ELEMENTS

SYDNEY

To access the Sydney ELEMENTS server remotely please refer to this guide.

CANBERRA

To access the Canberra ELEMENTS server remotely please refer to this guide.

The ELEMENTS Media Library creates proxies of all compatible video clips in the system. Primarily, this allows for viewing clips through a web browser, however many WBE productions also use these proxy files for offline editing purposes.

Proxy creation can be automatic or manual for each production partition. To allow for greater control, automatic proxy creation is being disabled for most new production workspaces. The guide below explains and illustrates the process of generating ELEMENTS proxies manually.

1. When new media files are added to ELEMENTS, they need to be ‘Indexed’ before they appear in the Media Library. You may have observed a directory will appear empty for a few seconds, before the pages refreshes and suddenly new clips appear. This is the Indexing process in action - until a clip has been Indexed it cannot be copied, moved, renamed or have a proxy created.

2. Once a clip is Indexed, it will appear in the Media Library with a clip thumbnail.

3. a. If automatic proxy creation is enabled, ELEMENTS will create proxies in the background once indexing of each clip finishes.
   b. If automatic proxy creation is disabled, clips in the Media Library will show a small, orange clock icon to indicate a proxy file has not yet been created.

4. When you select one or more clips in the Media Library, an option will appear in the upper-right ellipses menu to ‘Generate proxy files’. a. You can also select one or more directories and ELEMENTS will create proxies for every single clip in that directory and all sub-directories (but only if they’ve already been indexed).

5. Selecting this will bring up the ‘Regenerate proxies’ menu as illustrated.

6. You should select the Profile you’d like to generate (top arrow).

7. The ‘Use priority queue’ makes little real-world difference to transcoding times so this should be left de-selected in most scenarios.

8. ‘Regenerate existing proxies’ should always be de-selected!

9. a. This option will regenerate a proxy for every selected file, even if such a proxy already exists. Existing proxies will be deleted and re-generated, which is destructive and time consuming. Thousands of proxies can be accidentally deleted with one click, so exercise caution and deselect this option.

10. Upon clicking ‘Start’ ELEMENTS will create a proxy for all selected files. This internal process cannot be actively monitored but rest assured that your proxies will be ready before too long. If Proxy creation fails on one or more clips, the codec or format is likely unsupported so an alternate workflow will be required.

Other info on ELEMENTS proxy files

As well as video files, ELEMENTS can create proxies of audio-only files (WAV, MP3) and image files (JPG, PNG) The process is the same as the above. You must select a Video proxy profile to generate, even for non-video files.

All ELEMENTS proxies are hidden within the ELEMENTS operating system. In essence this means they do not exist as tangible video files until they’re downloaded from the Media Library. Select multiple clips and use ‘Download proxy’ from the upper-right ellipses menu. If more than one clip is selected, ELEMENTS will create a ZIP archive for downloading. Bear in mind that a ZIP file is likely to corrupt on download if it contains hundreds or thousands of clips. Downloading proxies should be done in manageable batches (e.g. per shoot day or per camera card) Once an archive is downloaded you should ‘unzip’ it and place the extracted Proxy files in the Offline folder, this will avoid you needing to repeat this process unnecessarily.

ELEMENTS uses a version of FFMPEG to transcode video, graphic and audio files. FFMPEG is open-source, non-proprietary and widely implemented which makes it compatible with a wide range of formats. However it does not support all video file formats. Known formats which are incompatible include:

• RED Camera files (.R3D and .MOV)

• ProRes RAW codec clips

• Matroska video files (.MKV extension

In the same way we have protected our Google accounts with 2-factor authentication, the increase in staff working from home and remote locations necessitates the need to enable similar protections to our ELEMENTS servers. Whilst there is added protection by means of the reverse proxy this only protects things so far. As such, it is imperative that all staff secure their ELEMENTS logins using 2-factor authentication.

Unlike Google, however, ELEMENTS requires the use of an app, below are a couple of recommendations:

AUTHY

Google: Twilio Authy 2-Factor Authentication - Apps on Google Play

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/authy/id494168017

Google Authenticator:

Google: Google Authenticator - Apps on Google Play

Apple: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/google-authenticator/id388497605

Once you have an app downloaded please do the following:

1. In the profile screen that appears click “Enable” next to the Two factor authentication entry

2. In the drop-down box select “Activate an app”

3. A pop-up will appear with a QR code, scan this code in the app of your choice and then enter the generated code in the box below

4. Once complete, the entry next to “Two factor authentication” should say “Enabled”

5. Now logout, then back in again. Upon successful entry of your password you will be presented with a box like the below, in here enter the current, generated code from your authenticator app

This code will be needed whenever you log into ELEMENTS whether via the desktop app or via the web. The code is needed every time you log in, it will not remember a device that you have previously logged into and will be required to login to additional machines as well.

Any issues or queries please email helpdesk@wildbear.tv

In certain circumstances you may wish to share media with an external collaborator such as a director, writer or perhaps a client. You can do so directly from ELEMENTS and allow that user to comment and input feedback directly onto the shared file, useful when wanting feedback on something such as a rough cut.

Please refer to this guide on how to do this, if you do not see the share option, please email helpdesk@wildbear.tv