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How it works

Originals stay home. Proxies do the travelling.

ReelBase splits the job in two: your full-resolution footage never leaves your storage, while lightweight proxies and metadata let your team and your clients work from anywhere. Here's the path a clip takes, step by step.

Step by step

From camera card to finished hand-off

Five steps, in the order your footage moves through them.

  1. Step 1 of 5

    Ingest footage from your storage

    Copy cards to your NAS as usual, or drag them onto the Ingest tab. The ingest agent — a small program on a Windows machine that can reach your storage — picks up new files from the watch folders you set.

    • Each file is fingerprinted by its content, so ReelBase recognizes it even after a rename or move.
    • Apply a batch-rename pattern and your team's tags as the footage arrives.
    • Choose per batch whether AI transcription and tagging should run.
    Illustrative interface with sample data

  2. Step 2 of 5

    ReelBase builds proxies and catalogs each clip

    The agent reads each clip's metadata and builds a 720p H.264 proxy, a poster frame and a hover-scrub sprite. It uploads only those previews and the metadata — the original file stays where it is.

    • New clips appear in the library automatically.
    • Browse in Grid, Filmstrip or List view and hover to scrub.
    • An Activity view shows what's processing right now.
    Illustrative interface with sample data

  3. Step 3 of 5

    Log, tag and search

    Your team logs clips with a shared tag vocabulary, notes and client fields, then finds shots by filename, tag or transcript — and, with AI enabled, by spoken word or meaning.

    • Speech search opens the clip at the moment the words are spoken.
    • Mark in/out to save sub-clips and gather them into named selects lists.
    • Assemble a rough cut on the single-track timeline in the Edit tab.
    Illustrative interface with sample data

  4. Step 4 of 5

    Send a cut for client review

    Create a review link — with an optional passcode and expiry — and send it. Your client watches the cut in the browser without creating an account.

    • Clients leave timestamped comments and draw directly on the frame.
    • They mark the cut Approved or Needs changes.
    • Your team replies in threads and resolves each note as it's done.
    Illustrative interface with sample data

  5. Step 5 of 5

    Hand off to Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve

    Export selects or sequences as FCPXML, FCP7 XML or EDL that relink to your original files, or download a proxy .zip to cut offline and relink later.

    • The Resolve panel (Resolve Studio) adds review notes as timeline markers and sends the next cut back for review.
    • The Premiere Pro panel shows the review page inside Premiere; clicking a note moves the playhead.
    • Send individual clips from ReelBase into your open editing project.
    Illustrative interface with sample data

Architecture

What lives where

Heavy files stay on your network. Only small previews and metadata travel to the ReelBase server, where your team and clients reach them through a browser.

Illustrative interface with sample data

How the pieces connect

  1. Original footage stays on your NAS or drives. ReelBase never uploads, modifies or deletes it.
  2. The ingest agent runs on a Windows machine on the same network and reads the folders you choose.
  3. Proxies, posters, previews and metadata go to the ReelBase server.
  4. Your team works in a web browser; clients open review links without an account.
  5. Exports and editor panels relink to the originals — so the editing machine needs access to the media.

Requirements

What you need

ReelBase is deliberately light on installs. Here's the honest list.

  • Required

    A Windows machine on your storage network

    For the ingest agent. The one-click installer bundles Node and ffmpeg and starts the agent at logon. It runs as the logged-in user so it can reach your NAS, so that machine needs to stay signed in. The installer is unsigned, so Windows SmartScreen asks you to confirm once.

  • Required

    A modern web browser

    For your team and your clients. Copying files to the NAS from the browser on the Ingest tab requires Chrome or Edge.

  • Required

    An invitation from your admin

    Accounts are invite-only. Admins invite people and assign the admin or member role.

  • Optional

    Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve

    Exports (FCPXML, FCP7 XML, EDL) work without any panel. The Resolve panel needs DaVinci Resolve Studio and Python 3.10; the Premiere Pro panel is currently unsigned and installs in debug mode.

  • Optional

    AI services

    Transcription, semantic search and visual auto-tagging use third-party AI services configured on the server. They're optional, can be switched off per clip, and Settings shows a cost estimate.

See your own footage in ReelBase

Book a walkthrough and we'll show you how ReelBase would fit your storage, your team and your editing tools — no slides, just the product.

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