Apple TV Home

This is where any messages you've gotten through Flow Capture live. Those can be playlinks, automatic upload notifications, or broadcasts of live assets.

Here's an index you can use to quickly jump to the different parts of this article:

Home Screen

Instead of the old Inbox view, you're now presented with a list of all the productions you have access to, with each one represented either by a poster you've added or a default placeholder graphic we've created.

If there's a lot of productions, you can scroll until you find the one that you need.

Production Organization

Clicking any production will open up a dedicated view for it, with three tabs that filter the assets depending on how you've been granted access to them.

Shares

This lists all of the playlinks that you've received. Clicking any thumbnail here will open up that playlink and show you all the assets included in it.

If there was a message in the playlink, it will be posted under the title, along with the folder in Flow Capture the playlink was sent from, who sent it, and when. The button to Play All will be selected by default, but you can hop down to any individual asset and choose to watch it.

Folder Activity

The messages in here are all of the automatic notifications that have been sent out when new uploads to a folder have finished processing.

Opening any of those will be like opening a batch in the web app; you'll see all of the assets listed there.

Like playlinks in the Shares section, you'll see information about who did the uploading, the folder where the files are located, who did the uploading and when. Play All is once again the default, but you're able to go through the assets one at a time if you'd like.

Live Streams

Any live broadcasts that have been created in the production will live here. These can be streams from a camera on set, from an edit bay, color suite or however our live integrations are being used.

If one is showing the red Live icon and you want to tune in, all you need to do is select the live asset and it will start showing you the stream.

Playback

A lot can happen when you start watching something, and the Flow Capture tvOS app has a wealth of controls that let you review with precision and frame-specific accuracy.

For an overview of what your Apple TV's remote can do, have a look at this article.

General Controls

Pausing playback on a clip brings you options for both fine control and information.

From here you can scrub back and forth along the timeline or pop up to the frame stepping controls. When used with the on screen timecode and frame counts, this allows for exacting precision that's necessary for VFX and color review.

The waveform button next to the frame back and forward ones gives you a few audio range options, as well as the ability to select a different audio track if it's available.

If you want to back out of watching a clip at any time, just press the menu button on your remote. That will bring up a list of all the clips from your currently selected batch/message.

You can select a new clip from here and start watching it, or you can press the menu button again to go back to the Inbox itself.

While you're viewing an asset, you also have the option of making the frame and timecode counters appear onscreen at all times. To learn more, let's swipe down!

Swipe Down Menu

This multi-purpose menu is where you can go to control the quality of playback and gain more information about the file you're watching.

From the Options menu you can control:

  • Resolution - We default to AUTO, which adapts to the available bandwidth, but you can set a specific level of quality that will be the default for you wherever it's available.
  • Dynamic Range - If you have HDR and SDR streams available, you can switch between them here.
  • Loop - Makes the each clip loop playback. You'll have to navigate away from it manually to switch to a new one.
  • Timecode - This will display when playback is paused, but it can also be set to always being on.

You can also have a look at any metadata for the file, it's all available here, as well as information about the file you're seeing from here.

Scrubbing

Before you even get into the video itself, you can stop on any uploaded clip and use your remote to scrub through it.

Making this work is subtly different depending on the kind of remote you're using:

  • Siri/Apple TV Remote (1st gen., black front) - Rest your thumb on the touch pad and either gently move it left and right, or just rock it back and forth like you're giving a finger print.
  • Siri/Apple TV Remote (2nd & 3rd gen., silver body) - Place your thumb on the raised portion of the navigation ring and then spinning your finger around it. This works a bit like the old iPod click wheel, for those who remember them.
  • iPhone Remote App - This is similar to the the 1st gen. Apple TV remote; place a finger on the main navigation rectangle for a moment and then gently move it from side-to-side.

Once you get to the spot you want to start watching, just click or press the remote button and you'll be brought in to that part of the video!

Search

If you don't feel like digging through messages and folders to find something, you can use the Search tool to look through them for you! This can be found in the main menu of the app by clicking the magnifying glass, just above the Home icon.


Search is easier if you're using the iPhone's remote app, but can also be done with either physical remote.

Clicking search after entering your query will bring up a list of all the relevant results.

We index everything but the name of individual assets.