Launched Last Fall, Wipster to Make NAB Debut

New Zealand-based Wipster announced it will officially launch its eponymous online video review and approval platform at NAB, bringing a tool already in use at NBC Universal, Stanley Black & Decker, Daimler and Delta Air Lines to an even wider audience. Wipster will also launch a new companion mobile app at the show. In February, the company secured $1.2 million in funding to drive the expanded platform's development and reach.

Wipster CEO and founder Rollo Wenlock, a former motion graphics artist who founded the production company HoverLion Ltd and Alpha Bristol Films, is pointing his venture, first unveiled in September, at both new and seasoned filmmakers who create commercials, short films and other branded video content. The idea behind the platform, he describes on the company's Web site, is to take the drudgery out of the necessary final stages of every collaboration. "While we all love creating our art, we honestly hate the process of getting it approved and delivered. Let’s face it, it’s painful. But it doesn’t have to be."

The online tool's streamlined interface focuses soley on review and approval, using a push pin metaphor and colorful thought-bubble markers that let members of a team pin comments to a specific area of a full-screen, frame-accurate video. Notable features include version stacking, simplified client access (no additional accounts needed), Dropbox import, content-rich emails sent directly from the program and the ability to create branded final presentations for a client. Wipster uses the same 256 SSL encryption that banks do online to protect customers' accounts. It also supports 4K upload and delivery, encoding a Web playback version that people can view and comment on, Rollo said in an email.

Wipster's subscription-based pricing starts at $25 per month for a single user to access the full platform and upload up to 100 minutes of video footage. A newly announced update to the company's introductory "Free Forever" plan, however, will let unlimited users access a pared-down but substantial set of core features and upload up to 40 minutes (currently 15) of video per month for free. A company spokesman told us when using this plan, subsequent updates don't count toward your original monthly video length limit, letting users upload as many revisions as they need during the life of a project. There is no limit on data size when uploading on any of the plans and users can archive an unlimited amount of material.

Other cloud-based options in this growing market, like the Sony Ci cloud-based collaborative service, charge by the size of the video uploaded. Sony Ci's similar $25 single-user price point sets a limit of up to 100 GB of video per month or 25 GB for unlimited users on a team. Sony Ci, however, includes dailies uploads via Aspera and rough cut editing tools beyond its review and approval options; it also now has a companion mobile app. Another similar tool, the newly launched Frame.io, includes hover-scrubbing and accelerated uploads (still in beta). Frame.io has not yet set storage or video length limitations, although its creators say they will base future decisions about pricing and data and/or length limits on the patterns of its early users.