Hedge for Windows is here!

210 days, 1123 commits and 59162 lines of code later…

Today’s the day: Hedge for Windows is here!

TLDR; go get it here 👉 hedge.video/download/hedge

Credit where credit’s due

Of those seven months since announcing Hedge for Windows, the last two focused on intensive beta testing. Testing on Windows is quite different from the Mac: there’s much less consistency in the hardware and version of Windows in use.

Luckily, we had a big pool of pre-order users that have been testing across many setups. They caught a lot of exceptions and have been instrumental in making Hedge work for Windows 7 & 10. We couldn’t have done it without them, so thanks. A lot.

👏👏👏

Mac vs. Windows

When developing a new feature, you learn a lot along the way. Some things that took long to create on the Mac were a breeze to build on Windows, and vice versa. Drag and drop is so natural on the Mac because macOS completely handles it. To reach the same level of quality on Windows, we had to build it from the ground up.

So, instead of simply cloning Hedge for Mac, we chose to have a few differences between both apps. Our new copy engine design is already implemented in Windows, laying the foundation for pause/resume, redo and cascading copies. On the other hand, Hedge for Windows does lack some features that are staples on the Mac. In the upcoming months, we’ll converge both apps to a unified feature set.

For those of you that are currently using Hedge on the Mac, here’s a quick overview of the main differences:

Checksums ✅

UPDATE: XXHASH IS AVAILABLE IN 18.1 — Focusing on a solid user experience, we chose to build Hedge for Windows with 100% native code, in C#. Unfortunately, the xxHash C# library isn’t as fast as we hoped it would be. So, for now, Hedge for Windows uses MD5 to create checksums.

Labels 🏷

UPDATE: LABELS ARE AVAILABLE IN 17.1 — Organizing media in Hedge is going to be a lot easier with the upcoming Hedge for Mac release. Hedge for Windows already has one of its most significant features: Labels. It’s like digital gaffer, but for folder management.

By default, Hedge creates a folder with the name of the Source. By applying a Label, you override this behaviour: Hedge now uses the label to create a folder with. You can use slashes within a Label for deeper structures and more organization. More news on this over here:

Labels & Collections
It’s all about a better workflow.medium.hedgeformac.com

Folder Format 🗂

Hedge for Mac’s Folder Format was getting a bit too complicated, so we’ll be overhauling it. We consider it legacy, that’s why it’s staying in for now. Hedge for Windows will gain folder format functionality when we redesign this part, and add a lot more parameters to it. If you have a need for a specific wildcard or format, let us know.

Frame Based 🖼

UPDATE: AVAILABLE IN 18.1 — Compared to the beta, we vastly improved the speed for handling files larger than 10MB. Frame-based codecs that shoot in Full HD generally have smaller files, so we have a research project planned to see if we can optimize Hedge for those smaller files too.

Concurrency 1️⃣➡️2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣

UPDATE: AVAILABLE IN 18.1 — Single verified transfers are already pretty fast in Hedge for Windows, but simultaneous transfers are running into bottlenecks on some systems. Implementing concurrency is a priority.

Connect (for Android) 📳

This one is a biggie. When building Connect, we never thought we’d be going to Windows within a year. We need to revisit the engine that we’re using for Connect for iOS, to support Windows and Android. A joint effort, so to speak.

(If you’re a dev and have ideas on this or want the job, get in touch 😎)

Localization 🇺🇸🇬🇧

Right now Hedge for Windows is only available in English. We have translations ready for about 20 languages, so you can expect those to show up soon.

Scripts 📝

Hedge for Mac can automatically fire off AppleScripts, based on events like a finished transfer. We’re not sure if and how we can do this on Windows; AppleScript is obviously out of the question. If you have any ideas about this, let us know.

And the rest…

Hide Disks, Eject, Auto Destination, Recents, and the ETA are all coming in the next few months. If one of these is a necessity for your workflow, let us know. It will help us prioritize.

Trials and Licenses 🔑

Just like on the Mac, Hedge for Windows comes with a fully working 10-day trial. A license costs $99, and cross-platform licenses are available for $149. Discounts are availble if you need multiple seats. Existing Mac users can add Windows compatibility to their license for $49.

More details here: hedge.video/pricing

Thanks!

The Hedge Team