Pomfort Silverstack Offload Manager 1.1 – Now With Parallel Transfers

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by Olaf von VossMay 17^th, 2019

Back in 2018, Pomfort released their standalone offloading tool Sliverstack Offload Manager. Now version 1.1 is ready and it comes with a small, yet powerful feature: Offload footage from multiple sources in parallel, increasing your workflow significantly while maintaining the rock-solid checksum verification, of course.

Pomfort is known for their high-end software covering everything a professional DIT might need on set. The relatively new Silverstack Offload Manager uses the same offloading and verification engine as the mighty Silverstack / Silverstack XT but without anything beyond offloading and reporting. If you are new to the Silverstack Offload Manager, you can read (and watch) our coverage here. Just a word of warning for Windows or Linux users: Silverstack Offload Manager is Mac only.

Pomfort Silverstack Offload Manager 1.1

Version 1.1 now adds a small yet mighty feature: parallel offloading from multiple sources. You can define how many sources you need and then just add offloading jobs to the (parallel) queue. This feature depends on quite powerful hardware of course. Just adding a multi USB hub to one single USB port won’t get you blazing fast transfer speeds. However, if your machine can provide the needed performance and USB or Thunderbolt lanes, this feature will dramatically speed up your offloading workflow.

Everything else stays about the same: Rock-solid checksum verification, extended reporting and the streamlined interface. I personally like the UI very much. I think it’s clean, yet provides sufficient information at a glance. Other solutions such as Hedge for example offer an even cleaner UI but sometimes I find it too minimal.

Pricing – Perpetual vs. Temporary Licences

Pomfort Silverstack Offload Manager is only available as a one-year or as a short-term license. You can’t purchase a perpetual license. This is of course unfortunate but it is as it is. If you’re using such a software all day, every day, the $139 (119 €) asking for a 1-year license might offer a good value. But if you need the Offload Manager just for one project, a short-term license ( 14 days for $35 / 29 € or one month for $49 / 42 €) might be a better fit. Bundled with these licenses comes free e-mail support and access to Pomfort’s comprehensive knowledge base. Licenses can be migrated to other Macs, too. You will also get all updates within your licensed timeframe, of course.

To ease the pain, the clock only starts ticking when you actually activate your purchased license, yo you can buy now and activate it the minute you need it on set. Furthermore, all these temporary licenses will not renew automatically, so this isn’t a subscription.

Link: Pomfort Website

What do you think? Do you use any offloading software? Which one? Let us know in the comments below!