Frame.io in New York offers a video collaboration platform, supporting the video editing process by providing creative teams with time stamped comments, annotations and hashtags, and an accelerated sharing and approval process, as well as integrations with popularly used editing tools (e.g. Final Cut Pro) to enhance the editing and collaboration process.
$15
per user/per month
Notion
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Notion aims to present users with an all-in-one workspace — for notes, tasks, wikis, and databases, from Notion Labs in San Francisco.
The best thing about frame.io (and the reason we subscribed to the service in the first place), is it is very easy for clients to give notes when reviewing videos we produce for them. It allows them -- forces them, actually -- to give frame specific notes, so there is no confusion about what shot they are talking about. The one thing that would be nice would be another area for clients to make more global, general notes, so that both the global and specific notes could all be referenced in one place. But overall, had this service for about three years and still very happy with it.
Notion is good for a plethora of use cases. The templates that it offers give just a few established pages for common uses but these are some of my favorites:
Kanban board: we use it a lot in my company to manage tasks and meetings
Note taking: whether in a professional or academic environment, Notion is well suited to take notes of everything regardless.
Software documentation: the "code" component to insert code snippets is perfect for creating tutorials and documentation for software development.
Finance control: I use the "my finances" template to have a proper following of my monthly transactions, which allowed me to be more responsible with my money.
Inventory management: Since I own multiple peripherals and general equipment, being able to have a portable inventory of all of it that includes their original value, warranty length and current state has been perfect to know when clean, maintain or straight up replace everything.
Simple UI. Its drag and drop interface makes uploading and organizing something that happens inherently. Versioning is a huge issue when reviewing videos and frame allows you to keep old versions while prioritizing updated edits on the same link.
Frame.io allows you to make accurate notes on a video down to the frame - including drawing on a frame to indicate exact details your notes refer to. This allows for your post team to know exactly what the note-maker is referring to.
Privacy settings. Frame has an easy way to manage sharing by providing a "review link" and a "presentation" - this allows you to limit whether a reviewer has access to provide notes or just to review an edit. Simple password protection is an option for any review as well as the option for allowing a file to be downloadable.
Team Collaboration. In Notion's software is the ability to see precisely who is working on a project and where. This eliminates any confusion when on calls or when working on the same project simultaneously. It is easy to tag co-workers to precise moments and build conversation streams.
Text Coding. When transitioning text from our Notion ideation and drafting boards to our website backends, the coding holds on all of the text.
Organization. Whether it's utilizing a "pin board" set up or nestling pages within pages, it is possible to keep everything organized and easy to find for every member of your team.
Though I love the integration with After Effects, it's a tiny bit buggy from time to time. You'll need to re-sign in once a week (at least, this is what my tests have determined) and there is an issue with timeline jumping. If you click onto a comment, the timeline takes you to the problem area, but if you move the playhead elsewhere and click onto the same comment, it will not return you to the location. You must first click onto a different comment, then back onto the original. It's silly, and to me, a bug that will be resolved eventually.
Frame.io does not provide an archiving feature, so it's a bit of sore spot to delete old videos. When running into storage problems, which you might depending on your plan, you'll need to remove old videos.
Video links play natively at 560p. I don't understand this, as 720p or 1080p should be the standard playback resolution. This means some clients might not be as technologically-savvy, and won't think to click onto the resolution button to upgrade the resolution playback. I've had clients ask why the video was "low-quality" when they needed to change the resolution. This feels like boneheaded development to me.
The increase in integrations with third parties will always promote the adoption of the platform in companies.
Personalization with logos and corporate colors sometimes makes the difference when selecting a tool in a corporation.
Having multiple functionalities for working in manufacturing companies and with devices developed by third parties encourages other companies to select Notion as their flagship tool to offer implementation packages under alliances that favor its use.
I've used other video review systems, Frame was the only one I didn't question how they allowed you to review - I just started reviewing. It's that simple. It's easy to set up projects, invite collaborators, and then provide a final cut for download. It's naturally built for the kind of work that TV/Film & video production companies do.
I've only reached out to Frame.io a few times but they responded quickly and offered achievable solutions. The fact that I haven't had to reach out to them more is proof that the platform is easy to use, reliable, and can run on its own. The only issues we have had were related to uploading issues on our end.
Frame.io is better when being compared to the Google Drive as a platform just because of the usability. Frame.io has a more simple design format, that makes organizing projects and file structures much more readily available when doing a quick search. The ability to review and comment on the different projects is also better in Frame.io as it shows who said what and at what timecode they are referring to.
Trello only has the Kanban board feature and is great for task management, while Notion has a vast array of features, is easier to use, and has a more visually-appealing interface. I choose to use Notion over Trello due to its increased versatility and greater customization capabilities.
