down and right arrow work like J, K, L in your editing software, Shift shuttles rapidly
* recurring notes feature- if you need to enter a certain note multiple times, rather than typing it over and over, or copying and pasting, you can just enter the note in the recurring notes field, and add it with one click to your notes along with the current time of the movie
* save notes with one click
* email notes with one click
* fits in 1280 X 854 PowerBook screen (this is minumum screen resolution)
* will load any movie size – resizes movie automatically to fit your screen (or window)- log HD footage on a laptop!
* Mac OS X / WinXP
* free!Read more and download here:
https://dvcreators.net/qt-movie-notetaker/
http://www.dvcreators.net
training and resources for DV creators -
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