Workflow for collaborating on video projects from a distance

[davidcom]

I'm not sure which subforum this question goes in. Since I'm working with Premiere, I figured I'd put it in "Editing".

I currently work with a team of editors in NYC. Each of us has a workstation. When an editor has a video ready to export, I come to his/her desk to give it a quick review before they send it to the render queue. (Our videos are around 5-7mins long each and are rendered for YouTube and produce file sizes of around 300mb).

In a few months I will be moving to France and I'm trying to figure out the best way for my editors to be able to quickly render their videos and send them to me before doing their official YouTube render. I guess I'm looking for advice on how editors collaborate over a distance.

One important point is that it has to be FREE.

Ideas I've had:

• Create a separate YouTube channel for testing. Figure out a fast render setting in Media Encoder to output a sample of the video as quickly as possible and upload the video in with "Private" setting. Then share the link with the team. The sample video would need to be small in file size and viewing quality would be less important.
  
• I've also thought maybe sending the small file using a file sending site might be an option (like sendthisfile dot com).
  
• Figure out a quick render method and place the file in a shared folder using dropbox.

Anyone have any experience in this? Anyone got a fine-tuned system they use to quickly export and make videos available for review? Any advice on the quickest way to export a project through Media Encoder, giving preference to file size over video quality?

Thanks!

[aedipuss]

depends on how much you trust their work. if they mostly do ok alone, i'd have them upload the finished work to the normal youtube channel as private and i'd look at them there and hopefully just change them to public. if not delete it and fire off a nasty note.

if i had to correct most of it, i'd run an ftp server at the nyc office (filezilla server is free and works well), have them put their work in folders made accessible on the ftp and use ftp client software to download/view it.

[davidcom]

depends on how much you trust their work.

Good point. There are usually 3 or 4 changes I have them make before exporting final version. So it's rarely anything drastic.

if i had to correct most of it, i'd run an ftp server at the nyc office (filezilla server is free and works well), have them put their work in folders made accessible on the ftp and use ftp client software to download/view it.

I'll take a look at this. Would be good if there was a way to stream the video over the internet instead of having to upload/download it first. Anyone got any ideas on this?

Anyone have advice on the quickest render settings in Media Encoder to quickly render out a video draft to be reviewed? We shoot with Canon HSF20, so the raw footage is 1080 AVCHD.

[aedipuss]

there is no difference in bandwidth usage between streaming and downloading. with ftp you can d/l all the files at once and view as you wish. to stream you'd need to set up a webserver and basically run a website in the nyc office, which of course could be done.

1080i60 or 1080p30? i might have the draft renders made with no changes to the source settings other than reducing the bitrate to something acceptable for uploading overseas. it should take less time with fewer adjustments, especially if you have to de-interlace. that's if the youtube renders take too long, otherwise i'd go with them, as 300mb isn't very big for most net connections these days.

[davidcom]

Thanks for the input.

1080i60 or 1080p30?

1080i60

as 300mb isn't very big for most net connections these days.

Yes, true. One of my motivations was to make is as painless as poss for my editors. Right now, they're used to calling me over to look at something they're working on directly in Premiere. Now they'll have to render, upload/send somehow, and wait for response. Would be good to find a good streaming solution where my team would render, dump the render in a local folder, and I'd be able to access and stream the content on the fly.

I'm looking at orb.com right now. They seem to have a free solution for streaming from one computer to another over the internet in real time.

i might have the draft renders made with no changes to the source settings other than reducing the bitrate to something acceptable for uploading overseas. it should take less time with fewer adjustments, especially if you have to de-interlace. that's if the youtube renders take too long, otherwise i'd go with them,

Yeah, I just need a low res version to take a quick look at cuts, pacing and overall composition.

[Khaver]

Dropbox shared folders.