User Manual

Table Of Contents
Understanding, Fixing, and
Using Reel Conflicts
As long as the “Auto conform clips with media added into Media Pool” setting is enabled in the
General Options panel of the Project Settings, the same dynamic relationship between clips in
the Media Pool and those in a timeline are maintained whether clips are linked or unlinked, it
makes no difference. However, this does mean that if you have two different versions of the
same clip in the Media Pool, or even two completely different clips that share the same file
name (or reel name) and the same overlapping timecode, then DaVinci Resolve is capable of
automatically conforming to either clip.
A good example of this is if you have both the camera raw version of a clip, and a ProRes or
MXF transcoded version imported into the Media Pool at the same time. Both clips have the
same content, the same file name, and the same range of frames. This poses the potential for
what DaVinci Resolve refers to as a “clip conflict.
You won’t necessarily notice this at first because, by default, all clips that are imported with a
timeline, or that you’ve edited into a brand new timeline, have a Conform Lock Enabled setting
enabled by default. All clips in a timeline with Conform Lock Enabled turned on only consider
the current clip in the Media Pool to which they’re conformed as the valid clip; all other clips with
file names and overlapping timecode that would otherwise make them an otherwise valid
match are ignored.
However, if you right-click such a clip in the Timeline and turn Conform Lock Enabled off, that
clip will display a “clip conflict” error, with an “attention” badge to the left of its name in
the Timeline.
Conflict icon indicating at least two clips
have matching conform parameters
Clip conflicts are typically considered to be an error, but not always. They can be a problem if
the media you’ve imported along with an imported project from another application has media
that was added with timecode but no reel identifier (for example, when shots from multiple
unidentified reels that all start at 0 hour). The thing is, you may not immediately notice such clip
conflicts, until you turn Conform Lock Enabled off.
TIP: Overlapping timecode often occurs in the normal course of work, but should be
managed by altering each clip’s embedded reel name, or by organizing media in
different bins.
Chapter – 47 Conforming and Relinking Clips 918