User Manual

Essential Clip Metadata for Easy Conforming and Relinking
When conforming projects in DaVinci Resolve, the accuracy and integrity of clip metadata is
critical for a successful result. Keep the following three criteria in mind when you’re preparing
media to use in DaVinci Resolve.
 Accurate timecode: Essential for every clip. First off, each clip should have a valid
timecode track, and it should go without saying that the timecode should match the
same timecode used by all other instances of that media file in a particular project.
If there are problems with a clip’s timecode, DaVinci Resolve has tools you can use
to edit or offset timecode to account for known inconsistencies. By default, the “Use
Timecode” project setting is set to “Embedded in the Source Clip,” so that timecode is
read from the embedded timecode track within a QuickTime or MXF file, or from the
header data of a DPX frame file. However, you can also choose the “From the source
clip frame count” option which enables timecode to be read from the Source clip’s
frame count for image sequences.
 File names: When “Assist using Reel Names” in the General Options panel of the
Project Settings is off (the default setting), this forces DaVinci Resolve to conform clips
using file names when importing XML and AAF projects. File names can only be only
used when conforming XML or AAF files, or when importing a DaVinci project; file
names are never used when conforming EDLs.
 Reel Name: Only used for conforming if “Assist using Reel Names” is on in the
General Options panel of the Project Settings. Assigning reel names to your media
is not essential, but recommended, and can make media management easier for
certain operations, especially in EDL workflows. However, if you experience problems
conforming clips with “Assist using Reel Names” turned on, you should try turning it off
as one possible troubleshooting step.
How DaVinci Resolve matches media files to clips in an imported project depends on how
you’re importing the project.
Defining Clip Metadata When Adding
Media to the Media Pool
For workflows where you’re manually adding media files to the Media Pool when you’re editing
from scratch in DaVinci Resolve, preparing to process dailies, or as a separate step before
importing EDL, XML, or AAF project files and reconforming them to a higher quality set of media
than what was originally used to edit with, the rules for how clip metadata is defined in
preparation for conforming are a bit different.
 Timecode: Calculated using the “Timeline Frame Rate” setting in the Master Project
Settings panel of the Project Settings.
 Reel Names: Determined depending on whether the “Assist using Reel Names from
the” checkbox is on or off in the General Options panel of the Project Settings, and on
which option you’ve selected. Reel names can be extracted dynamically, so any time
you change this setting the reel names in the Media Pool update to reflect the change,
or they can be defined manually, in which case you can set different clips to use
different methods of reel name extraction.
 Clip Names: Read and stored, used for AAF and XML imports, but not used for
imported EDLs.
Chapter – 47 Conforming and Relinking Clips 904