Just two months after we released the much anticipated Stop & Resume functionality, we're happy to introduce you to our next major OffShoot release. This update does not pack one new feature, but three!

Just like in the real world, where ergonomically designed tools are a true pleasure to work with, software that is a delight to work with is software that automatically removes friction that you run into in your daily life. This update is focused on precisely that. All of today's new features are aimed at handling sources in more flexible ways, to supercharge your workflow:

• Independent Sources
• Batch Review
• Moving Files

Independent Sources

Back in 2017, we introduced Collections — a way to treat a group of folders as a single source. But what if not all folders contain the same type of files? Or if not all are from the same shoot? You’ll want to give each folder its own treatment.

Up to today, you would have needed to drag in each folder one by one to label them. That's no longer required: OffShoot now allows you to specify whether to handle a selection of folders and files as a single Collection, or as Independent Sources.

To see the power of this feature, drag in a bunch of folders while having an Auto Label in your Organization settings:

Look ma, no hands 😉

Batch Review

As you've seen in the previous workflow, those now separate Sources were all treated with the same Preset. But what if you'd want to review that Preset for each Source separately. We've added a way to do that: control how Sources are reviewed — one by one, or all at the same time.

The default workflow is to Batch Add your Sources, so you only have to hit Add Transfers once. This works for all workflows that don't require a Preset, and for those workflows where the Preset doesn't rely on yourself inputting data for custom Elements like Project, Scene, or Take.

If your Preset does contain custom Elements that are different per Source, selecting the new Batch Add Sources setting will make OffShoot show you the Review pane sequentially for each Source.

Another great workflow is to have a Preset per camera type, and quickly set a bunch of folders as independent Sources, then to apply a different Preset to each. That's super useful when you need to copy a drive full of offloads made without any organization; just apply your preset to each, and all is again as it's supposed to be.

Windows users were already able to independently review each source, but didn't have the option to do the opposite; that's now also possible 👍

Moving Files

Sometimes, you just want to reorganize your data. Finder and Explorer can be a bit finicky when moving around a bunch of folders within the same disk. Transfer windows are easy to lose track of, so we've now made it possible to move your data with OffShoot.

If OffShoot detects that your Source and Destination are using the same volume, you can now tell OffShoot to move your data instead of copying it:

As moving data is destructive and easily missed, we decided to make move an opt-in; if this is useful to you make sure to enable the new setting.

Want to make an exception? Holding down the Option/Alt button overrides Move, switching OffShoot back to Transfer mode just for that transfer.

Also worth noting is that moving data obviously doesn’t require verification. If you do need a verified copy, or want to move your files while creating a Media Hash List at the same time, be sure to disable or override the Move setting.

The Real Life

These three features are all useful in their own right, but when used together, they truly shine — and that's not a coincidence. We built these three features together with a very well known all-news channel. Due to their journalistic independence guidelines they will have to remain anonymous, so let's call them Acme 😉

Having outfitted Acme's crew with OffShoot Pro, their post supervisors maintain a single Pro Preset covering all their productions, 90% of the workflow was already rock solid. Acme uses a single Pro Preset that contains a subset of presets, one for each camera type they have in use. On top of that, the Preset requires the user to input things like a ProductionID, location, and name. Pro Presets have been chosen as they offer more functionality than regular Presets, and are also locked when used in OffShoot's UI. This ensures a workflow that is controlled end-to-end.

Wanting to solve that final 10% too, Acme had a very strong preference for not introducing new tools. What if OffShoot could provide this with some automation and additional functionality?

Acme works with lots of freelance journalists, reporters and camera operators sending them footage on SSDs. Due to the nature of news, not every freelancer can always be outfitted in time with a temporary OffShoot license and Preset tuned to that production. So, all this data tends to be quite unorganized.

Thanks to combining Independent Sources with Batch Add, Acme is now able to drag in all folders from a source SSD and apply a preset to each as if they're camera cards - without having to manually drag in 20+ sources. It's now a breeze for the media managers to ingest that 10% of incoming unorganized media.

Organize In Place

But what if you're faced with a heap of folders that have already been copied to the storage it’s going to be used with - without organization?

More and more often, Acme sees media being delivered via services like MASV, directly into their cloud storage. Their cloud storage also contains a lot of archival footage that doesn't fit their naming conventions and such. That has been an additional pain point, especially when a production is working with old material, with assistant editors having to manually sort or reorganize whatever's required in the edit.

As cloud storage is paid for by the gigabyte, you don't want to copy all of that to a second location just to organize it; as metadata changes like filenames and folder structures are virtually free operations on cloud storage, it's much better to reorganize without duplicating any data. This saves both money spent on egress and time spent by users once things are organized and thus easier to use.

With the new Move feature that's now possible; just select a source, set a folder as the destination, and OffShoot will apply the preset without copying any data. You can even select its parent folder, and OffShoot will understand what to do.

Transfer, Organize, Verify

OffShoot's organization has grown into a really strong package over the years, offering Filtering, Renaming, Sorting, and a lot more. Whilst Hedge started out as an application for transfering data, OffShoot has become the go-to to ensure that the next stages of production and post can use media and other files in an organized way that doesn’t waste time.

Through integrations with apps like FoolCat and EditReady you’re able to add value to all the assets that flow Hedge-powered workflows powered by Hedge, and without hand-off integration for iconik, Frame.io and Scratch we’re getting closer and closer to that ultimate goal of a friction-free workflow.