Hot off the press from our friends, Felipe Baez and Jasper Siegers, is the announcement of the acquisition of FCPX collaborative tool Postlab by Hedge.
We had a quick chat at NAB about the acquisition, but this is the first time we can post anything about the Postlab news. It's all rather exciting.
Postlab was a side project from Jasper Siegers, developed to give his editors a collaborative and 'versioned' workflow with Final Cut Pro X. It has been a great success and Jasper is working full-time on Postlab now that it has been acquired by Hedge, the backup software company.
Jasper Siegers: "Over the last few years, Postlab has grown into a widely used platform, but I've never been able to really focus on it. Even with Felipe taking care of helping users out and creating tutorials, I've been wanting to be able to put all my energy into Postlab for quite a while now. Hedge makes it possible for me to do just that, and a lot more - they've built a full team around Postlab, taking my original vision to a whole new level."
Postlab fills a void, says Paul Matthijs, Hedge CEO: "Since Hedge came to fruition, we've been making workflows a lot faster and easier. While backups are a logical starting point, it has never been our intention to stick just to backup software. Postlab is the perfect workflow simplifier that lives right between creating backups and archiving your media when done. The unobtrusiveness of Postlab and its lack of vendor lock-in perfectly align with our vision."
Future Speak
The new Postlab will be a cloud service for solo users, teams, and organizations, and an on-premise solution will also available. The new platform will of course support Final Cut Pro X, but won't be limited to it.
You might have seen his tutorials already, but great news that Felipe Baez has also joined Hedge.
Felipe Baez: "The Postlab community has been very vocal about what they'd like to see next. The setup of Postlab had to be simplified, and together with the Hedge team, that step is already completed. We're currently focusing on deeper Frame.io integration, support for other NLEs, and a proxy workflow."
Call For Teams
The current open-source version of Postlab, requiring you to run your own infrastructure, stays available. The new Postlab, however, won't be open-source. Jasper: "Postlab was open source because it was funded by a National non-profit broadcaster, and didn't cost them anything as you had to set up your own servers. With Postlab Cloud, this is of course very different."
Felipe: "The last couple of months, we've been steadily building a new platform which is going live end of April as a concierge service. Until opening the doors for everyone later this year, we'll be taking on FCPX teams of 5+ users. For those interested, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
All super exciting news for us FCPX users, we will be watching the progress with interest.
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
