The Video Review Checklist: Before You Send a Cut

A video review round has four phases - what you send, how you protect it, how you collect notes, and how you close it - and almost every stalled round fails in one of them: a proxy so compressed the client judges artifacts, a link with no deadline, feedback scattered across three apps, or an ending nobody declared. This checklist covers all four phases; copy it into your project template once and every future round inherits it.

Why review rounds stall

Three root causes explain most dead rounds. Unclear home: feedback allowed to arrive in chat, email, and the tool at once means nobody - including the editor - knows the real note list. Vague notes: "the middle feels slow" cannot be acted on; a note pinned to the frame can. No declared ending: a round without a named approver and a definition of done drifts into round after round. The checklist below is engineered against exactly those three. The deeper principles are in our review best practices.

Phase 1: the pre-send technical checklist

Everything the client will judge happens through the pixels and audio that reach them - so quality-check the conduit before the content:

1. Playback quality: watch the upload yourself on a phone and a laptop. Compression artifacts you tolerate on an edit monitor read as "your work looks bad" to a client.
2. Audio sync: check sync at the start, middle, and end - drift introduced by export is the classic silent killer.
3. Loudness sanity: no clipping, dialogue audible on phone speakers.
4. Filenames and duration: the deliverable name matches the round (v2, not final_final), and the duration matches what was agreed.
5. Timecode burn-in (optional): for internal technical rounds, burned-in timecode makes notes addressable; for client rounds, skip it - the tool's annotations do that job cleaner.
6. Right version uploaded: sounds obvious; is the most common mistake in the list.

Phase 2: the link-setup checklist

The review link is the security perimeter and the schedule setter. Before sending:

1. Password on anything unreleased or sensitive.
2. Expiry set to the review window plus a small buffer, so dead links die on their own.
3. Watermark on. If the copy leaks, an identifying watermark answers whose copy escaped - the reasoning in why watermark video reviews.
4. Downloads off by default; enable only for reviewers who genuinely need files.
5. Review deadline stated in the invite: "notes by Thursday 5 pm" turns an open thread into a round.

Phase 3: the feedback-collection checklist

This phase is about one thing: a single source of truth for notes.

1. Annotations on, and say so: tell reviewers explicitly "comment on the frame - not in email".
2. Reviewer lanes assigned: who judges story, who brand, who legal. Lanes prevent duplicate and contradictory notes.
3. One home declared: notes in the tool count; notes in chat don't. Say it in the invite.
4. Response window committed: when the editor will reply and ship the next version.
5. Threads resolved, not ignored: each note gets a reply or a fix; resolution is the paper trail.

Phase 4: the sign-off checklist

Rounds end because someone ends them:

1. Named approver: one person - or a documented chain - whose sign-off closes the round.
2. Approval recorded on the version: not a chat message that later separates from the file it approved.
3. Final round explicitly labeled: "this is the approval cut" - so a drive-by comment two weeks later doesn't reopen it.
4. Archive the round: resolved threads and the approved version stay attached to the deliverable for the scope conversation you'll be glad you documented.

Adapting the checklist by reviewer type

The base checklist stays; the emphasis shifts. Client rounds: spend your energy on Phase 3 - lanes, the declared home, and the deadline are what keep a multi-stakeholder client on one page. Internal technical rounds: Phase 1 is the point - original-resolution playback, timecode burn-in, and precise annotations matter more than pleasantries. Legal and brand rounds: Phase 2 is the point - passwords, watermarks, downloads off, and an approval record the compliance conversation can point at. For the full escalation structure - who signs off in what order, and what happens when approvers disagree - see the video approval workflow guide.

Make it a template, not a memo

A checklist that lives in someone's head belongs to that someone's good weeks. The version that survives busy weeks is the one built into your project template: link presets (password, watermark, expiry defaults), a standard invite paragraph with the deadline and the "notes in the tool" rule, and version stacks that carry the approval record with them. Set it once per workspace; every new project inherits it. If your current loop involves re-sending settings per round, that is the frictions this checklist exists to delete - our guide to organizing video project files covers the project-template side.

FAQ

How long should a video review round take?

Long enough for every lane to watch and note, short enough to keep momentum: most teams run 2-3 business days for client rounds and 1 day for internal ones. The deadline matters more than its length - a round with a stated end date finishes; an open one rarely does.

Should I watermark every review link?

Default to yes for anything unreleased and external; it is the only control that also answers "whose copy leaked". For purely internal technical rounds, a plain watermark without per-viewer identity is usually enough - skip ceremony where the audience is trusted, keep it everywhere the audience isn't.

What if a client gives feedback outside the review tool anyway?

Move it, don't debate it: transcribe the note into a frame-accurate comment yourself (or ask them to), reply where the note now lives, and keep the original message for context. One round of gentle migration is usually enough for reviewers to see the value of notes that seek to the exact frame.

How many checklist items are too many?

The moment an item never fails, delete it. This list is deliberately short because every item on it earns its place with a real failure mode - if your team has never once uploaded the wrong version, that row is ceremony for you. Checklists are living documents; audit yours quarterly.