2020 is over - and not a moment too soon. This was a grueling year that somehow managed to pass by both quickly and slowly at the same time.

Kollaborate

The pandemic meant our users relied on our Kollaborate cloud service even more, so much of the year was spent on infrastructure and making sure we could accommodate the spike in usage. We did however deliver major new features such as folder downloading, heatmaps and transcription improvements.

Our self-hosted version of Kollaborate received Docker integration, which greatly simplifies installation and management for customers.

We embarked on a mission to rewrite Kollaborate in its entirety, which we designed in such a way that the new components could be slotted into the existing site so that we could roll it out in stages.

Some of the new parts are already live on the site and we're just about to roll out a new release in which the vast majority of the site is running under the newer backend. There are still a small number of features using the old system that we plan to address in a future update. The new version provides speed and reliability improvements, and once all features are running on the new system in future we'll have even more options to improve speed further.

We are planning to do the same for the frontend next, which will also be done in stages.

In addition, we plan to focus on the Kollaborate helper apps over the next year, including new workflow plugins for Final Cut Pro X and DaVinci Resolve.

And of course, we have lots of new ideas for features that we want to keep under wraps for now...

Digital Rebellion apps

We've been wanting to create cross-platform apps for a while now and the big barrier to that was one of tooling (it was difficult to find tools that met all of our needs and were also reasonably pleasant to use). This is an issue that is almost fixed now and so we plan to look more seriously at Windows support in 2021.

Since this would require products to be rewritten from scratch, we will do so on a priority/ease-of-development basis and so not every product will therefore be cross-platform by the end of 2021.

We also plan Big Sur / Apple Silicon compatible versions of our apps after the upcoming Kollaborate release.

This is intended as a list of our major goals / priorities and we are planning many more things not listed here. Thanks to all of our customers for their support and we hope Digital Rebellion products continue to improve your projects in 2021.

Pro Media Tools 2.0 - Nov 30 2020

• QT Edit has been rewritten to use the modern AV Foundation framework, allowing it to work in Catalina and Big Sur. This is a preview release that should largely be stable but we recommend operating on a copy of your media files just in case. The majority of features from the old version still exist, with the exception of a few small features that no longer exist in the new API. Chapter support is not present in the new version because chapters are different in the new API and it makes more sense to implement them in a new way instead of directly porting the old implementation, so chapters will be returning in a future update.
• Video Check - It's now possible to run audio scans without scanning video
• Video Check - Improved the reliability / accuracy of audio scans
• Video Check - Performance improvements
• Edit Detector - Reliability improvements
• Various other optimizations and modernizations

Kollaborate Server 3.1 - Oct 7 2020

Kollaborate Premiere Panel for Windows 1.0.4 - Oct 6 2020

• Improved compatibility with Adobe Premiere Pro 14.4
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and improvements

Kollaborate Premiere Panel for Mac 1.0.4 - Oct 6 2020

• Improved compatibility with Adobe Premiere Pro 14.4
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and improvements

Kollaborate Plugin Pack 1.1.5 - Sep 9 2020

• Improved compatibility with macOS 10.15
• Various small tweaks and fixes

Last week we released Kollaborate Server 3.1, a major update to our self-hosted workflow platform for creatives.

Edit default roles

You can now modify the default roles for projects server-wide from the Tools page of the Admin Area.

Installer passwords

The installer and upgrader are now password protected for added security on Docker installations by default. You can find the password inside the config.env file.

Non-Docker manual installations do not have the password set by default but it can be set through the environment variable KOLLAB_INSTALLER_PASSWORD.

Folder downloading

The contents of folders, departments or entire projects can now be downloaded all at once as a single zip file.

Heatmaps

Heatmaps show how a video has been viewed - where people skipped ahead and where they watched more than once. Click the Heatmap button in the player for all results combined, or go to the Users tab to view heatmaps for individual users.

Currently heatmaps are recorded only for team members but we plan to record them for link recipients in future.

Quick Share

Clicking the Share button on the player or Files page now generates a link that you can copy and paste immediately, which can dramatically speed up the process if you need to generate lots of links at once. You can edit the link options in the dialog and they will be remembered for future links.

If you clicked the button by mistake, you can also delete the link from that dialog.

Task tags

You can now add tags to tasks. Some uses for this could be:

• To segment tasks into categories such as "sound" and "VFX"
• To tag tasks with milestones such as "v3.0"
• To convey a task's status - e.g. "Needs verification" or "Successfully reproduced"
• To add additional context or information to a task - such as "5.1 mix" if the issue only appears in a particular mix

Keyboard shortcut overhaul

While Kollaborate has supported keyboard shortcuts for a long time, these weren't easily discoverable. Now whenever a page has available shortcuts, a keyboard icon will appear at the bottom of the screen that will show you shortcuts available for that page. This update also added lots of new shortcuts for things like image zooming and PDF page navigation.

Other changes

• Import / export metadata to CSV files
• Pin important tasks to the top of the Tasks view
• Improved icons
• You can now add captions in languages other than English
• Language can now be specified when creating a project - this controls which caption language displays by default
• Lots of bug fixes and improvements

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

Kollaborate 3.1 - Aug 20 2020

• Massive under-the-hood overhaul
• Folder downloading
• Heatmaps - show where people skipped ahead and where they watched more than once
• QuickShare - faster sharing of links
• Task tags
• Custom Roles
• Keyboard shortcut overhaul - click the Keyboard icon at the bottom left of the screen to discover available keyboard shortcuts
• Import / export metadata from CSV files
• Pin important tasks to the top of the Tasks view
• Improved icons
• You can now add captions in languages other than English (although automatic transcription is still English-only)
• Lots of bug fixes and improvements

CinePlay 1.6.5 - Aug 11 2020

• Improved scrubbing performance
• Fixed several issues with Kollaborate Synced Sessions not working correctly
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

We've made big improvements to the automatic transcription feature of our Kollaborate cloud workflow platform.

English transcription is now more accurate and we're offering support for Russian, Chinese and German too. We expect to add additional languages in future as speech models become available.

Automatic transcription is free and unlimited for all Team accounts.

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. To find out more, see the overview or register for the free trial.

We recently released Kollaborate 3.1, a major update to our cloud workflow platform for film and TV.

Massive under-the-hood overhaul

Kollaborate has had a complete under-the-hood overhaul to improve scalability and provide a secure base on which we can quickly develop new features. All new features are being delivered on the new foundation and we plan to convert existing features to the new system over time.

Folder downloading

The contents of folders, departments or entire projects can now be downloaded all at once as a single zip file.

Heatmaps

Heatmaps show how a video has been viewed - where people skipped ahead and where they watched more than once. Click the Heatmap button in the player for all results combined, or go to the Users tab to view heatmaps for individual users.

Currently heatmaps are recorded only for team members but we plan to record them for link recipients in future.

Quick Share

Clicking the Share button on the player or Files page now generates a link that you can copy and paste immediately, which can dramatically speed up the process if you need to generate lots of links at once. You can edit the link options in the dialog and they will be remembered for future links.

If you clicked the button by mistake, you can also delete the link from that dialog.

Task tags

You can now add tags to tasks. Some uses for this could be:

• To segment tasks into categories such as "sound" and "VFX"
• To tag tasks with milestones such as "v3.0"
• To convey a task's status - e.g. "Needs verification" or "Successfully reproduced"
• To add additional context or information to a task - such as "5.1 mix" if the issue only appears in a particular mix

Custom Roles

Roles on the Team page can now be customized. Project admins can click the Manage Roles option in the dropdown next to a user to add, edit or remove custom roles.

Keyboard shortcut overhaul

While Kollaborate has supported keyboard shortcuts for a long time, these weren't easily discoverable. Now whenever a page has available shortcuts, a keyboard icon will appear at the bottom of the screen that will show you shortcuts available for that page. This update also added lots of new shortcuts for things like image zooming and PDF page navigation.

Other changes

• Import / export metadata to CSV files
• Pin important tasks to the top of the Tasks view
• Improved icons
• You can now add captions in languages other than English (although automatic transcription is still English-only)
• Lots of bug fixes and improvements

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. To find out more, see the overview or register for the free trial.

CinePlay for iOS 1.7.8 - Jun 19 2020

• Fixed an issue where it might not be possible to enter comments with an external keyboard
• Minor UI tweaks

Pro Media Tools 1.9 - May 22 2020

• macOS 10.15 Catalina compatibility for all apps except QT Edit. QT Edit is still in the process of being converted to AV Foundation and will be updated in a future release.
• Gamma Shift Detector has been discontinued and removed from the suite but can be freely downloaded from https://www.digitalrebellion.com/support/gammashiftdetector
• Dark mode support
• Apps in the suite now use the modern AV Foundation API (this primarily affects Edit Detector and Video Check)
• Edit Detector is now more accurate at finding edit points
• Pro Media Tools now requires macOS 10.10 or higher
• Various bug fixes, tweaks and modernizations

Gamma Shift Detector 1.8 - May 22 2020

This app has been discontinued. This update removes the registration code to make the app freely downloadable.

Kollaborate Server 3.0.3 - May 20 2020

Docker changes

• Fixed an issue where the container may not be able to communicate with LetsEncrypt's servers
• Setting USE_LETS_ENCRYPT to false now removes existing certificates, which is useful for troubleshooting
• Fixed an issue where Postfix may not start automatically
• When LetsEncrypt is switched on, http requests are now automatically forwarded to https

Other changes

• Support for showing image files in the Adobe Panel
• Comments - Replies are still listed under their respective parent comments when ordering comments by date
• Comments - Fixed an issue where comment replies may not be threaded correctly
• Player - Fixed an issue where pressing Play on Cut Notes wouldn't stop rewinding/fast forwarding when synced to the web UI
• Users - Fixed an issue where admins could be unable to add users in some instances
• Various minor tweaks and bug fixes

Upgrading from a previous version

Please see the Upgrading section of the installation guide for instructions on how to upgrade your existing installation.

We recently released a major new update to Pro Media Tools, our suite of media management tools for video professionals.

macOS 10.15 Catalina compatibility

The main change in this version is long-awaited compatibility with macOS 10.15 for all apps in the suite, with the exception of QT Edit, where a Catalina-compatible version is still in development and will be released in a future update.

Additionally, as previously announced, Gamma Shift Detector has been removed from the suite, but can be downloaded free of charge here.

Some apps required few or no changes in order to be Catalina compatible, but the two apps that required the most work were Edit Detector and Video Check. The QuickTime foundations of these apps were stripped out and replaced with AV Foundation equivalents, resulting in faster processing speeds as well as the aforementioned compatibility.

Other changes

The apps in the suite now support Dark Mode on macOS 10.14 and higher.

Additionally,  we managed to optimize and improve Edit Detector’s detection accuracy as a nice side-effect of the rewriting work we did.

Pro Media Tools is an essential toolkit for media professionals. To find out more, view the feature list, read the user manual or download the free 15-day trial.