About fifteen minutes, most of which is VAMP reading your drive while you do something else.
Your invite email has a link that is yours alone. It sets your password and starts the download in one go, so there is no code to type and no account to go hunting for. The link knows whether you are on a Mac or a PC and sends the right one. The installer is small and fetches the rest as it goes, and it installs like any other app: its own icon, a clean uninstall, and no administrator password needed.
Plug a drive in and point VAMP at it, or at one folder inside it. It reads every clip and builds a tiny scrubbable preview of each one. Cataloging is read only: nothing on your drive is moved, renamed or added to. Clips appear as they are read, so you can start browsing immediately.
Do this deliberately the first time, because it is the whole point. Pull the drive out, and everything that was on it is still on your screen: the folder tree, every clip, the scrubbing, the audio, the search. Type a word and it still finds the shot. None of it was ever coming from the drive. Now put that one on the shelf and catalog the next.
Three columns. It works the same whether the drive is connected or in a box in the loft.
None of this needs the drive.
Transcribe a clip and its words become searchable. It runs on your own machine, with no per-minute service fee, and never leaves it. Click any line to jump the preview to that moment.
VAMP finds faces in the previews, not the masters, so it works with the drive on a shelf. Name someone and it offers you the same person in every other clip, and asks before agreeing.
Found the shot but the drive is in a cupboard? Mark it. It goes on a list that shows a green dot the moment that drive is plugged back in.
Offload a card to two drives at once with checksums and an MHL manifest written beside the media. Months later, re-verify the shelved drive against that manifest.
Publish one and an editor browses it from anywhere, searches the transcripts, and requests the clips they need. You plug the drive in; the clip goes on its own. Part of the subscription.
Optional AI tags for what is on screen. Part of the subscription, or bring your own API key. It never runs on its own and always says what it will cost first.
Sign up, then download the app. Solo is free.