How to edit video straight from a cloud drive

Video editing has always demanded local storage. Raw footage lands on a hard drive, gets copied to an SSD, and then gets copied again when someone else needs it. The files are large, the drives are expensive, and the logistics of moving physical media between people and locations eat into the time that should go to the edit itself.

Fabric removes that step entirely. Its cloud drive streams video files on demand, in real time, so editors can open and work with footage directly from the cloud. There is no download wait, no drive to carry, and no proxy workflow sitting between the editor and the original media. Files open instantly, even full-resolution camera originals, because Fabric delivers them as a continuous stream rather than a bulk transfer.

This page walks through how that works in practice, what it means for the proxy and SSD shuttle workflows that most editors rely on today, and how Fabric fits into the broader set of tools a video team already uses.

Why local storage became a bottleneck

A typical documentary shoot produces several terabytes of footage. A commercial project with multiple camera angles can generate hundreds of gigabytes in a single day. That footage has to live somewhere while the editor works, and for most of the history of non-linear editing, "somewhere" has meant a local SSD or a directly attached RAID.

The problem is not just the cost of storage. It is the time spent managing it. Footage arrives on camera cards, gets ingested to a drive, gets backed up, and then gets physically delivered to the editor. If the editor runs out of space, older projects get archived or deleted to make room. If a second editor needs access, the footage is copied again. If the project moves to a colourist or sound mixer, the drives follow.

This is the SSD shuttle workflow, and it scales poorly. Every copy takes time, every handoff introduces risk, and every drive that leaves the building is a potential data loss event. Editors spend hours on file management that has nothing to do with the creative work.

What proxy workflows solve, and what they cost

The proxy workflow emerged as a way to cope with footage that was too large or too demanding for a given editing system. The idea is simple: create smaller, lower-resolution copies of the original files, edit with those, and then relink to the full-resolution originals for the final output.

Proxies do reduce the storage and performance demands on the editing workstation. But they introduce their own overhead. Someone has to generate the proxies, which takes time and compute. The project has to maintain a clean link between proxy files and originals, which is fragile. And the editor works with degraded image quality throughout the creative process, only seeing the real footage at the very end.

For many teams, proxies are not a workflow choice but a compromise forced by the limitations of local storage and network bandwidth. If the full-resolution footage could be accessed on demand, with performance sufficient for real-time playback, the proxy step would serve no purpose.

How Fabric streams video on demand

Fabric's cloud drive presents your files as if they were on a local volume, but the data lives in the cloud and streams to your machine only as your application requests it. When you open a timeline in your editing software and scrub through a clip, Fabric delivers the frames your application needs at that moment. It does not download the entire file first.

This means a 200 GB camera original opens just as quickly as a 2 GB proxy. The editor sees the full-resolution image from the start, with no waiting for a download to complete before work can begin. Scrubbing, previewing and playback all happen against the real media.

Because Fabric handles the streaming at the file-system level, it works with the editing applications you already use. Your NLE sees what looks like a normal file on a normal drive. It does not need a plugin, a special import step, or a proprietary media format. The difference is entirely in where the data comes from and how it arrives.

For a deeper look at managing project assets in this model, see the guide on how to manage video project files within Fabric.

Eliminating the SSD shuttle

When footage lives in Fabric's cloud drive, every authorised member of the team can access it from wherever they are. There is no drive to post, no courier to schedule, and no risk of a package going missing. The editor in London and the colourist in Toronto both open the same files from the same source, at the same time if needed.

This is particularly relevant for teams that work across multiple facilities or with freelancers who rotate between projects. Instead of shipping a drive and waiting for it to arrive, you grant access and the footage is available immediately. Fabric's collaboration features let you control who sees what, so bringing someone onto a project does not mean exposing the entire library.

The practical result is that the time between "footage is shot" and "editor is cutting" shrinks to however long it takes to upload the camera cards. Once the media is in Fabric, it is available to anyone who needs it, with no intermediate copies or physical logistics.

Fabric as a media asset management layer

Beyond streaming playback, Fabric functions as a media asset management system for rich media. All files in the cloud drive are indexed and searchable through Fabric's search, which means finding a specific clip across hundreds of hours of footage becomes a search query rather than a manual trawl through folder structures.

Fabric also provides automatic transcription for audio and video files. When you upload a video, Fabric transcribes the spoken content and makes it searchable. You can look for a phrase someone said on camera and jump directly to that moment. The AI assistant can answer questions about transcribed media and cite exact timestamps, so you can ask "where does the interview subject mention the product launch" and get a precise reference rather than scrubbing through hours of footage by ear.

This turns Fabric into a persistent, searchable record of everything your team has shot. The memory engine retains context about your files, projects and workflows, building an institutional memory that grows more useful over time. Combined with self-writing documentation, Fabric can maintain up-to-date records of project assets, shoot notes and editorial decisions without anyone having to write or update those documents manually.

Working with your existing tools

Fabric is designed to sit alongside the applications and services a video team already depends on. Its connections integrate with cloud storage providers, project management tools and communication platforms, so Fabric becomes a single point of access for content that currently lives in many different places.

For teams that use AI assistants in their workflow, Fabric provides access through MCP (Model Context Protocol), which means you can reach your Fabric content from tools like ChatGPT or Claude. If you are using an AI assistant to generate shot lists, summarise transcripts or draft edit notes, it can pull directly from the footage metadata and transcriptions stored in Fabric rather than requiring you to copy and paste information between applications.

Fabric also supports agent access: scoped, time-limited permissions that let automated tools interact with specific parts of your vault without exposing the whole library. This is useful for workflows where an AI agent needs to process a batch of clips, generate descriptions or tag footage, but should only see the assets relevant to that task.

Security and encryption

Video footage is often commercially sensitive, sometimes legally protected, and frequently subject to NDAs. Fabric secures all stored content with AES-256 encryption and holds CASA Tier 2 certification. The security model is designed so that your media is protected both at rest and in transit, without requiring the editor to think about encryption settings or key management.

This matters more in a cloud-first workflow than in a local-drive workflow, because the convenience of remote access has to come with confidence that the footage is not exposed. Fabric treats security as infrastructure rather than an optional layer, so the same protections apply whether you are streaming a clip for a rough cut or sharing a folder with an external colourist.

Understanding file formats in a streaming context

One common question is whether streaming playback works equally well across all the video file formats that editors encounter. Camera manufacturers use a wide range of codecs and container formats, from ProRes and DNxHR to the various flavours of H.264 and H.265, and each has different characteristics in terms of data rate and decode complexity.

Fabric streams the file data on demand regardless of format. The decoding still happens on your local machine, handled by your NLE as it would be with any local file. What changes is the delivery path: instead of reading from an SSD over a SATA or NVMe bus, your application reads from Fabric's cloud drive over the network. For most editing workflows, the bottleneck has historically been storage I/O rather than decode performance, so moving to a streaming model does not introduce a new limitation. It replaces one I/O path with another.

For editors who have been working with proxies specifically because their local storage could not keep up with high-bitrate originals, this is worth testing directly. The experience depends on your network connection, but many editors find that a stable broadband connection delivers sufficient throughput for real-time playback of full-resolution media.

Who this is for

Fabric's cloud drive is useful for any editor who currently spends time managing local storage, shuttling drives, or maintaining proxy workflows. It is particularly well suited to documentary and long-form editorial teams who work with large volumes of footage, distributed teams who need concurrent access to the same media, and freelancers who move between projects and clients without wanting to maintain a growing collection of external drives.

It is worth noting what Fabric is not. It is not a video editing application, a colour grading tool, or a visual effects compositor. It is the storage, search and organisation layer that sits beneath those tools, replacing the local drives and manual file management that currently occupy a disproportionate share of an editor's time. For more on how Fabric fits the needs of video editors specifically, the dedicated page covers the workflow in detail.

Getting started

Moving to a cloud-drive workflow does not require rethinking your entire pipeline. The practical first step is to upload a project's worth of footage to Fabric and open it from your NLE. If the playback is smooth and the experience feels like working from a local drive, the rest follows naturally: subsequent projects go straight to Fabric, and the drives stay in the drawer.

For teams, the transition can happen gradually. Start with one project, add collaborators through Fabric's sharing controls, and see whether the removal of the SSD shuttle step saves as much time as you expect. In most cases, it saves more, because the secondary effects, fewer copies, less manual file tracking, instant access for new team members, compound quickly.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a fast internet connection to edit from Fabric's cloud drive?

A stable broadband connection is sufficient for most editing workflows. Fabric streams data on demand, so the bandwidth requirement depends on the bitrate of your footage rather than the total file size. Editors working with very high-bitrate formats such as uncompressed or RAW video will benefit from faster connections, but standard camera codecs like ProRes and H.264 stream comfortably over typical broadband.

Does Fabric work with DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro?

Fabric's cloud drive presents files as if they were on a local volume, so any application that reads from a standard file system can work with it. This includes DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and other NLEs. No plugin or special integration is required. For tips on Resolve and cloud storage, or dealing with Premiere scratch disk issues, the blog covers both in detail.

Can multiple editors work from the same footage at the same time?

Yes. Because the footage lives in Fabric's cloud drive rather than on a local disk, any number of authorised users can access the same files concurrently. Each editor streams the data they need independently. Fabric's collaboration controls let you manage who has access to which folders and projects.

Does Fabric replace my proxy workflow?

For many editors, yes. The reason proxies exist is to work around the limitations of local storage and the difficulty of handling high-resolution media on constrained hardware. When Fabric streams full-resolution footage on demand, the proxy step becomes unnecessary. You work with the original media from the start. For more on this shift, see the post on why the proxy workflow is fading.

How does Fabric handle video file security?

All content in Fabric is encrypted with AES-256 encryption, and Fabric holds CASA Tier 2 certification. Files are protected both at rest and in transit. Access controls let you grant and revoke permissions at the folder or file level, so you can share footage with a freelance editor without exposing unrelated projects.

Can I search through my video footage in Fabric?

Yes. Fabric indexes all files in your cloud drive and makes them searchable. For video files specifically, Fabric provides automatic transcription of spoken content, which is then fully searchable. You can search by filename, metadata, folder structure, or the words spoken in the video itself.

What happens if I lose my internet connection while editing?

Fabric requires an internet connection to stream files from the cloud drive. If the connection drops, your NLE will lose access to the media files until connectivity is restored. Fabric does not currently offer an offline mode. For work in locations with unreliable connectivity, this is a factor to consider when planning your workflow.

Does Fabric use any local storage on my machine?

Fabric streams files on demand rather than downloading them to local storage. Your local SSD or hard drive is not used to store the footage. This means you can work with terabytes of media without needing terabytes of local disk space, freeing your SSD for application caches, renders and other working files.

Can AI tools access my video content through Fabric?

Yes. Fabric supports MCP (Model Context Protocol) and agent access, which means AI assistants like ChatGPT and Claude can access your Fabric content directly. Agent access is scoped and time-limited, so you control exactly which assets an automated tool can see and for how long. This is useful for tasks like batch tagging, transcript summarisation and metadata generation.

How is Fabric different from other cloud storage services for video?

Most cloud storage services are designed for syncing files between devices, which means they download entire files to local storage before you can work with them. Fabric streams on demand, so files are available instantly without occupying local disk space. It also functions as a media asset management layer with built-in search, automatic transcription, AI-powered retrieval, self-writing documentation and AES-256 encryption, rather than being a simple folder in the cloud.

Related pages

• Your cloud drive

• Fabric for video editors

• What is a proxy workflow?

• How to manage video project files

• Video file formats explained

• How to edit video without filling your SSD

• The proxy workflow is dying

• Audio and video transcription

• Privacy and security

• MCP integration