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Mountain Mode (beta)

Mountain Mode lets o/DAILIES Viewer on iPad load dailies over the local network (Wi‑Fi or Ethernet, on the same private LAN as the DIT machine) from o/DAILIES MANAGER on the DIT Mac, without relying on cloud downloads. It is intended for locations with little or no internet.

Offline- vs Mountain Mode

We are also working on signed-in offline viewing: you stay in the normal cloud project—same o/DAILIES account, permissions, bins, and metadata from our servers—while dailies video is cached on the device so playback can work when the internet is slow or drops out for a while.

**Mountain Mode is separate from that.** Here the **DIT Mac on set** is the source of the files over the local network, which suits shoots where there is often **no** usable internet for downloading from o/DAILIES at all.

Who it is for

Role What you do
DIT Run MANAGER with Mountain Mode enabled; keep the usual Silverstack → watch folder workflow.
Crew (iPad) Use Viewer on the same network as the DIT machine; pair once, then sync clips for offline playback.

How this differs from cloud mode

Cloud mode is what most people use: you sign in with your o/DAILIES account, and clips plus metadata come from our servers over the internet. Mountain Mode is a deliberate alternative: the iPad gets clips from the DIT Mac on set over Wi‑Fi or Ethernet, and can work when there is no usable internet at all.

Topic Cloud mode Mountain Mode (beta)
Where clips come from Uploaded copies in the cloud (you download or stream as designed). Files on the DIT machine’s watch folder (_graded / _done); iPad pulls copies to local storage.
Network Internet required for normal setup and ongoing sync. Local network between MANAGER and iPad; internet optional once metadata exists on the Mac.
Signing in Your o/DAILIES account; access follows project permissions set by production. Device pairing (QR / code) with the DIT machine; no o/DAILIES account sign-in on the iPad for that workflow.
Comments, ratings, script notes Available when the project allows them (cloud sync). Not available in Mountain Mode (yet).
Shared / custom bins Full bin model in the cloud. Shooting-day style bins only (no shared bins that live only in the cloud).
Stills Handled in the cloud pipeline when enabled. Not available in Mountain Mode (still extraction is a backend workflow).
Speech blocks, slate detection, LOG waveform extras Cloud / backend processing where subscribed. Not available (no backend analysis on the DIT path).
EDL / matchback Cloud-linked features. Not available in Mountain Mode.

In short: Mountain Mode trades full cloud collaboration and backend features for on-set delivery without relying on the internet. Anything that fundamentally needs our servers or shared cloud state may be missing or simplified.

Direction of the workflow: In Mountain Mode, the iPad receives dailies from MANAGER on the LAN so you can play them locally. It is not (yet) a way for the Viewer app to write comments, ratings, or script notes into production’s cloud project—the same features are not available in Mountain Mode for now, and there is no separate “send my review back over the LAN” path either.

Enabling the beta in the apps

Mountain Mode controls are hidden until you turn on the preview flag.

DIT — MANAGER (macOS)

Run this once in Terminal on the Mac where MANAGER is installed (then restart MANAGER if it was already open):

defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/io.ottomatic.odailies.mac.plist flutter.mountainModePreviewEnabled -bool true

After that:

  1. Open o/DAILIES MANAGER (macOS build that includes uploading).
  2. Open Settings for a project where your account has admin permission.
  3. Open Mountain Mode and follow the on-screen steps (choose the watch folder root that contains _graded / _done, enable the server, pair iPads).

Mountain Mode in MANAGER: enable Mountain Mode, optional Also upload to cloud, server status, pairing QR code, and paired devices{: style="max-width: 720px" }

iPad — Viewer (iOS)

On the login screen, tap the large o/DAILIES logo 10 times within 5 seconds. You should see a short message that Mountain Mode discovery was enabled.

That gesture:

  • opts the device into Bonjour discovery for MANAGER hosts on the LAN (and may trigger a local-network permission prompt on iOS), and
  • persists that choice so discovery can resume the next time you open the app.

The Mountain Mode button on the login screen appears when at least one MANAGER with Mountain Mode running is found on the network. The iPad and DIT machine must be on the same private LAN (Wi‑Fi or Ethernet).

Same network

If nothing is discovered, confirm both devices are on a private LAN (many guest Wi‑Fi or train hotspots block device-to-device traffic).

Pairing, discovery, and trust

  • Discovery — With the preview gesture above, the app can use Bonjour (DNS-SD / mDNS) to find Mountain Mode on the LAN, and you can scan the QR MANAGER shows on the DIT display. Both paths reach the same HTTPS service (pairing and sync use the same trust model).
  • What the QR encodes — The code MANAGER shows includes a time-limited token, a local network hostname for the DIT machine (a name.local address resolvable on the LAN), the HTTPS port, and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the self-signed certificate MANAGER uses for Mountain Mode HTTPS.
  • Why there is a fingerprint — Mountain Mode does not use a public certificate authority for the DIT’s HTTPS service. The Viewer pins the certificate using the fingerprint from the QR (and existing paired sessions) so the iPad only trusts that Mac for Mountain Mode, not arbitrary servers on the network.

Requirements (short)

  • MANAGER: macOS app with uploader; preview flag set as above; admin on the project in Settings.
  • Project: Mountain Mode can only be started for a project with an active paid subscription (the app enforces this when you enable the server).
  • Viewer: iPad (iOS); macOS can be used in development for discovery testing.

Network layout and performance

The important part is IP connectivity and multicast/Bonjour between MANAGER and the iPads—not the exact cable layout. The choices below mainly affect how fast many iPads can pull large dailies at once.

Layout examples

  1. DIT → Ethernet → Wi‑Fi router → iPads MANAGER uses wired backhaul to the access point; iPads use Wi‑Fi. This is usually the strongest Wi‑Fi-centric option, because only the iPad ↔ access point segment is wireless.
  2. DIT → Ethernet → switch → Ethernet → USB‑C Ethernet adapter → iPad Each iPad can join the same Ethernet switch as MANAGER. That removes Wi‑Fi from the path for those devices and can greatly improve throughput and predictability for bulk sync. This wiring pattern has not been validated across a wide range of adapters, switches, and on-set conditions—treat it as an advanced option and prove it on your own hardware before show-critical day.

Wi‑Fi: practical recommendations

  • Prefer 5 GHz Wi‑Fi (802.11ac or Wi‑Fi 6 / 6E or newer) on an access point that is not overloaded by unrelated traffic. 2.4 GHz–only or very busy shared networks become the bottleneck quickly when several iPads pull multi‑gigabyte files in parallel.
  • Marketing numbers on the router box are peak lab figures; real sustained throughput per device is lower—leave headroom if many people sync at the same time.

Why MANAGER on Ethernet usually beats “Wi‑Fi everywhere”

When MANAGER and all iPads are Wi‑Fi-only, every transfer competes for the same radio airtime at the access point. Traffic often follows Mac → access point → iPad, so payload data can consume airtime on more than one wireless hop, and the AP must time-slice between many clients. With MANAGER on Gigabit Ethernet into the same router or switch, only the iPads use the radio for their last hop, which typically yields much higher and more stable transfer rates to the room.

Multiple networks on the DIT Mac (service order)

If the DIT Mac has more than one connection active (e.g. Ethernet and Wi‑Fi both up, or a USB-C Ethernet dongle plus built‑in Wi‑Fi), set which link macOS prefers first so MANAGER’s primary local address matches the port you are actually using on set. In System Settings → Network on the Mac, use “Set Service Order…” (wording and layout can vary by macOS version) to put the intended interface at the top of the list. o/DAILIES follows that order when picking the main address. See Change the order of the network services your Mac uses in Apple’s Mac User Guide.

After pairing

  • Clips and metadata are pulled by the iPad; the DIT machine does not push to devices.
  • Playback uses files cached on the iPad, not live streaming from the Mac during review.
  • Ignore tagging and _graded / _done behavior match normal MANAGER rules (see FAQ below).

Frequently asked questions

_graded vs _done — which file is used?

MANAGER looks in both places under your watch folder root:

  • _graded/ — newly rendered files before a successful cloud upload moves them into _done (for example waiting in the upload queue), or still there while Also upload to cloud is off in Mountain Mode.
  • _done/_graded/ — copies that have already been uploaded and moved into _done.

If the same clip name exists in both folders, MANAGER uses the copy in the top-level _graded folder and not the one under _done/_graded. That way a fresh local transcode wins over an older uploaded duplicate.

Re-renders: same filename, new file

MANAGER’s Mountain Mode server watches _graded, _done/_graded, and _done/_thumbnails for new or changed .mp4 / .jpg files. If you export again with the same clip name and overwrite the existing file in place (or replace it the way your encoder normally does), the index refreshes and the Mac continues to serve that path—there is no requirement to use a new filename for every pass.

After metadata sync, Viewer on iPad compares file modification times (to the nearest second) to decide whether a clip already on the device is older than the copy on MANAGER. If the file on the Mac is newer, the iPad can pull the updated render on the next sync (same as when a clip first appears).

Does the ignore tag work in Mountain Mode?

Yes, in the same way as normal Silverstack → MANAGER sync. Clips tagged with ignore (case-insensitive, as a Silverstack tag) are filtered out before metadata is synced to the project, so they never appear in the clip list that Mountain Mode serves. There is no separate Mountain Mode bypass for ignored clips.

_ignore_… / _exclude_… library folders from your Silverstack layout are also respected by the same sync path; see Frequently Asked Questions for the broader hiding and ignore behavior.