TechSmith’s mission is to empower people to communicate and share knowledge using media capture and editing software. Based in East Lansing, Michigan, TechSmith’s products are used by 73 million users worldwide and by every Fortune 500 company.

Collaborating with a team to create content can be challenging. Doing so often results in an individual coordinating the efforts of multiple team members or organizations, restricting the creative workflow that is essential to digital media creation. This disjointed process of indirect collaboration limits users to working sequentially and prevents all voices from being included.

Our CAVE: Collaborative Audio/Video Editor web application streamlines collaboration on media projects by enabling users to edit synchronously.

Users upload video, image, and audio files and arrange them with an intuitive timeline UI. Editors then preview the edited video at any time, and when completed, the final video can be downloaded for distribution across various platforms.

All media projects and their associated media are stored securely in the cloud where users can invite others to collaborate. Collaborators log in securely and can begin working on their project independently or together in real time.

Users need not worry about others overwriting their changes as the application ensures synchronization of contributions. By enabling team members to collaborate seamlessly, the final product better highlights the contributions of individuals and reflects a shared voice.

Our web application is built on JavaScript and ReactJS. FFmpeg runs on the client side to process media previews and the final exported project. Edits from simultaneous users are kept in sync with WebSockets. The back end is built using Node.js and is hosted on Microsoft Azure.