Ci’s all-new LiveSession feature takes collaboration to the next level. Plus, our WorkSession upgrades will make you fall in love with ImageReview and VideoReview all over again.

Introducing VideoReview LiveSession

VideoReview LiveSession enables people from any geographical location to view videos together in real time with perfectly synchronized playback. It’s like a magical screening room in the sky!

Anyone invited to the VideoReview WorkSession can join a LiveSession but the easiest way to invite members is to copy and share the LiveSession Link. LiveSession viewing members are listed above the playback controls so you always know who’s in the “room”. And for those who like to review at their own pace, you can pop in or out of the LiveSession at any time.

To go “live,” just click the LiveSession icon in the header bar. To have friends join you simply copy the link, share it with your favorite people and let collaboration nirvana begin.

Synced Playback Controls

All LiveSession members can control the video playback so anyone in the session can pause, play or jump to a different frame in the video. Every time a member controls playback, their actions are displayed below the screening area.

Live Pen

The Live Pen tool enables you to hand-draw ephemeral annotations while the video plays so everyone in the LiveSession can see markups. It’s a great way to point out exactly what you’re talking about without slowing down the momentum. Live Pen annotations automatically melt away like snow on a warm winter day – consider this your own personal laser pointer (but no eyes will be harmed!) Every LiveSession member gets a different color pen and the user’s name is next to annotations so you can see who’s making what markup.

Because this is an add-on feature to our popular VideoReview app, you can still make frame accurate notes and annotations in the new and improved comments section. And fear not, you can still export all that collaborative goodness to your NLE or download it as a PDF.

The all-new VideoReview LiveSession is a paid option for Company Network customers but those lucky folks headed to Las Vegas can get an exclusive preview of VideoReview LiveSession at NAB next week! Read how to get your LiveSession demo at NAB here. If you’re not heading to NAB just reach out to our customer success team to learn how you can start using it today.

Improved Commenting in WorkSessions

To improve comment management in VideoReview and ImageReview, we made it much easier to read replies, added a hide-away comment panel for a more immersive screening experience and added some powerful comment tagging features.

Organize Better with Comment Labels

The all-new Comment labels help you organize your comments better. Default labels are “Video”, “Audio” and “Graphic” but you can customize these labels and add more labels to fit your approval workflow. For example, you can rename the labels as “In Progress,” “Pending Review,” and “Completed” so the comment thread can be used as a checklist to ensure every comment is addressed. Comment labels are search-ready so you can easily find the comments that pertain only to you.

Like or Dislike File

In addition to adding “likes” and “dislikes” to frames, we’re introducing “like” and “dislike” on files. This feature works great to do quick voting on favorite clips or images and you can even see a summary of the members’ votes.

We hope you “Like” all the new improvements in this release as much as we do. So get out there and start collaborating! That video isn’t going to review itself.

Yoshie Okada
Marketing Communications Specialist for Ci (pronounced “see”) at Sony Electronics.