Purpose: Guidance to effectively manage assets and review available features Prerequisite: An activated Okta account with Flow Capture access  Audience: Users with Production Admin rights, Users with Upload Permissions

 

1. Upload Assets

NOTE: Only users with upload permission and above will have access to these features

The production admin is able to grant other users on the team upload access.

1. To add assets to Flow Capture, navigate to the folder that will be the destination for your files by navigating through the company, production, and folders or subfolders.

2. From there, click the Upload button to bring up a file browser for your computer. Choose what you're going to upload and then confirm to add it. This will bring you to a screen in that summarizes how many files you're adding, the total size, and where they're getting uploaded to.

 

 

 

3.Click the Confirm button in the bottom right corner of the app to start the upload. Like downloads, you'll have a progress window that shows how everything is going.

 

4. If you need to, the upload can be paused or cancelled from here with the same controls you'd use for those actions when downloading; the X will cancel the upload and pause will halt everything.

 

NOTE: The back arrow will return you to the transfer summary screen where you can track the overall processs of your upload, and check on any other work you've got going on!

 

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3. View Metadata and Auto-Tagging

One of Flow Capture's great strengths is its ability to provide a rich repository of metadata by gathering information directly from the camera and seamlessly making it available to downstream vendors. Almost anything annotated by the camera department as having a value can be attributed, be it Kelvin, Focal Length, Aperture, or something truly obscure.

This metadata also powers all of Flow Capture's sort and search capabilities enabling you to zero in on Units, Cameras, Days, Scenes, and more with ease.

Include the camera setting in an On-Set Dailies system (OSD) and output an ALE which can then be mapped to an asset or group of assets in Flow Capture. This is done in the background when you upload your ALE along with your assets.

 

 

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2.1 View Metadata of an Asset

1. In the Viewer tab, select the asset

2. Click ‘Metadata’ in the top right corner

 

 

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3. Move, Copy and Manage Assets

The Transfer section contains a Manage Assets tab, which gives you the ability to move or copy your assets from one place to another.

 

The column on the left is your Source for whichever action the Manage Assets tab is going to be used for. Any assets you copy or move will come from the selections you make here.  

The column on the right is your Destination, which allows you to choose where the files you're working with will go. You can choose from an already existing Batch in a Folder, or create a new Batch as you work. 

 

You can choose both your Source and Destinations using a Tree Dropdown that gives you a list of all the options you're able to select, based on your permissions. 

When selecting assets, you can use the full suite of sorting and search functions. If you're working with an entire batch, just check the box, and we'll automatically create a new batch in the destination to be used when copying or moving.  In our example below, we've sorted by Episode + Scene, so we can select any of the batches created to move all assets within it:

 

 

Click here to learn more about searching and batches: Metadata and Organization

If you're moving or copying individual assets, you'll need to check the box next to the destination batch before you can perform those actions. 

 

 

Once your assets and destination are selected, you can copy or move your files. Copying leaves assets in two places simultaneously (both destination and source), while moving transfers assets from the source to the destination batch.

Whenever you move or copy assets, you’ll be given the option to notify participants in the destination folder. Note that if you move or copy assets to a different batch within the same folder, this option isn’t available. 

 

 

The notification that gets sent out with that is similar to the one we send out for new Uploads. Therefore, in order for a user to receive an email notification, they must have the "Upload" notification toggle turned ON (which is the default), which will generate an email as well as a message in their Inbox. 

 

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4. Watermarking

Flow Capture allows you to create watermarks that can be overlaid on any video or photo assets, as well as PDFs. These watermarks are also burnt into nearly any kind of video or image asset that you choose to make available for download or iOS offlining. 

If you have Admin permissions at any level, you can change a watermark's appearance in the Folder Settings panel of the Assets tab by clicking on the Watermarking icon.

There are five ways you can watermark your assets, which are accessible at different levels within Flow Capture:

• Company Watermark - This is an overarching watermark that's only accessible by company admins. Created in your account settings, it's then applied to every production and folder across the whole company. 
• Production Watermark - Set at the level of an individual creative project, it allows a company watermark or a custom watermark to be applied to every folder you create.
• Folder Watermark - This allows you to overwrite any company or production watermark at the folder level by creating a new set one exclusively for that folder.
• No Watermark - Turns off watermarking completely (only available at the folder level).
• Playlink Watermark - This allows the user to add a specific watermark template that is only applicable to that Playlink

Watermarking Options

The settings available for changing a watermark are always the same, no matter the level you're working at. There will always be an option to apply watermarking settings from previous level:

Below that you'll find an option to create a new watermark template as well as all previously created watermarks.

When you click the 'Create New Template' button, a Watermark settings page will pop-up allowing you to customize your new watermark. Above all of that is a toggle which lets you switch between dark and light preview images. 

For each element, clicking the "Create" button will add it to that template:

The "Text" dropdown contains the different element types that can be added, and include all of the same elements that are available to be watermarked:

After making your selection, click Save to save the changes. Once a Watermark Template has been created, it will show up in your list of templates and can be edited, renamed, or deleted:

A Watermark Template can be apply to the entire production, a specific folder or at the playlink level!

Customizing Watermarks

You can customize a watermark by clicking 'Edit' from the 'More actions' menu. After you've done that, all these tools will be at your disposal for customization:

The first option at the top controls the alignment of the watermark, with options for Middle, Left and Right justification.

The Text Style option controls what the text of the watermark itself will look like: 

On top that, there is a series of sliders and a toggle for the following option:

• Font Size - Sets the size of the type in the watermark.
• Opacity - Sets how much you can see through your watermark.
• X and Y Position - Sets the position of the watermark relative to the anchor point you've chosen to align against.
• Shrink to Fit - Will adjust the size of the watermark so that it doesn't overrun the borders of the asset itself. 
• Rotation - A dropdown slider that allows you to put a spin on your watermark, angling it to any one of 360 degrees.

Company Watermarking

If you're a company admin, you can access Company Watermark setting by selecting your Company Name on the Desktop and clicking on the Waternark icon on your right-hand side:

From there, switch ON the toggle 'Enable Company Watermark'. The only difference between this and other settings panels are the two options at the top, in the Company Settings section. Everything else you use to create the actual watermark is the same whether you're making a production or folder watermark!

Production Watermarking

If you're a Company or Production Admin, you can access the production watermarking panel by selecting the Production on the Desktop tab and clicking on the Watermark icon on your right-hand side. That will open up the familiar watermark settings panel:

Watermarking Downloads

Flow Capture will try to watermark any video or image file that you request to download, but there are limits to what our system is able to process. 

For video files, Flow Capture cannot watermark DNx/MXF or ProRes files due to encoding limitations. If you would like source files of these types to be watermarked, you will need to apply when you create before uploading to our platform. This same limitation applies to RAW still image files. 

PDF Watermarking

The options you've chosen for video watermarks don't apply to PDFs. This is due to the differences in size and orientation between the document and video formats. As a result, PDF watermarking is constrained the user's email address, applied diagonally across the page.

That said, with a little work, we can apply options that you've chosen from the normal set of watermark settings to PDFs. It's important to note that these are often not as effective for security as our normal solution for these assets because the difference in aspect ratios they're made for (16:9 videos vs a vertical document) doesn't apply evenly when adjusted. The end result is typically a wide, shallow watermark that doesn’t fit over much of the page, even when positioned diagonally.

Metadata Watermarking

You can also add watermarks to your assets based on the metadata that's attached to them. To start, choose the Custom Text option from the top of the dropdown menu options. Type in the following:

{META.}

Between the period and closing brace, add in the piece of metadata you want displayed, using lower-case characters and underscores for spaces. For example:

{META.scene}

or 

{META.shutter_angle}

Any of the metadata fields listed in the Metadata Panel can be added, from aspect ratio to white point, so get as detailed as you need to - you can also have multiple metadata tags within one watermark!

Playlink Watermarking

When creating and sending a Playlink, the assets will be watermarked based on the folders settings by default. If you wish to apply a different watermark specifically for a single Playlink, you can do so in one of two ways.

The first way is to create a watermark template with the elements of the watermark you wish to add to the Playlink, and then select that template to apply it. For more on creating a Watmermark Template, please review our help doc here: Watermark Templates

Once you do so, when creating the Playlink, you'll have the option to use the default watermark, or you can select the watermark template that you created:

The second way to create a Playlink-specific watermark is to do so "on the fly." In order to do that, select the 3 vertical dots next to the watermark preview, and click "Create Override."

You'll then have the ability to create a new watermark using the same interface as above. Once done, click Save, and the watermark will update to this newly created watermark.

Note: it will be given a default name, but that can be changed by clicking the pencil icon, updating the name, and clicking Save.

Folder watermarks can be set by Production Admins and anyone with granted permissions.

• A folder admin can set sub-folders to have an alternate watermark setting from that of their parent folder

• All changes in watermarking activity is tracked, including any watermark setting removals or alterations

5. Forensic Watermark 

• Forensic watermarking is a security technology intended to deter the leaking of video assets throughout the various life cycles of production

• If forensic watermarking is enabled on your Production, an invisible watermark is automatically embedded into your videos, which acts as a unique identifier to the specific user viewing it

Overview

Forensic watermarking is a security technology intended to deter the leaking of video assets throughout the various life cycles of a production. 

It’s accomplished by embedding an invisible watermark into the videos that acts as a unique identifier to the specific user viewing it. The forensic watermark then follows the asset across any environment where the viewer watches it; from browsers and phones to tablets and set-top boxes. In the event of a leak, the unique watermark then serves to aid us in discovering the source of the pirated material.

There are two other forms of visible watermarking in addition to the invisible type that comes with forensic watermarking - overlay and burn-in. These display information such as user name, IP address, and production on the assets where the viewer is able to see it. Visible overlay watermarking simply displays that information over the video as it’s being viewed, whereas visible burn-in watermarks are encoded into the video at point of play. We provide visible burn-in watermarking on both streaming and downloaded assets. 

Forensic watermarking’s advantage when compared to visible overlay is that the watermarking is encoded into the file itself, and not as information that the file could be pulled out from under and severely hinder any ability to successfully investigate and discover the source of a leak. Compared to visible burn-in, forensic watermarking gives viewers a full, clean image to watch without the presence of any other distracting information while also being able to play a role in detection when visible watermarks have been tampered with or masked.

Any of those options are valuable deterrents to the pirating of assets. If someone sees or knows that personally identifiable information is attached to a file, they’re less likely to try stealing it, but only forensic watermarking is able to maintain both a robust level of asset security and image quality that delivers at all stages of modern film and television production.

How does Forensic Watermarking work?

We partner with ContentArmor to deliver forensic watermarking that maintains our high standards of asset security, and the process starts after an asset has been uploaded.

Once that’s complete, the asset goes through a stage called profiling. This analyzes and identifies portions of the asset’s bitstream - the ones and zeroes it’s made of - where imperceptible forensic watermarking changes can be made to the video. Each combination of changes is called an Identifier, and they’re all generated, saved, and copied into a database to be used for potential future investigations.

The identifiers are also kept for future transmission within the asset at the point of play. When a viewer logs in and starts watching a forensically watermarked asset, the changes identified during processing are then embedded into their stream as it plays back. If the asset is downloaded for offline viewing, the identifiers are encoded into the file upon download.

While this does incur an upfront time investment at the upload/processing stage, there is almost no added delay upon playback when watching forensically watermarked assets. 

Does Forensic Watermarking affect video quality?

The changes being applied to videos through this process are visually imperceptible. Picture quality analysis of ContentArmor’s high fidelity forensic watermarking on assets has been assessed by studio-affiliated golden eyes; sight experts trained to perceive the smallest imperfections or impositions in an image. 

What happens in the event of a leak?

In the event that an asset ends up in the wild, an investigation can be performed to determine its origins by utilizing the forensic watermarking and a list of suspected source assets. The watermark itself is capable of surviving a range of signal processing attacks, as well as conversion from digital-to-analog or analog-to-digital.

The first step is to notify us of a suspected leak. The best way to do that is via (support@moxion.io and amazonteam@autodesk.com) with the word, "urgent" anywhere in the subject or body of your email. Upon notification, we'll assemble a response team that includes an engineer and a lead engineer. Then we'll need a list of source assets from the leak that you suspect have come from our apps as well as the pirated copy of the file. From there, we'll download any clips which may have been pirated, as well as their Content Armor metadata. All of this information is uploaded into a secure portal at Content Armor where they'll be used to determine the forensic ID of the leak's source.

At this point, we'll know if there's any need to share the original source asset with Content Armor. If we don't, then we can cross-reference the forensic ID with user IDs and access logs from our end to determine the source of the leak.

Working with Forensic Watermarking

While forensic watermarking has the benefits of being imperceptible, traceable, and robust, there are some factors to take into account when using it.

• Processing time is about doubled, and should be factored in when uploading any video assets. The forensic watermarking we employ is only applied to the visual portion of videos and audio remains untouched by forensic watermarking. 
• Note that original files are kept as-is upon upload, and do not get forensically watermarked. It is only proxy files that are encoded with forensic watermarking
• For anyone who has the permissions to remove watermarks (Admins or Downloader (no watermark), it should be noted that this does NOT apply to forensic watermarking. If forensic watermarking is enabled, regardless of your watermarking settings all proxies will be forensically watermarked. If you are downloading a proxy it will always have forensic watermarking applied. 

There are also some factors that can limit the effectiveness of forensic watermarking.

• An asset length of about two minutes provides the ideal minimum for the most robust watermarks. Shorter clips will still be watermarked, but that decreased runtime means less data to work with in embedding identifiers. That said, a short clip with many visual changes is as good as most longer ones.
• Assets with higher amounts of visual variety allow for profiling to produce more and better identifiers than those with predominantly static imagery. Clips from Editorial or VFX workflows (including previs) are ideal, and about half of those that come through from Immediates are well-suited to this forensic watermarking. 
• Some clips may not be able to give us automated detection when performing forensic investigation. In such an event, we may need to provide a copy of the suspected original asset to ContentArmor for further inquiry.