Working with edit decision lists An
edit decision list (EDL) harkens back to the days when small hard drives limited
the size of your video files and slower processors meant you could not play full-
resolution video. To remedy this, editors used low-resolution files in a non-linear
editor like Adobe Premiere Pro, edited their project, exported that to an EDL, and
then took that text file and their original tapes down to a production studio. They’d
use expensive switching hardware to create the finished, full-resolution product.
These days, there isn’t much call for that kind of offline work, but filmmakers still
use EDLs because of the size of the files and other complexities associated with
going from film to video and back to film.
CMX is gone but its EDL lives on There is no standard EDL format. Adobe Premiere Pro uses a format compatible
with the CMX 3600, a switcher created by CMX Systems, which was a pioneer of
production-studio and broadcast-TV computer-controlled video editors. Formed as
a joint venture by CBS and Memorex in 1971, CMX owned 90 percent of the broad-
cast video–editing market by the mid-1980s. It discontinued operations in 1998, but
its EDL remains the de facto standard to communicate edit decisions.
If you plan to use an EDL, you need to keep your project within some narrow
guidelines:
t EDLs work best with projects that contain no more than one video track,
two stereo (or four mono) audio tracks, and no nested sequences.
t Most standard transitions, frame holds, and clip-speed changes work well
in EDLs.
t Adobe Premiere Pro supports a key track for titles or other content. That track
has to be immediately above the video track selected for export.
t You must capture and log all the source material with accurate timecodes.
t The capture card must have a device control that uses a timecode.
