Press Release: Improve your creative workflow with Hedge at NAB 2024
Unlocking Creative Potential: Hedge's Latest Innovations Elevate Workflow Efficiency and Collaboration for Artists Everywhere
Utrecht, The Netherlands, 14th April 2024: Spring is here, and that means the Hedge team is springing into action for NAB 2024! They have some incredible new developments across all of their workflow app. From improved inter-app integrations between apps like OffShoot and EditReady to an entirely new PostLab, Hedge is bringing a laundry list of workflow innovations to NAB this year.
You’ll be able to find the Hedge Team at booth SL10079, so if you find yourself in Vegas between April 14th and 17th, book a demo or just swing by to chat all things workflow Get a firsthand look at all the latest Hedge updates with live demos from the Hedge team, tailored to suit any workflow. From creative professionals to enthusiasts, there's something for everyone. Explore the impressive demos on display and participate in daily raffles for a chance to win exciting prizes.
Schedule a demo with the Hedge team to ensure you don't miss out on an exclusive sneak peek of upcoming features. Limited slots are available, so book now!
PostLab 2.0
Hedge is beyond excited to share that the total overhaul of their PostLab app is right around the corner, and a full demo will be available at their NAB booth.
Whether you’re a jack-of-all-trades freelancer, a worldwide video team, a cross-discipline multimedia production company, or building a reusable media library for a school, organization, or corporation, the new PostLab has rethought how workflows, apps, and collaborators can work together to make everything start to flow effortlessly.
At its core, PostLab 2.0 offers the same functionality that the current PostLab (which will be called PostLab Classic moving forward) offers: workflow and collaboration management through version control management. However, how it achieves that, is completely different from before and is the first of its kind. At PostLab 2.0’s core, Hedge is focusing on creating collaborative workflows designed around people, not storage.
This is not just a major update; PostLab 2.0 is a completely new app, written from the ground up, making a gigantic leap in collaboration for creatives. It's a command center that allows you to take control of your apps, projects, versioning, collaboration, and content pipelines all in one place. PostLab 2.0 will positively impact every aspect of your team’s in-person, remote, and hybrid workflows for any project or system that you use it with.
“PostLab 2.0 is more than just a software release. We've set out to build a worldwide operating system for your creative workflow. It is a hub for your creative team and a responsive central nervous system for your projects that simplifies repetitive tasks and media management in ways that will save your team hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars a year in lost productivity.” - Paul Matthijs Lombert - Hedge CEO & Co-founder
PostLab 2.0 is no longer just for Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro editors. Instead, it will support all creative apps and then some. The first release of PostLab 2.0 will only scratch the surface of what you will be able to control and customize as you begin to use this platform, and the workflows that will become available to you will be endless.
Out of the box, it will fully support the entire Apple Pro Apps suite: Final Cut Pro, Logic, and Motion, as well as apps like Pages and Numbers. A wide range of Adobe apps will also be supported, and Hedge is building support for other apps and folder-based projects that tools like ProTools use.
Another significant change: PostLab will no longer be a subscription. Instead, PostLab 2.0 works with license keys, just like any of Hedge’s other apps. A PostLab 2.0 license is a perpetual license that comes with a year of updates and support. The number of concurrent users is based on the number of activations added to your license key, which can have any number of activations.
“We are proud to be a company that actively listens to our customers and adapts our products to their needs. With our closed Beta of PostLab 2.0, we’ve been able to learn from our customer base all of their pain points and ensure the first official release of PostLab 2.0 is off to a great start.” - Paul Matthijs Lombert
If you find yourself coming to NAB this year, you can schedule a test drive of PostLab 2.0 for you and your team to check out. Otherwise, you can learn more about all things PostLab 2.0 right here. Stay tuned for the announcement of Hedge's post-NAB Q&A webinars. The new PostLab is a groundbreaking product, the first of its kind with no equivalent in the market. Its innovative features represent a significant leap beyond existing solutions. With PostLab 2.0, the possibilities are endless, and the Hedge team is excited to be a part of the creative breakthroughs its customers will achieve.
Offload, Report & Transcode: OffShoot 24.1 and Beyond
In many creative workflows, the juggling act of Offloading, Reporting, and Transcoding media can create a great deal of unnecessary friction.
Whether it’s dancing between a multitude of different software made by different vendors, finding your way around a large app with many layers, or simply finding the most straightforward solution for your specific workflow needs, it can be time-consuming enough sifting through the options.
Hedge is helping users bridge gaps in creative workflows of all shapes and sizes by increasing the integrations across their entire suite of applications, starting with recent updates to their OffShoot, FoolCat, and EditReady apps.
OffShoot, Hedge’s flagship workflow app, already has a tight integration with FoolCat to generate camera reports that can easily be customized with your logo, production information, and camera metadata. These reports can then be easily shared as PDFs or reports that dynamically scale to any device.
Offload your media with OffShoot, and when the transfer is completed, FoolCat will spring into action to create polished, customized camera reports with your settings and branding effortlessly and accurately.
The latest update for FoolCat builds upon this integration. Any RAW or Log files can now be processed so that the thumbnails convert RAW to REC.709, or you can apply your own custom 3D LUT in a .cube format to any video file. This way, your reports match exactly what everyone has been watching on set.
With more workflows integrating with the cloud or, in many cases, moving to the cloud completely, OffShoot Pro’s support for AWS and now Backblaze’s B2 cloud storage is a game-changer for offloading to cloud S3 destinations.
OffShoot’s new integration with EditReady also allows you to become a champion in keeping the work flowing by automatically triggering transcodes from your media transfer destination folder. As soon as the folder has been transferred, organized, and data verified by OffShoot, it can signal EditReady to open up and start transcoding.
“These powerful new updates and integrations being added across OffShoot, FoolCat and EditReady are designed with the key goal of reducing friction within our customer’s creative workflow. Each app can always be used on its own as needed, while these powerful integrations give users flexibility in how they orchestrate their workflow, no matter how simple or complex.” Paul Matthijs Lombert, Hedge CEO & Co-founder
In the upcoming EditReady release, Hedge is pleased to announce ongoing support for the newest RAW codecs from cutting-edge cameras, including the Sony Burano and RED V-RAPTOR. Hedge is committed to maintaining support for other camera RAW formats as they evolve.
You can check out all of these features at NAB, along with many of the upcoming features planned for OffShoot 24.2, like moving files within the same volume, and even sharing user presets with other team members to maintain organization supremacy.
Mimiq 24.2
The Hedge team has also been busy preparing the next Mimiq release, which includes some groundbreaking technology. All of this will be on display at their NAB booth.
With Mimiq 24.2, Hedge is introducing two industry-first new features:
Bin Refresh - see whether changes have been made to a bin that is locked by another editor and refresh your bin to expose those changes. It also allows you to take command of a bin once it's no longer in use by another editor.
NEXIS-coexistence - use local third-party storage devices or compatible cloud storage such as LucidLink alongside a NEXIS. This storage synergy allows you to expand your on-prem capacity with your choice of third-party storage or create a hybrid workflow for remote editors.
With the upcoming Mimiq Pro release, these features will be extended to cloud workflows such as LucidLink. This allows multiple local and cloud workspaces to coexist seamlessly on a user's machine.
All of these features can be tested with the Mimiq 24.2 Beta; you can sign up for the beta here.
Canister Pro
The Canister team has been busy putting the finishing touches on a truly intuitive approach to working with tape libraries. Desktop LTO users already benefit from Canister’s ability to make tape truly drag-and-drop, and now we’re scaling that up to tape libraries.
Canister Pro for Mac is due for release later in Q2. You can see a live demo at our stand during the 2024 NAB show. Thanks to our friends at Magstor, Canister Pro is validated for use with the M2000 and a range of similar-sized chassis.
We also have a few other tricks to show you at NAB, including a sneak peek of what's to come later this year. Come and have a look!
Arctic
Ten years after coming to the scene, Arctic Whiteness' Final Cut Library Manager (FCLM) gets a new home at Hedge. Now renamed Arctic, the new name is an homage to Arctic Whiteness, Vincent and Tim's company created the original app, and it nicely refers to FCLM's archiving purpose.
Born out of their own needs in the editing room, in 2014, Vincent Zorzi and Timothy Arms released Final Cut Library Manager to address FCP's ability to store media and generated files (optimized, proxy, and caches) outside of libraries. The enthusiastic response they got showed a clear need for media management and reclaiming disk space by Final Cut Pro users worldwide.
After some internal debate, Hedge decided to take FCLM under its wing. Economically, it didn’t make much sense; even though FLCM has thousands of users, it has never been able to financially support Tim and Vincent. Sometimes a tool a lot of people are using is simply not economically viable, and that's OK. However, useful software shouldn't get scrapped as if it's a car that is too expensive to maintain. Software doesn't go: total loss.
“That's why we decided to get on board. But this isn't a typical acquisition; we're not in it for the money. To ensure FCLM stays available and healthy, we're taking on stewardship.” - Paul Matthijs Lombert - Hedge CEO & Co-founder
With stewardship, one party takes responsibility for logistics, support, and maintenance without looking to make a profit. It's like running an in-company non-profit division funded by the revenue it generates itself, without the usual bureaucratic overhead of setting up and running a true non-profit organization.
Through Hedge’s stewardship, they are in a position to let the project piggyback on their processes and infrastructure for free and guarantee contractors working on the project that they get paid an honest rate and on time.
That's not all: Hedge is also ensuring the money spent on maintaining and developing FCLM fully benefits the FCP community, by bringing on Chris Hocking to work on FCLM. Through funding him to work on FCLM, Chris can put more of his spare time into FCP-focused tools like CommandPost - another app that has zero economic viability, but should never go away. All in all, it’s a win-win situation for the FCP community at-large, like what Hedge has done before with MergeX.
Arctic looks exactly like FCLM, minus a bunch of crashes that have been bugging people. Next, Hedge will be picking up where FCLM left off and adding some often requested settings and improvements.
Going forward, a new license costs $49. All existing users have received a coupon that allows them to purchase a new license at a 60% discount; the rate of extending a license. If you bought your FCLM license less than a year ago, Hedge has emailed you a personal 100% discount coupon. By upgrading your FCLM to Arctic, besides the mentioned fixes, you get support for any upcoming versions of macOS and FCP released within a year from now.
For more about Arctic and all of Hedge’s planned updates, check it out here.
The Final Countdown
The final countdown to NAB 2024 has officially begun, and the Hedge team couldn’t be more thrilled with what they get to share with the world this year.
Hedge’s goal is to help creative professionals create things in ways they never thought possible, no matter their experience or skill level within their creative industry.
With the development of workflow platforms like the upcoming PostLab 2.0, improved integrations between apps like OffShoot and EditReady, and further innovations across its suite of apps, Hedge continues to push the envelope in advancing creative workflows for creative people and has no plans to stop anytime soon.
Again, if you’re planning on attending NAB, make sure to swing by the Hedge booth, check out their awesome demos, and say hi! They’re at booth SL10079.