Getting started with Flow Capture Basics

Flow Capture is the world's most powerful dailies and review platform. If you're using Flow Capture for dailies, cut review, or screeners, there's a few things we do a bit differently (we think better!) than other systems. This guide is here to help you learn the ropes and get you (and your production and post production teams) comfortable with using Flow Capture

7 Steps to get up and running with Flow Capture Dailies

Get to know the Flow Capture interface

To get started, on the left-hand side, you’ll notice there are 6 tabs in total, which will be your main way of navigating around:

- Inbox

- Assets Tab

- Rooms

- Playlinks

- Transfer

- Administration

Note that you may only see some of these tabs and not others, depending on the permissions you have assigned to you.

For an overview of the user interface, please review our UI Interface Tour video below:

Administrator Training

Flow Capture's user management is self-managed making it super easy to add users, on the fly, right in app without going through us! It's more secure for you (as you know who everyone is and what access they should have) and less red tape. Flow Capture Administrators are the dedicated team members responsible for adding users and granting permission and access levels, creating Folder structure, and defining security settings.

For more info on being an admin, you can review the videos here: Flow Capture Admin Onboarding

Add (and train) your Editorial Team

Your Editorial team members are anyone expected to work with the assets themselves, like downloading them to edit clips for director's review, or uploading finished dailies to distribute among your production team.

You can add your Editorial Team members in the Manage Teams panel. We recommend following the best practices in this guide in Setting up Team members for adding your Editorial Team: Setting up Teams and Adding Users - Workspace Collaborators.

Set your Folder Settings

In the Folder Settings you'll find the Asset Options and Upload Options menus, where you can set a number of options for playback and quality.

Allowable Playback Resolutions

With adaptive streaming playback, you can choose the resolutions available to viewers. All of these are selected by default, but if you'd only like the highest quality available, you can toggle off the lower quality options.

Having the 480p option enabled can be handy if the production or someone on it is in a remote area and won't have a lot of bandwidth to work with.

Transcode to MXF

Typically used with our Immediates workflow, this allows files that are uploaded into a Folder to be transcoded into DNxHD36 or 45 formats alongside the standard playback files we create. They won't be viewable within Flow Capture, but they can be made available for editorial teams who need something of better quality or that's more compatible with their timeline.

Higher bitrate DNxHD options are not available because the proxies files we get from QTAKE (or other methods) are not of sufficient bitrate to warrant DNxHD115 or 175 quality.

Original files that you upload to make use of transcoding to MXF will need to have a resolution of either 1920x1080 or 1280x720.

A user will need Admin or Downloader (No Watermark) permissions in order to be able to download DNx/MXFs and untouched original files.

It's important to note that transcoding to MXF increases the total amount of storage within your production on Flow Capture! The creation of those files will impact any storage-related costs.

iPad Standardize Brightness

Allows you to set a preferred brightness level in SDR and HDR for those viewing assets on an iPad.

Target Playback Bitrate

The bitrate that we encode video files at for playback on Flow Capture. More information about the different bitrates can be found in our Upload Specifications.

Thumbnail Position

Allows you to select where the asset's thumbnail is drawn from within the clip. You can change an asset’s thumbnail by scrubbing along it to find the image you want, then clicking and holding on it until the frame pulses.

Asset Transcode Options

Allows you to disable transcoding for the Folder. Toggling the "Non-transcode folder" toggle to ON will disable transcoding, and we won't process any files that are uploaded to it. This should only be used on Folders uploading files to that are not intended for playback.

Video Processing Tune

A dropdown where you can select a preset for how videos uploaded to the folder are handled.

Default - Works best for most scenarios and types of footage.
Animation - Optimized for projects that aren't live action. Specifically, those using a 2D-animated style.
Grain - Ideal for work that originated on film or which uses an intensive texture mapping solution like LiveGrain.

Multi-Channel Audio Layout

Flow Capture supports 5.1 sound in a number of file formats and two different channel layouts (SMPTE or Film ordering). Generally speaking, you can leave it on Auto (the default), where we will assume SMPTE ordering for any files that get uploaded. You'll only need to specify if the file you're uploading has enough audio tracks that it could be mistaken for another type of ordering.

More information about this can be found in our Audio Specification guide.

Validate Files Before Upload

Our upload process includes an optional validation step that can be enabled at the Folder, Production, or Company levels.

This will check for common issues with Dolby Vision or MXF files before they get uploaded to Flow Capture.

Explore Playlinks and Folders for Distribution

There are two ways to share Dailies in Flow Capture:

Create a Playlink to distribute a curated collection of Assets
Invite viewers into a Folder with a Viewer Permission Set

The audience is the key factor in determining what method you should use, and when. Most people use both!

A Playlink is a curated collection of assets you can send to your Production team to watch Dailies, send selects, or share content in any other way without giving Folder access. This will feel most familiar, as it's very similar to other systems, and should be used for your general distribution list. Playlinks are great for sharing content with executives, cast, crew, and anyone who just needs awareness at a high level. This guide covers the ins and outs of Playlinks: Understanding and Creating Playlinks.

Inviting Viewers into a Folder is best for Directors, show-runners, creatives, and anyone else who should be collaborating on content. In other words, Folders are best for the folks whose opinions matter the most, and are actively working on the Production. You can use Folders to create private collaboration spaces to review cuts between the editorial teams: Folders (and Subfolders)

Create your Dailies Distribution list

The easiest way to create a dailies distribution list for Playlinks is to create a Team and upload a CSV directly into that team for your list. The CSV should be formatted by First Name, Last Name, and Email. You can download a sample CSV to use here: Download a sample CSV.

To set up your Dailies distribution list

Visit the Manage Teams panel from the Administration tab.
In the Teams column, select New Team and Create your Team
With the Team selected, it should be highlighted on the left with a color, click Import CSV
Upload your CSV of team members, in the format First Name, Last Name, and Email

You now have added your production team to a dailies distribution list!

Adding Contacts to the Contacts Column or to a Team does not prompt an invitation or login to Flow Capture. The only ways to do that are to assign a Contact to a Folder (or to a Team that's added to a Folder), assign a Team the Contact is a part of to a Folder, or send them a highly secure Playlink.

The Team will be available to select when using Playlinks to send out your Dailies.

Onboard your Viewers

If using Playlinks to distribute Dailies, you may want to generate the login for team members in advance before principal photography starts, since logins are only generated when Contacts and Teams are either added to a Folder, or if a Playlink is sent.

The best way to get your team introduced to Flow Capture is to send a Playlink with the Viewer Overview Video from your Getting Started Folder.

If using Folders to share content as collaboration spaces, an invitation to create an account is triggered when they are invited to the Folder, so there's no need to send a Playlink ahead of time!

We have some helpful videos and guides to make sure your team feels comfortable viewing content in Flow Capture: Onboarding your Team.