FlexXTEND User Guide

Introduction

The FlexXTEND panel in Adobe Premiere is an extension that allows the editors to browse, search, preview and use media from the Flex system in their Premiere projects compositions and save said compositions back to Flex. More advanced capabilities include the upload of local media to the Flex system and saving Adobe Projects to Flex for ongoing work. The FlexXTEND panel is run from Adobe Premiere and is an extension of the Flex system.

For the configuration, read the article: FlexXTEND Installation and Configuration.

For the installation, read the article: Dalet Flex Xtend Installation.

This is a step-by-step guide for using Dalet Flex Xtend.

Logging in to FlexXTEND

Open the FlexXTEND panel in Adobe Premiere by launching Adobe Premiere Pro and creating a new project or opening an existing project.

Go to Window > Extensions > FlexXTEND.

The FlexXTEND panel will pop up.

Click the Plus (+) icon to create a new environment or select an existing environment from the dropdown list. Click the Always Use This Environment checkbox to always login to the same environment.

See FlexXTEND Configuration for more details on environment settings.

Select your environment and then log in with your Dalet Flex credentials, you will be asked to login to Dalet Flex and approve your connection through your Web Browser.

Once you click Approve you can close the browser window and the FlexXTEND panel opens in Adobe Premiere.

If the Remember me for 24 hours checkbox is selected, all new logins in the 24-hour period from the initial approval will be logged in directly without the need for additional approval in the Browser. To display this check box, speak to your administrator.

The Asset Panel

Once logged in, the FlexXTEND Panel will open on the Import tab.

Here you can search and filter the available assets in the Flex system and import media for editing in Adobe Premiere. You can import Video, Image, Project and Edit (Dalet CUT) assets to Adobe Premiere with Flex Xtend.

Click on the User Profile button to see your login credentials and configure the Xtend settings.

Click on the Settings icon to open the panel display settings.

See FlexXTEND Configuration for more information on the required settings.

Click Logout to switch users or close the panel.

Click the icon to switch from Table to Tile view and change the Asset view Template, as configured for this user in the Flex system.

Tile View:

The left-hand side “hamburger” menu allows you to access various Collections and Workspaces, as configured in the Flex system.

 Saved Search Filters for Xtend are also saved here (see below for details).

Search and Filter

User the text field at the top of the panel to search from the available assets.

Depending on the selected Template, use each column header to filter by that column’s metadata. In the image below, the filter is set to filter Audio assets, from the Type column header.

Create custom Search Filters by clicking on the Filter icon at the top right.

From the dropdown lists, select the required parameters.

Click Add to apply the filter.

Click on the X Filters icons to remove any filters.

To save a search Filter, click on Save.

You can combine Search filters with Header filters to create more complex search queries.

Saved Filters can be applied via the Activity > My Searches section of the left-hand side menu.

Preview and Import

You can import video, image, project and edit (Dalet CUT) assets to Adobe Premiere with Flex Xtend. Double click on an asset to Preview it in the Flex Xtend panel before import. 

NOTE: Preview is only available for media/image assets if a proxy format is configured and accessible. You cannot preview projects/edit assets before importing them.

Control the playout, enter a manual timecode, and adjust volume and play speed using the bottom controls.

Click Import to import the previewed asset or Back to return to the Asset list.

Alternatively, in the Asset list, select one or more assets and click Import.

All imported assets will appear in the Adobe Premiere Media Bin.

When you import an project to Adobe Premiere using the FlexXtend panel, the project media is restored in a new Media Bin in Premiere and any sequences in the project are loaded to a new Timeline. You can import multiple projects simultaneously.

• Media is imported to the correct Premiere media bin regardless of which media Bin is currently selected
• If import is cancelled/fails, retry imports media into the target project and does not create an additional project
• The specific project each asset is assigned to is displayed in the Import status window 

Check-In Local Media

Projects in Adobe Premier may contain “local” media that has not yet been imported into Dalet Flex. Whenever you render a sequence or export a project to Dalet Flex, Flex Xtend automatically checks in any local media in the Timeline and creates an asset in Dalet Flex.

By default, FlexXtend checks in the entire media file in the Premiere Bin regardles of how much material is used in the sequence in the Project. To save resources (storage/processing time) you can perform partial check-in that only checks in the portion of media in use on the Timeline (together with predefined handles.)

You can use the Media check-in button in the Export tab to manually perform a full/partial upload of local media used in the Premiere project to the Dalet Flex system at any time.

Automatic full check-in of local media

Create a project in Adobe Premiere that contains "local” media, click on the Export/Save As/Save tab. In the tab, a list of all local media in the sequence/project is displayed.

Select Render or click Export Project/Save Project; the local media is automatically uploaded and then the project is rendered/saved.

Manual full check-in of local media

To manually check in media at any time, select the Export tab, the local media in the project is displayed. Click Media check-in, this does not require any metadata, even if mandatory fields exist in the form.

The media is uploaded to the Flex system and you can follow the media check-in progress.

Click OK when done. A new media asset has been created in Flex, associated to the newly uploaded media file.

Partial check-in of local media

To save resources (storage/processing time), when checking in local media you can perform Partial Check-in that only checks in the portion of media used on the Timeline (together with predefined handles.) Partial check-in generates new files from the local media in clips in the sequence. The new files are generated in a designated Bin in the project Media Bin and when you render or save the project, these files are uploaded to Dalet Flex instead of the full media.

NOTE: To support partial check-in, Adobe Media Encoder (AME)  must be installed on the Adobe Premiere client machine. The partial check in clip rendering is done by the local AME that is running on the editor’s machine. 

Click on the Export/Save As/Save tabs, FlexXtend displays information about the local media that has been used in the Timeline. 

By default, FlexXtend displays information about the full media. When exporting a project it also indicates local media in the Project that has not been added to the sequence.

Click on the Partial Check-in checkbox; FlexXTEND calculates the duration of the media that is actually used in the sequence and indicates the size of the media in the Timeline and what percentage of the full media is saved by using partial check-in. 

If most of the original file is used in the sequence, it is not always worth performing a partial check-in and generating additional files. You manage this behavior using this setting in the Settings dialog.

When FlexXTEND calculates the size of the media for partial check-in, if the size is greater than the defined percentage or the duration of the file to be generated is within 1 second of the duration of the original file, partial check-in is not performed, no new files are generated and the original file is uploaded to Dalet Flex.

You can click Recalculate to recalculate the partial check in information at any time after additional edits. 

Click Generate & Replace, FlexXtend opens AME and generates new files from the clips in the Timeline and places them in a designated Bin in the Media Bin. The name of the Bin is the current time with a configurable suffix. and the naming convention for clips uploaded to Dalet Flex through partial check is the first 10 chars of the checked in file>-iHHMMSSFF-oHHMMSSFF-DATE-TIME.

You can follow the progress of the job in AME  or by clicking the Show calculation and generation details check box.  

Check-in/Partial check on media assets is performed in parallel.

While Check in is in progress, a table with process details, such as path, size, Job Id, Asset Id, workflow Id, Metadata, and status is displayed. Hover over the Path column to display additional metadata.

After the new files are generated, the clips in the sequence point to the newly generated files in the Bin instead of pointing to the original file.

You can define whether to create a single file or individual files for each clip and also set the behavior when there are gaps between the clips. See FlexXTEND Configuration for more details.

After generating the new files, you can continue editing your sequence and add additional local media. FlexXTEND updates the information in the dialog and you can generate new files as required. Whenever you regenerate files, a new Bin containing the new files is created in the Premiere Media Bin.

When you click Render/Save As/Save, the files that you have generated are checked-in to Dalet Flex and your sequence is rendered or your Project is saved.

Automatic partial check-in of local media

You can configure your system to always perform partial check-in when you perform Media check-in/Render/Save by selecting the Automatically trigger partial checkin checkbox in the Settings dialog.

This option is available in the Sequence-Render and Export, Media check-in and Project check-in sections of the Settings dialog. When this option is selected in any of these sections, you do not need to click the Partial Check-in checkbox, instead whenever you click the Media check-in/Render/Export Project/Save Project buttons, FlexXtend automatically selects the Partial Checkin checkbox, generates the new files and completes the requested action. 

Full Check in using a mezzanine format generated by local AME

Partial check-in using FlexXtend, includes a pre-transcode process performed by the local AME that generates new files that are then checked in to Dalet Flex. The pre-transcode process allows the upload of files that may be in unknown or heavy formats, since it creates a supported mezzanine version rather than the original broadcast format. 

By default, partial check-in is supported if media dragged into the Timeline is cropped to less than 100% of the original file based on the configured setting.  By selecting this option in the Settings panel, you can perform full check in using the mezzanine format, regardless of whether the media in the Timeline has been cropped or not.

In this case, when you click Generate & Replace in the Export/Save As/Save tabs, a new file is generated locally and added to the Media Bin in Premiere. This file can then be checked in to Dalet Flex, in the same way as with partial check-in.

Export from FlexXtend

You use the Export tab to render your projects as media files. Once the media files have been created, you configure a workflow to import the files to Dalet Flex and create Flex assets. 

Render Media

When you render media, FlexXtend uses the Adobe Media Encoder to create a new media file. FlexXtend supports using a local Adobe Media Encoder (AME) instance to render locally or sending the render jobs to a remote central rendering server with a remote AME instance. You can set whether your installation of FlexXtend supports remote media encoding in the Settings dialog.

Rendering a sequence on the local AME

To render a sequence on the Timeline:

1. Click on the Export tab.
2. Select a Media Encoder to use. If your installation of FlexXtend does not support remote encoding, all render jobs are automatically submitted to the local AME.
 

3. Fill in required metadata. If there are mandatory fields you will not be able to continue until you fill in the information.

4. Click  Render;  the project is submitted for render to the selected AME. 

5. The encoder writes the files to the export location. If your installation supports upload to S3, FlexXTEND copies the file and uploads it via the Xtendamepanel.

6. A workflow is triggered to import the asset to Dalet Flex. 

7. A new media asset is created in Flex associated to the newly uploaded media file.

Saving projects automatically before render

You can configure FlexXtend to automatically Save a project to Dalet Flex before rendering the project. This ensures that every asset registered in Dalet Flex has a Project asset saved in Dalet Flex as well.  This functionality is enabled using the Save Project on Render check box in the FlexXtend Settings dialog. 

NOTE: This setting only allows you to Save an existing project, it does not trigger a Save As workflow to create a new .prproj in Dalet Flex.

By default, when Project Locking is enabled and the project you are working on is locked by a second user, you cannot render the project, see Flex Project Locking below. An additional setting, Enable render for locked projects has been added to allow rendering a locked project.

Rendering a sequence on a remote Adobe Media Encoder (AME)

If your installation supports sending the render jobs to a remote AME, the AME instance to use can either be assigned automatically based on real-time load and availability or it can be assigned manually. You set automatic assignment as the default behavior in the FlexXtend settings dialog.

If the checkbox is selected, the Auto AME Selection check box is selected when you open the Export tab in FlexXtend and one of the AME machines associated to your Adobe Premiere client machine is automatically assigned based on its Load.

The Load value is displayed next to the name of the AME machines. It is calculated based on the time required to complete the rendering of videos queued to a particular machine. 

NOTE: The lower the value of the Load, the higher the availability of the machine. 

To manually assign a different AME, unselect the checkbox and select an AME from the drop down list. 

NOTE: If auto select is enabled and multiple AMEs have the same load, the system selects the AME that appears first in the list in the Settings panel.   

Monitoring Job Status on Remote AME

You can monitor the status of any rendering job sent to a remote Adobe Media Encoder (AME) directly in the Job Monitor tab in the FlexXtend panel.

Prerequisite

To support this functionality, Adobe Media Encoder MUST be installed in https mode. See the instructions here for more details.

When FlexXtend is connected to a remote AME, the Job Monitor indicates it is Connected and displays a list of jobs.

The Job Monitor displays:

• List of jobs and their status: Submitted, Downloading, Rendering, Uploading, Running Workflow, Done
• By default, Job Monitor shows jobs sent to render by the logged in user and a filter is added in the column header. Click the X in the filter to see all jobs.
• AME the job is assigned to
• Number of running jobs is indicated in the Job Monitor tab header
• Workflow launched when the Render job completes
• Asset created in Dalet Flex after import

Use the 3-dot menu displayed on a job to perform actions in the Job Monitor. 

You can click the Clear Completed button to remove all completed jobs from the Job Monitor. If you only see your jobs, only your jobs are cleared. If you see jobs sent by other users, a pop is displayed and you can select which jobs to clear.

Select the Include Canceled and Failed jobs checkbox to clear canceled and failed jobs with the completed jobs. 

NOTE: You can only perform actions when the job is controlled by FlexXtend. You cannot control workflows or jobs in Dalet Flex.

Saving Adobe Projects in Dalet Flex

FlexXTEND provides end-to-end support for creating/saving/modifying Adobe Premier projects in Dalet Flex. Users can save their Adobe Premiere Project (the *.PRPROJ file) directly to the Dalet Flex system, allowing them to reload it later for continuous work. Project assets can be loaded to different Premiere workstations, as long as all media used in these projects was uploaded or checked-in to the Flex system (See Media check-in above).  You can:

• Create new projects in Adobe Premiere, using media imported from Dalet Flex or local media and save them as .prproj Project assets in Dalet Flex – Save As
• Import existing projects from Dalet Flex directly into a new Media Bin in Adobe Premiere
• Import existing projects from Dalet Flex, modify them in Adobe Premier and save the changes back overwriting the original project in Dalet Flex – Save

Creating new projects in Adobe Premiere and saving as .prproj assets in Dalet Flex

To create new /prproj assets in Dalet Flex, create a project in Adobe Premier and click on the Save As tab in FlexXtend.

Any media that does not yet exist in Dalet Flex is displayed in X file(s) to check in section of the tab.

Add any mandatory/optional metadata and click Export Project . The project is exported. 

If the workflow completes successfully a new .prproj Project asset is created in Dalet Flex. 

Update an existing .prproj project in Dalet Flex 

To update an existing .prproject in Dalet Flex, import the project to Adobe Premiere using the FlexXtend panel; the project media is restored in a new Media Bin in Premiere and any sequences in the project are loaded to a new Timeline. 

Make changes in the project including importing local media and click on the Save tab. Any media that does not yet exist in Dalet Flex is displayed in the X file(s) to check in section of the tab.

Click Save Project to automatically check the new media into Dalet Flex and update the .prproj project asset.

The updated project is saved and the original Project asset in Dalet Flex is updated. 

The new filename is displayed in the Current Filename field.

If configured, the Adobe Premiere Sequences in the Project will be uploaded to Flex as well and created as Flex Edit assets.

Click OK when done. A new project asset has been created in Flex, associated to the PRPROJ file.

Monitoring Workflows

For your convenience, FlexXtend tracks Save As/Save workflow and notifies you whether they have completed or failed.

When a user selects Save, the operation is only complete once the workflow is completed. Specifically if you select Save, the existing project is only overwritten once the workflow completes. This means that if one user has saved a project and another user tries to import the same project before the Save workflow has completed, the older version of the project will be imported. 

To prevent this happening, if the two users have the same Save workflow ids configured in the FlexXtend panel configuration, when the second user tries to import a project that still has a running workflow associated to it, the Import will fail and the following message is displayed.

Flex Project Locking

You can lock the projects you are working on in Adobe Premiere through FlexXtend to prevent modifications by other users while a project is already being edited.

The locking behavior allows you to:

• Lock a project to prevent others from modifying it
• Modify and save a project you have locked
• Unlock a project manually by selecting Close Project
• Receive a notification if an administrator has removed the lock on your project

 The locking behavior allows other users to:

• Open the project in Read-only mode and use Save As to create a new project instead of overwriting the locked project
• Receive a notification when a project they are looking at in Read-only mode is unlocked and then lock the project

Locking is enabled by selecting the Support Project Locking checkbox in the FlexXTEND Settings dialog.

If Project Locking is enabled, when you import a project that is is locked by another user, this message is displayed.

When you open the Save tab, this message is displayed and the Save Project button is disabled.

If the lock on a project that you are working on in Read only mode is released, for example when another user closes the project, this message pops up. Click Lock to lock the project or click X or Read-only to continue working in read-only mode

If you select X or Read-only, the pop up closes and this message is displayed in the Save dialog and you can click Lock Asset at any time.

Once you click Lock Asset, the asset becomes locked for other users and the Save Project button is enabled so you can save your work.

A lock on an asset can be removed by an administrator at any time. In this case, this toaster message is displayed and the project is set in Read-only mode.

NOTE: Edit locks created on a project by external 3rd party systems via Flex API are not deleted when the specific project is closed. When closing a project, FlexXtend only deletes edit locks created by FlexXtend itself when closing a project. 

Working in Offline mode

If you know that you are going to be disconnected from the network, you can download MpegDash files to your Media Bin in Adobe Premiere through FlexXTEND and continue working when you are offline. 

PREREQUISITES: 

• You must be working in Proxy Mode.
• Oreo must be installed on the local computer. When you login to FlexXtend, this notification that Oreo is running is displayed.

When you are connected to the network, FlexXtend runs in Online mode and MpegDash files are downloaded as chunks to the Media Bin in Adobe Premiere using daletPremiereImporter.

If you know that you are going to be disconnected from the network, you can click on the button to move from Online Mode to Local Mode.

In Local Mode, Oreo downloads the complete file to the local storage and once you disconnect from the network you can continue working on your project.

You can render your work locally and once you reconnect to the network you can check your file into Flex via FlexXtend.

NOTE: This functionality is only available for MpegDash proxy files.

Opening Assets from an External App/Location

You can use a deeplink to open a specific project saved in Dalet Flex in Adobe Premiere directly from an external app. OREO must be running on your computer  to access the link. You can trigger single/multiple project imports through deeplinks without having to wait for the current import to finish. When multiple deeplinks are opened, Flex Xtend queues them and processes them one by one. At the end of each import, a message is displayed in the Import tab.

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