Pomfort Silverstack XT is the industry-standard on-set data management platform for DITs and data managers on professional film and television productions. Its role in the production workflow is the first step in the media supply chain after the camera stops rolling: secure the footage, verify its integrity, organise it with metadata, and prepare it for handoff to post. Everything downstream depends on this step being done correctly, which is why Silverstack's checksum-verified offload and ASC MHL manifest support have made it the default choice for productions where data loss is not an acceptable outcome.

Silverstack XT v9, released in mid-2025, marked a significant architectural change. The basic Silverstack tier has been phased out: Pomfort consolidated development around Silverstack XT and Silverstack Lab, with Silverstack XT absorbing all features that previously required the base version (Silverstack XT v9 licensing FAQ). The v9 workflow concept chains multiple activities, including multi-destination backup, metadata ingest, upload, and report generation, into a single automated pipeline that executes tasks in parallel at clip level for faster turnaround.

What Is Silverstack XT Best Used For?

Silverstack XT covers the full on-set data management workflow from card to handoff.

Checksum-verified offload to multiple destinations: Silverstack XT copies camera originals to multiple drives simultaneously using xxHash, MD5, and SHA1 verification, generating ASC MHL manifests to document each copy's integrity. The cascading copy function prioritises the fastest drive first, then duplicates to remaining destinations, minimising total offload time without compromising verification. This is the core capability that defines Silverstack's position on a professional DIT cart: not just copying files, but proving they were copied correctly (Silverstack XT).

Metadata management: all embedded camera metadata is automatically extracted on offload and centralised in Silverstack's clip library. DITs can edit, enrich, and add production metadata across hundreds of clips, then export it in formats for editorial (ALE for Avid), colour (CDL, XML), and VFX teams (CSV). Over 100 metadata fields are accessible per clip, covering everything from lens data to sound notes to rating and QC status.

On-set QC playback: Silverstack XT plays back high-resolution footage directly from the DIT cart, with SDI output to calibrated monitors for quality assessment. Side-by-side comparison, waveform and vectorscope analysis, exposure assist with EL Zone support, and frame-by-frame annotation allow DITs to identify and document technical issues before the production advances to the next shooting day.

Silverstack Lab extends the XT platform with integrated dailies creation: audio timecode sync, LUT application, CDL grading controls, and transcode to editorial and review formats without leaving the application. For productions where the DIT is also creating dailies, Lab eliminates the roundtrip to a separate transcoding application. Silverstack Lab is available as a separate subscription at a higher annual cost.

ShotHub integration: Pomfort's cloud service allows multiple Silverstack systems to synchronise across a production, enabling collaboration between a DIT cart on set and a data manager offloading to post storage simultaneously. Remote access to clip metadata and reports is available through ShotHub for producers and post supervisors not physically present on set (Pomfort ShotHub).

Silverstack XT Pricing Overview & Cost Considerations

Silverstack XT uses a subscription model. Project licenses are also available for productions that do not justify an annual commitment. Pricing confirmed on Pomfort's store (Pomfort store — Silverstack XT).

• Annual subscription: approximately $899/year. Includes all updates and major upgrades within the subscription period. One machine license, migratable to other Macs. Read-only access to projects after cancellation (Digital Production on Silverstack XT v9).

• Project licenses: temporary access for a defined period. Starting from approximately $109 for 14 days, with options for 1-month and 2-month terms. The 14-day term covers most commercial and short-form productions; annual subscription is more cost-effective for continuous production work.

• Silverstack Lab annual subscription: higher than XT, reflecting the added dailies creation capability. Upgrade pricing is available from an existing XT subscription.

macOS only. Silverstack XT requires macOS 14 or newer for v9. There is no Windows or Linux version. The entire Pomfort ecosystem is Apple-only, which aligns with the macOS-dominant professional DIT cart environment but is an absolute constraint for facilities on mixed operating systems.

Silverstack XT Reviews: Pros, Cons & Reported Challenges

What Practitioners Report

Silverstack XT has a practitioner base concentrated in professional DIT and data management. Feedback from industry publications, the Pomfort community, and the DIT community at large reflects consistent themes around data security and workflow depth (Silverstack XT).

Strengths

• Data integrity assurance is the most universally cited reason practitioners use Silverstack over simpler alternatives. The checksum verification, ASC MHL manifest generation, and detailed offload reports provide documentary evidence that camera originals were copied correctly — a requirement on productions where post-production depends on those originals and where a verification failure would trigger immediate investigation (Mixing Light on Silverstack).

• The v9 parallel workflow concept is described as a significant time saving for DITs managing multiple camera cards simultaneously. Chaining offload, backup, upload, and report generation into a single automated pipeline reduces the manual oversight required between steps.

• Metadata depth and export options are praised as the most operationally valuable capability for post-production handoffs. The ability to export clip metadata in ALE, CSV, or XML formats tailored for Avid, DaVinci Resolve, and VFX pipelines means post teams receive structured, accurate metadata rather than having to reconstruct it from camera reports (Silverstack XT).

• ShotHub cloud synchronisation is cited as a meaningful production collaboration improvement, allowing producers and post supervisors to see clip metadata and offload status in real time without needing to be physically present on the DIT cart.

Reported Challenges

• macOS-only constraint is the most consistently noted limitation. Practitioners on Windows-only facilities or mixed-platform productions have no Pomfort path and must use alternative tools (Mixing Light on Silverstack).

• The v9 transition pricing adjustment has generated questions from existing subscribers. Pomfort communicated a gradual pricing increase at renewal for users migrating from the former base Silverstack tier to Silverstack XT (Silverstack XT v9 licensing FAQ).

• Interface complexity for less experienced operators: the breadth of Silverstack's metadata and workflow tools means that operators without formal DIT training require time to configure workflows correctly. The v9 automation helps once workflows are set up, but initial configuration is not trivial.

• Silverstack Lab's dailies creation capability, for those who need it, comes at a meaningful additional subscription cost relative to Silverstack XT alone. Productions choosing to create dailies inside Silverstack rather than in DaVinci Resolve should budget for the Lab tier.

Where Silverstack XT Fits in a Production Stack

Silverstack XT sits at the first stage of the media supply chain: the DIT cart on set, between the camera and everything downstream. Its outputs feed post-production directly: verified copies of camera originals go to RAID storage, shuttle drives, and cloud destinations; metadata exports go to editorial, colour, and VFX departments; offload reports go to the data manager and production supervisor as documentation of the day's work.

This is the most time-critical stage of the entire pipeline. A DIT who finishes offload after wrap and before the camera department formats their cards is the last line of defence against data loss for that shooting day. Silverstack XT's verification and reporting are what make that position defensible: the DIT can demonstrate, via checksums and manifests, that every file was copied and verified before the source cards were cleared.

How Shade Works Alongside Silverstack XT

Shade is the storage and distribution layer that receives what Silverstack XT secures. DITs upload verified footage via the ShadeFS mounted drive, which presents as a local volume on the DIT cart. Directors, producers, and post-production supervisors can review dailies remotely before the next shooting day begins, using Shade's review infrastructure rather than waiting for physical drive delivery or a separate dailies distribution platform (Shade Film & TV workflow).

Shade's AI-powered search indexes the footage as it arrives, with speaker identification and visual search including facial recognition making specific takes, scenes, and characters findable across the full production archive. For franchise productions and multi-season series, this search capability means the reference material from previous seasons is retrievable without manual archival work when the next season begins (Shade Film & TV workflow).

Shade holds TPN (Trusted Partner Network), SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR certifications. For productions delivering to major studios where content security requirements apply from the first day of principal photography, Shade provides the storage infrastructure that meets those requirements alongside Silverstack's on-set data management.

The Ralph case study documents 35% faster project completion and 33% improvement in content reuse across deliveries for Netflix, Apple TV+, and Spotify. For productions where dailies distribution and post-production access to camera originals happen in the same environment, those efficiency gains begin at the point where Silverstack finishes its offload.

Related Shade Guides

Teams evaluating on-set and DIT tools are typically working through a broader media pipeline question that spans on-set capture, dailies distribution, and post-production handoff. Shade's guide to best cloud storage for video production teams covers the shared storage infrastructure that camera originals and dailies both depend on. For teams managing the full library of footage alongside editorial and VFX assets in post, Shade's guide to best DAM for video production teams addresses the organisational layer that follows on-set data management. Teams building a full on-set-to-post pipeline alongside their DIT workflow will find adjacent context in Shade's guide to best NLE software for video production teams, which covers the editorial stage that receives Silverstack's outputs.

Who Silverstack XT Is Best Suited For

Silverstack XT is best suited for professional DITs, data managers, and digital loaders on feature film, episodic television, commercial, and high-end corporate productions where camera data integrity is a defined production requirement and where the metadata handoff to post must be structured and reliable. The annual subscription is appropriate for practitioners working continuously across multiple productions throughout the year. Project licenses cover occasional use and specific productions without an annual commitment.

Silverstack XT is not suited for Windows-only facilities, productions whose data management requirements are met by a simpler offload tool, or environments where the full DIT data management workflow is not required. For those contexts, Pomfort's own Offload Manager or Hedge provide simpler offload-only solutions at lower cost. To see exactly how Silverstack compares to other on-set data management tools, see our guide comparing the best on-set data management tools for video production. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Silverstack XT and Silverstack Lab?

Silverstack XT covers offload, verification, metadata management, QC playback, and reporting. Silverstack Lab adds integrated dailies creation: audio timecode sync, LUT application, CDL colour controls, and transcode to editorial and review formats within the same application. Lab is Silverstack XT with a fully integrated dailies production module. For DITs who need to both manage data and deliver dailies without leaving the Silverstack environment, Lab is the correct tier. For DITs whose dailies are created elsewhere, XT covers everything needed (Silverstack Lab).

What happened to the basic Silverstack version?

With the release of Silverstack v9.0 in 2025, Pomfort phased out the basic Silverstack tier and consolidated development around Silverstack XT. Existing Silverstack subscribers were migrated to Silverstack XT v9 at no extra cost for the remainder of their current subscription period, with pricing gradually adjusted at renewal (Silverstack XT v9 licensing FAQ).

Does Silverstack XT work on Windows?

No. Silverstack XT is macOS-only. The entire Pomfort product family requires macOS, and there is no Windows or Linux version available. This reflects the Apple-dominant environment of professional DIT carts but is an absolute constraint for Windows-only facilities.

Final Assessment

Silverstack XT's position in the DIT toolkit is defined by the specific moment it serves: the offload at the end of each shooting day, when the only copies of irreplaceable footage are being transferred from cards that will be reformatted for tomorrow. The checksum verification, ASC MHL manifests, and offload reports are not bureaucratic overhead; they are the technical evidence that the production's most valuable data was handled correctly. No other tool in this category addresses that requirement as completely for macOS-based professional DIT workflows.

The v9 parallel workflow architecture and ShotHub cloud integration have moved Silverstack beyond a data security tool into a production coordination layer, connecting the DIT cart to post-production in real time. Silverstack XT secures the footage. Shade manages the production it flows into.