Wait! Before you click that download button, did you know there are six ways to QC your videos directly inside Ci? These Ci tools and features help you and your team review and check your videos right from your browser, and help you save time, desktop space, as well as precious network bandwidth! 

Here are six ways Ci can help you review videos efficiently:

1. View every frame at source file quality in Ci.

When our preview proxies don’t cut it for your high-resolution files, Ci offers Source Frame Review. This Ci Pro Player tool allows users to view uploaded video files frame-by-frame at the file’s source quality. Whereas users previously had to download the full source file to view a frame at source resolution, Ci’s Source Frame Review tool allows users to bypass this step and review high-resolution video frames directly in the browser.

You can also create source quality frame grabs in the source frame review tool. These frame grabs are saved as File Elements of the source file and can be downloaded or shared in MediaBox.

Source Frame Review is currently optimized for popular video codecs like ProRes. Our team plans to expand supported formats, so please contact the Ci Customer Success team if you have questions on supported codecs. 

2. Check your audio levels in Ci.

Ci offers an Audio Meter tool in the Pro Player that dynamically displays the decibel levels for each audio channel in your videos. In a QC workflow, this tool allows you to identify which channels have audio and their respective audio levels – without the hassle of downloading and importing the file into an NLE or another system.

Users can easily scrub through the video frame by frame to check the audio levels visually as a bar chart display. And because you can hear the audio while scrubbing through the video, you can use the Audio Meter to help pinpoint any audio and video sync issues or unwanted audio artifacts.

You can also set an audio level threshold (in decibels) and jump to the first or last frame that breaches that threshold. This is super useful in finding the first or last frame of video in a shot that may be black but have audio. This important information can be stored as metadata and passed into downstream content processing operations. 

3. Preview closed captioning (or subtitles) in Ci.

Ci supports timed text files like closed captions and subtitles in the Pro Player. Users can simply click on the CC icon and select the captions or subtitles they want to see. Ci’s playback controls allow you to change your playback speed and preview frame-by-frame so you can also check for missing captions or captions with incorrect timing. 

Caption and subtitle display is enabled in both Workspace and Catalog as well as in videos shared in a MediaBox. 

To enable caption and subtitle display in Ci, timed text assets should be uploaded as a File Element on a video file. Read this guide to learn how you can upload File Elements to a file in Ci. Alternatively, ask our Customer Success team to turn on automated caption extraction and Ci will transform embedded captions into web-playable formats.

4. Preview and set cropping guides in Ci.

The Crop Guides feature allows you to set cropping guides on-frame and save the settings to the file’s custom metadata. With content being consumed on different screen sizes and orientations, these cropping guidelines help editorial teams see how a crop treatment would affect videos in real-time.

Ci offers six aspect ratios by default but users can set custom crop areas by dragging the guidelines on-frame or manually typing in pixel values.

If a file stored in Ci has crop guide metadata attached (saved as custom metadata), users can preview the cropped video directly in Ci’s Pro Player.

5. Preview with timecode or frame numbers. 

Ci’s Pro Player supports various time formats when you simply need to preview the video with a timecode or frame number. Users can switch time formats between runtime, embedded source timecode, zero-based NDF timecode, or frames. The time format feature in the Pro Player is also available on videos shared in MediaBoxes in case you need to discuss a frame number with external partners.

6. Automatically check for errors and generate QC reports.

Ci offers a service that enables you to run quality checks on files uploaded to a Ci folder automatically.

When the auto-QC completes, files are moved to separate folders by QC status (passed or failed.) A full QC report is generated and attached to the source file as a File Element and with the right notification configuration, Ci users can be notified when a file lands in the “failed” folder.

Whether you’re delivering a finished piece to a client or receiving a project from a vendor, this auto-QC test can be customized to meet your needs and quality specifications. In addition to testing for the usual audio and video issues, you can also set up specifications that meet any particular delivery or technical standards. 

With Auto-QC, Ci enables you to run QC on content coming in (or going out) directly in the browser, without ever transferring or downloading files to run in another system. Since the content is already stored in Ci, QC-passed files can instantly be shared to localization vendors or the next stage of the media supply chain expediting the time to fulfillment.

7. BONUS: Create clips and download only what you need. 

If none of the features above meet your QC needs, Ci’s Smart Clipping tool can create ‘same as source’ clips for select MXF formats.

With Smart Clipping, at a minimum, you can save download time by creating a small clip of the video instead of downloading the full video.

Ready to Ci more?

As cloud-based content management and collaboration solutions become the new normal for video production teams, we’re striving to build a platform that also brings professional workflow solutions to the content stored in Ci. If there are workflows that you’d like to see offered online, drop us a line. To see a demo or to enable any of these features on your Ci account, contact the Ci Customer Success team today.