Lots of news to talk about today!

Let's kick off with the biggest change: from today onwards, our flagship product Hedge has a new name:

OffShoot

And that's not all: today, we're releasing not just one OffShoot, but three:

🌱 OffShoot Solo, custom built for iPadOS

🌱 OffShoot, the evolution of the Hedge you all know so very well

🌱 OffShoot Pro, a home for high-end features and workflows

Today's releases are about much more than just a name change; besides new versions, we introduce a completely new way of handling activations, and there's a slew of new features to go with it.

Before we dive into all thing's OffShoot, let's take a step back — there's more to talk about 🙂

Great workflows...

...start with great apps.

Those that visited us at IBC will likely already have spotted our new tagline. We'll obviously continue to make smart software for filmmakers, but our tools are useful to and used by a lot more professionals than just filmmakers. We've been working hard on bringing our apps closer together, both aesthetically and technically. Some new branding is already in place, with more to come, together with new cross-over features and integrations coming in the new year.

Part of that effort is the new Connect. With Connect 3, we've created an online dashboard to track the progress and status of all your transfers. Besides OffShoot, Canister will be added to the online dashboard in the coming weeks, and we plan to bring EditReady and OffShoot Solo into the Connect mix too.

There's an app for that

Because both our NAB and IBC booths always are packed with people needing demos and workflow conversations, this year we brought our workflows to our partners' booths too.

Quantum, Qumulo, and iodyne all showcased Mimiq Pro's Workspaces functionality, allowing Avid editors to collaborate on exactly the type and brand of storage you prefer to use, without the added vendor lock-in.

Together with AWS (Amazon Web Services) and RED we let people work hands-on with a full-blown and automated Capture-To-Cloud workflow utilizing OffShoot Pro's offloading, FoolCat's camera reports, and EditReady generating proxies that then got uploaded to AWS S3.

PostLab 2.0

PostLab is our next key point of evolution; our remote collaboration platform for Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro editors is going through a big change which we'll unveil at the upcoming Creative Summit in Cupertino, early November.

Sneak peek: besides adding support for every app you want to version and share, we're bringing Event Locking to Final Cut Pro. The new PostLab also makes it very easy to move between remote, shared, and offline workflows with the flick of a switch, and PostLab will cease to be a subscription — we've figured out a way to do cloud workflows without the need for a recurring payment or vendor lock-in.

What's in a name

Thanks to the name change to OffShoot, we have been able to better define what Hedge is about: removing technical ballast that holds you back from doing creative work. It's now much easier to instil that future vision in all of our apps, and to articulate what the people in this industry need from vendors. As ever, we have a lot of people and companies approaching us with ideas, workflow needs, and collaboration opportunities; being able to explain what Hedge stands for helps a lot in adding context to such conversations. Keep the ideas coming, we're looking forward to what's coming in 2024. Not that we're done for the year, just wait to see what we have in store for you 😁

Alright, back to OffShoot 🚀

Hedge?

The by-far-most-asked question we used to get when we talked to people in person is, "Is Hedge an app or a company?"

Time to settle that, once and for all.

Having your product named after your company works fine if it does just one thing (iconik, Frame.io, CatDV). But it quickly gets confusing with apps that are just as solid brands on their own (PostLab, EditReady, Canister).

Now that Hedge, the company, has grown into an industry-leading and technology-driven company, the Hedge moniker has become synonymous with our vision: carefully designed, easy-to-use, and affordable software that removes friction from your day-to-day professional life.

Like a twig branching out of a hedge, OffShoot is a true, ehm, offshoot of that vision. Going beyond what Hedge aimed to do, OffShoot is an evolution - the next chapter in our company's history.

OffShoot is not just a new name; it's also a paradigm shift in licensing: we're replacing seats with activations, together with introducing Floating Licenses.

Here & Now

Let's be frank: the biggest annoyance about software (besides crashing) is licensing being in the way. If you can't activate a license because it is still activated on your other computer, you're locked out. Instant mood killer.

That's why we've always included at least one Emergency Activation with each license. This way, you can be assured you can always continue to work on another computer if the need arises. We trusted you to not abuse these free activations to use Hedge on multiple machines simultaneously, and you've (in most cases) lived up to that - thank you for that 🙏

Still, the ideal license is a license that can always be activated instead of going full Little Britain on you.

Instead of having to go somewhere to solve your activation problem (like using the online License Manager or emailing us), we want the activation to come to you when you need it 🎣

Floating Activations

All OffShoot licenses allow you to register all your computers using a single license key, even if the license has only one activation.

Your activation will float to whichever computer has OffShoot open. As soon as you activate a new computer, OffShoot offers you to move the activation to your current computer without having to leave the app.

As all computers you install OffShoot on will remember your license key, the next time you open OffShoot on one of them, it'll automatically offer to move the activation to that machine - without requiring a license key.

Floating activations don't mean all your computers must be online all the time. Instead, all is handled gracefully. This way, you can go truly offline without worrying about your license. If you need to use OffShoot on another computer while another person is using it, you can simply add another activation to it - the amount of activations defines how many OffShoot instances you can use simultaneously.

Once a computer is activated with a license key, it's tied to that license. Sometimes, you don't want that. Maybe you used a rental machine with your own license or used your license on a friend's computer. If so, just deactivate your OffShoot the old-fashioned way in Settings or with the online License Manager.

Company Licenses

When you have a license with multiple seats (aka a Company License), you will need more control over who can pull an activation from which machine and which activations are never to be touched. To handle that properly, we need a bit more time. That's why today we're releasing Floating Activations for all single-seat licenses.

We'll be rolling out Floating Activations to licenses with multiple activations in due time. If you have such a license, we'll email you when it's available.

A Note To All Hedge Owners

All of you with a Hedge license with 1 seat, aka a Personal License, technically already have more than one activation thanks to the Emergency Activation(s). We don't want to take those away from you, so we're gifting them - a $99 value 🥳

Next time you extend your license, you'll be given a choice: keep all your fancy new activations, enabling simultaneous usage of OffShoot on multiple machines, or keep your single activation.

If you run a solo operation, you likely don't need a second activation - you'll never use more than one computer for offloading at a time. If so, you can reduce the number of activations to just one. Thanks to our new floating activations, you can still activate as many computers as you like.

If you decide to keep your additional activations, the cost of extending your license increases. Because we run an honest shop at Hedge, with utmost transparency, we want to be very clear about this and make sure you can make a conscious decision about what's best for you. We don't have a preference for which option you choose - choose what's best for your situation. Tell us about your workflow and setup if you're unsure, and we'll help.

That wraps up all that's new in licensing. Next, let's have a look at what's new in OffShoot: