Hi there! I'm a seasoned film editor and filmmaking teacher, Apple certified trainer.
I've been using frame.io which is now a rival to the new dropbox replay. I like Dropbox a lot and I'm interested in it having a tighter integration with my filmmaking software to provide a smooth ride for both filmmakers and our clients.
1. My most important suggestion is: please read and display the files' timecode track. mov's, mp4's and mxf's usually have it.
Pro camera footage typically starts from the timecode of the start of recording (for example a clip started right now would read 05:02:XX:XX at its beginning). Edited films and commercials typically start at 01:00:00:00, for example and there might be some padding before (I like to add 2 seconds header with a test flash / beep which means the start of file is at 00:59:58:00 etc).
As per Quicktime (.mov / .mp4), the timecode is just another track next to video and audio. Frame.io has an option to switch between start at 0:00 and proper timecode. QuickTime player on Mac (current os) shows the correct timecode if the track is there. Here's an example:
This will enable editors to better identify where comments belong and be helpful when you decide to expand replay to —
2. Comments import/export. What's really cool about frame.io is that it's possible to both import comments along with the video file from editing software. I can describe how it works with Apple's Final Cut Pro, my weapon of choice:
Comments inside the editor are known as "To-Do markers". The helper application has a certain flag and can talk to Final Cut Pro using Apple Events. There's an old yet working demo app called SimpleAssetManagerSample on developer.apple.com.
When choosing the app (let it be Dropbox itself for example), Final Cut Pro first provides the app (via Apple Events) with project's metadata -- these are filled inside the program, we could for example track which Dropbox Replay folder the file belongs to. Then it asks the helper app which kind of data it needs, and here we can request both video file (rendered result of the edit) along with an .fcpxml (a FCPX-specific xml derivative which completely describes the edit and includes To-Dos).
The fcpxml itself is valuable and it'd be a cool feature if it's kept along with the render, — in a scenario all is lost on editor's machine, all that's needed to recover the edit of the, say, approved version is the .fcpxml that's, say a context menu click away from the file in the Replay web interface.
To-Do's: Apple has the complete description of their .fcpxml, google for FCPXML DTD. The latest addition is to have the xml inside a bundle but the point is the same: it's easy to look for comments (to-do markers in the editing program) along with their attributes (timecode + pending/done status) and populate the "comments" area when the video uploads.
I've seen that now the comments are exportable in json / csv / xml, I'm going to try to parse them into .fcpxml with bash scripts for fun as I have some skills there, but unfortunately most filmmakers won't be able to do that. : )
If you'd like to add FCPX integration (millions of editors will be grateful), it should be quite easy to parse the comments table into a fcpxml object containing text elements and markers so that the editor can take only what's more convenient at the point.
The integration should be similar for other editing programs you haven't covered yet.
Please feel free to contact me if you need sample footage / more info or advice on Dropbox Replay. I'd be happy for it to grow into an even cooler product.
💛💙