Open RV

Open RV#

2026-06-30

12 min read

This plugin integrates Prism into Open RV, the open source media review and playback application from the Academy Software Foundation. It also supports the commercial Autodesk RV application.

RV is widely used in visual effects and animation pipelines because it can play image sequences, movie files, editorial assemblies, annotations, and color-managed review sessions with very little overhead. The Prism integration connects that review environment directly to the media, versions, playlists, notes, annotations, and timeline data stored in a Prism project.

With the Open RV plugin you can browse project media, build review sequences, inspect media versions in context, write notes with annotated frame attachments, export and import OTIO timelines, and use RV as a focused review workspace without leaving the Prism project structure.

Overview#

The Open RV plugin adds a Prism menu to RV and provides several dockable panels for review workflows:

Media Browser - browse asset and shot media versions from the Prism project.
Playlists - open Prism review playlists and play selected media as RV sequences.
Notes - view and write project-management notes for the currently displayed media version.
Project Browser - open the full Prism Project Browser from inside RV.
Timeline - reorder the currently loaded RV sources, switch versions, disable clips, and publish the sequence to OTIO.
Search Versions - search media versions across the project and drag them into RV or the Timeline panel.

Setup#

The Open RV plugin can be installed from the Prism Hub like any other Prism plugin.

The plugin is available on Windows, Linux, and MacOS.

After the plugin has been installed, the Prism integration needs to be added to the RV user settings folder. This can be done from:

Prism User Settings > DCC apps > Open RV > Add

Alternatively, the integration can be added from the Prism installer or by using the setup.bat script in the Prism installation directory.

Once the integration has been added, launch RV. A Prism menu appears in the main menu bar.

You can view the Prism package details in the Packages tab of the RV Preferences window.

Accessing Prism in Open RV#

The Prism menu in RV contains the following entries:

Open Media Browser... - opens the Prism Media Browser as an RV dock panel.
Open Playlists... - opens Prism review playlists in RV. This requires the Project Management plugin.
Open Notes... - opens notes and media-version status information for the current media. This requires the Project Management plugin.
Open Project Browser... - opens the regular Prism Project Browser.
Open Timeline... - opens the Prism Timeline panel for the current RV view.
Open Search Versions... - opens the Search Versions panel for finding and loading media versions.

The Open RV plugin requires an active Prism license for the dockable Prism review panels. If no active license is available, RV will show a Prism warning when opening these panels.

Media Browser#

The Media Browser lets you browse assets and shots from the current Prism project. It is the same media browser that is available in the Media tab of the Prism Project Browser, embedded directly inside RV.

Double-click a version or its preview to load it in the RV viewer. You can also drag media from the browser into the RV viewer.

When browsing shot media, the version context menu includes a View in Context submenu. This can load the selected shot together with surrounding shots to create a temporary sequence in RV.

Available context options are:

+1 through +5 - load the selected shot with neighboring shots from the same sequence.
Sequence - load all shots from the current sequence.
Project - load all shots from the project.

For surrounding shots, Prism uses the same media identifier and media type as the selected shot and loads the latest available version.

Playlists#

The Playlists panel gives access to media playlists from the Prism project, for example dailies or review playlists. This panel is based on the Prism Review tab and requires the Project Management plugin.

Double-clicking a playlist item or its preview opens the media in RV.

To review multiple items as one sequence, select the playlist items, right-click, and choose Play. Prism creates an RV sequence from all selected media sources and sets it as the active RV view.

Notes and Annotations#

The Notes panel shows information, notes, replies, and status data for the media version currently visible in RV. This panel requires the Project Management plugin and a project manager configured for the current Prism project.

The media-version status can be changed from the info area at the top of the panel.

When writing notes or replies, the Open RV plugin adds an attachment dropdown with these options:

No Attachment - create the note without attaching an image.
Attach Current Image - export the current RV frame and attach it to the note.
Attach All Annotated Images - export all frames that contain RV annotations and attach them to the note.

RV annotations can be created with RV's annotation tools, for example by pressing F10 in RV. Prism stores the exported attachment images in the project attachments folder and also saves an RV session next to the attachment data when needed.

When an RV note attachment is opened from Prism later, the Open RV plugin can offer these viewing options:

View Image - open the exported image attachment.
Open in current RV session - load the saved RV session into the current RV session.
Open in new RV session - open the saved RV session in a new RV session.

Prism Timeline#

The Prism Timeline panel is a dockable horizontal timeline of the sources visible in the current RV view. Open it from:

Prism > Open Timeline...

Each item in the panel represents one RV source and displays a thumbnail, shot name, media identifier, and version when Prism can resolve that data from the media path.

The toolbar contains these buttons:

Refresh - rebuilds the panel from the current RV source graph.
Publish - exports the current timeline to an OTIO file.

Timeline items can be selected, multi-selected, dragged, and reordered. When the item order changes, Prism updates the current RV sequence so playback follows the same order shown in the Timeline panel. If the active RV view is not already a sequence, Prism creates a new RV sequence view.

The item context menu provides review and editorial actions:

Switch Identifier - switch selected items to another media identifier, using the latest matching version.
Switch Version - switch selected items to another available version.
Copy Path - copy the selected media paths to the clipboard.
Open in Explorer - reveal selected media paths in the file explorer.
Disable / Enable - toggle whether selected sources are active in RV playback.
Delete - remove selected items from the Timeline panel and RV sequence.

The Timeline panel refreshes automatically when the RV view graph changes or when an OTIO file is imported while the panel is open.

Search Versions#

The Search Versions panel is a dockable media search panel for finding Prism media versions without opening the full Project Browser. Open it from:

Prism > Open Search Versions...

The panel provides the following controls:

Control	Description
Search	Filters the listed versions by text.
Shot	Limits the search to a specific shot or shows versions from all shots.
Identifier	Limits the search to a specific media identifier for the selected shot.
Latest Versions Only	Shows only the latest version of each matching media product when enabled.
Limit	Controls the maximum number of results shown in the panel.

Result rows display a thumbnail and the most relevant labels for the current filter state, such as shot, identifier, and version. The status text at the bottom shows how many results are currently displayed and whether the result limit was reached.

You can double-click a result to load it in RV. You can also multi-select results and drag them into the Prism Timeline panel or into RV. Dragging into the Timeline panel inserts the versions at the drop position and updates the RV sequence.

The result list context menu provides these actions:

Play Selected - load the selected result in RV.
Open in Explorer - open the folder of the selected media version.
Copy Path - copy selected media paths to the clipboard.
Refresh - run the search again.

OpenTimelineIO#

The Open RV plugin supports OpenTimelineIO (OTIO) for exchanging editorial timelines with Prism and other applications. For a broader overview of OTIO support in Prism, see OpenTimelineIO Integration.

Exporting the Timeline to OTIO#

Open the Prism Timeline panel and click the Publish button to export the current RV timeline to OTIO.

If the first timeline item belongs to a Prism sequence, the publish menu provides two options:

To Sequence: <sequence> - save the OTIO file as a Prism product under that sequence, using the Edit task and the .otio extension.
Custom... - choose a custom output path in a save-file dialog.

If no sequence can be detected, Prism opens the custom save-file dialog directly. The save dialog supports .otio and .json output. If no supported extension is entered, Prism adds .otio automatically.

After a successful export, click Output Options... to access these actions:

Open in Product Browser... - open the exported version in the Prism Product Browser.
Open in Explorer... - reveal the exported file in the file explorer.
Copy Path - copy the exported file path to the clipboard.
Copy - copy the exported file contents when PRISM_COPY_FILE_CONTENT is set to 1.

Importing OTIO Files#

OTIO files can be imported through Prism's import workflow in RV, for example by importing an .otio product version from the Project Browser.

When an .otio file is imported, Prism reads the timeline into RV. If the Prism Timeline panel is open, it refreshes automatically to show the imported timeline items.

Color Management#

By default, Prism manages RV OCIO setup for the Open RV plugin. This behavior is controlled by the PRISM_RV_MANAGE_OCIO environment variable.

When OCIO management is enabled, Prism can enable RV's OCIO source and display management and derive input/output transforms from Prism's MediaExtension and project OCIO settings.

The plugin uses these defaults when no project override is available:

.exr, .hdr, and .dpx media use the project OCIO working space when available, otherwise ACEScg.
Other media defaults to Raw input.
Scene-linear media defaults to sRGB - Display and ACES 1.0 - SDR Video output.
Other media defaults to sRGB - Display with a Raw view.

To let RV handle OCIO entirely on its own, set PRISM_RV_MANAGE_OCIO to 0 before launching RV.

Settings and Environment Variables#

The Open RV plugin uses the following user-facing environment variables and settings:

Variable / Setting	Default	Description
`RV_SUPPORT_PATH`	RV default	Standard RV environment variable for loading packages from a custom or shared location. This can be used to load the Prism Open RV integration from network storage.
`PRISM_ROOT`	Required by integration	Path to the Prism installation. The RV package uses this to locate Prism's `Scripts` folder and start Prism inside RV.
`PRISM_RV_LOAD_ON_STARTUP`	`0`	Set to `1` to initialize Prism as soon as RV starts, instead of waiting until a Prism menu entry is used.
`PRISM_RV_OPEN_TIMELINE`	`0`	Set to `1` to open the Prism Timeline panel automatically when RV starts.
`PRISM_RV_OPEN_SEARCH_VERSIONS`	`0`	Set to `1` to open the Search Versions panel automatically when RV starts.
`PRISM_RV_MANAGE_OCIO`	`1`	Set to `0` to disable Prism-managed RV OCIO setup.
`PRISM_COPY_FILE_CONTENT`	`0`	Controls the copy action in OTIO export Output Options. `0` copies the exported file path. `1` copies the exported file contents.

Adding Prism Integration Using Environment Variables#

To load the Prism Open RV plugin from a central location in your studio, set the RV_SUPPORT_PATH environment variable and point it to a folder on your network storage.

In that folder, create a Python/prism.py file with the following content:

import os
import sys


def createMode():
        os.environ["PRISM_ROOT"] = "C:\\Program Files\\Prism2"
        rvPlugin = "C:\\ProgramData\\Prism2\\plugins\\OpenRV"
        sys.path.append(rvPlugin + "/Scripts")
        from Prism_OpenRV_Mode import PrismMode
        return PrismMode()

Adjust PRISM_ROOT and rvPlugin to match the Prism installation and Open RV plugin location in your studio.

Compatibility and Requirements#

The Open RV plugin supports RV builds that use Python 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, or 3.13.

The Playlists and Notes panels require the Prism Project Management plugin.

Frequently Asked Questions#

Copyright of project images shown in screenshots belongs to Fleng Entertainment & Tumblehead