Frame.io Adds Apple TV App, Expanded Video Collaboration Partnerships

Cloud-based video-collaboration and -review service Frame.io today launched an app on Apple
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TV devices and announced new or expanded partnerships with Teradek, Atomos, and iPhone app maker FiLMiC Pro, among others.

Frame.io Senior Director of Global Innovation Michael Cioni said the company is making its Camera to Cloud technology work with video-capture devices and software at every level of video creation, from high-end productions down to cell phones, involving products from 11 companies, including Viviana, Colorfront, FDX’s FilmDataBox, and Aaton. Partnerships with another dozen companies are in process, he said.

“It’s Camera to Cloud for everyone,” Cioni said. “What we’re really trying to do is not just offer people one tool. We are providing sort of an entirely new tool set. Everybody gets to decide how deep they want to go.”

That means expanding Frame.io’s integration with Teradek, which makes recording hardware for high-end cameras, including with the new Trade Serv 4K, which creates low-bandwidth, timecode-accurate proxies in 10-bit 4K HEVC format to be shared across the cloud. Teradek and audio specialist Sound Devices were the first partners in the Camera to Cloud program beginning last year.

New partnerships include one with Atomos, whose new Shogun Connect device and a new Connect module that updates existing Ninja V and Ninja V+ devices will be able to capture video from any mirrorless, DSLR, or pro video camera, and share to the cloud for review and approvals. Such cameras are commonly used for corporate videos, news teams, event photographers, and indie documentary and film makers.

The integration also reaches to creators using the cinema-creation app FiLMiC Pro on their iPhone, with functions designed to make it easier to move substantial video clips from phone to cloud, where they can be edited, color corrected, and otherwise undergo post production with remote collaborators.

Other new partners include Magic ViewFinder, Comfort, and Zoelog. The company also is integrating its sharing functions into FilmLight’s Baselight color-grading software.

The Apple TV app is designed to create an improved film-review process for executives, with a simplified interface to make it easier to review, annotate and approve clips or entire reels of 10-bit, 4K-resolution video in HDR on their TVs. Cioni said the new app makes it easy to create a near-set big screen during a production so participants can watch or review shots as they’re being captured.

The company also added new security features, including two-factor authentication and digital-rights management functions, which with its watermarking functions substantially improve protections for clips being shared on the web.

“The DRM includes server-side authentication,” Paul Saccone, Frame.io’s director of product marketing. “If (a clip is) not authorized, it just won’t play back.”

Adobe acquired Frame.io last fall for about $1.3 billion, saying it would be an important addition to its cloud-based suite of content-creation tools.

Just days ago, Frame.io announced its app would available free for subscribers to Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite of creative programs such as Photoshop and After Effects. That means people using Premier Pro, for instance, can pull down the video through Frame.io, edit it and then make the result available for review, further work, and approvals.

The integrations will also be available for free for those with paid Frame.io accounts, with most available as of today. The new Atomos and Teradek devices are expected to be available soon.

Earlier this week, Blackmagic Design signaled its own substantive pivot to cloud-based video production, building the collaboration functions into its do-everything video- and audio-editing/color grading suite DaVinci Resolve, and several new hardware devices designed to take advantage of it.

Both companies’ initiatives reflect a broader industry-wide shift toward cloud-based collaboration that can dramatically speed the work of remote and distributed productions and post-production work.