An EDL is plain ASCII text, one item per line. No public copy of CMX’s own specification could be found, so this page gives what editing manuals and working parsers agree on. Other EDL dialects, such as GVG and Sony, differ in small ways.
Header lines
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
TITLE: name | The title of the list, on the first line. Final Cut Pro limits it to between 60 and 77 characters, depending on the EDL format. It does not have to match the file name. |
FCM: DROP FRAME | Frame code mode: the following timecodes are drop frame. |
FCM: NON-DROP FRAME | The following timecodes are non-drop frame. |
Only 30-frame (29.97) timecode can be either kind; 24 and 25 frames a second are non-drop only.
Event fields
An event is a line starting with a number. Its fields are separated by spaces. The layout is usually written in fixed columns, but parsers split on whitespace, so a cut has eight fields and a line with a transition has nine.
| Field | Name | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Event number | 001 | Three digits in CMX 3600, so up to 999 events. Longer sequences need more than one list. |
| 2 | Reel | TAPE01 | The source reel or tape. See Reel names. |
| 3 | Channels | V | Which tracks the event records. See Channels. |
| 4 | Transition | C | The type of edit. See Transitions. |
| (5) | Duration | 024 | Transition length in frames, present for anything except a cut. |
| 5 or 6 | Source in | 01:00:10:00 | First frame used from the source. |
| 6 or 7 | Source out | 01:00:15:00 | The out point on the source. The length of the event is out minus in. |
| 7 or 8 | Record in | 00:00:00:00 | Where the event starts on the master. |
| 8 or 9 | Record out | 00:00:05:00 | Where it ends on the master. |
Timecodes are hh:mm:ss:ff. OpenTimelineIO’s parser treats a line with any
other number of fields as an error.
Channels
| Code | Tracks |
|---|---|
V | Video only. |
A | Audio 1 only. Some formats write 1. |
A2 | Audio 2 only. Some formats write 2. |
AA | Audio 1 and audio 2. |
B | Video and audio 1. |
A2/V | Video and audio 2. |
AA/V | Video and audio 1 and 2. |
CMX 3600 handles four audio channels. Channels 3 and 4 do not fit in this field; they
are given on a following AUD
line.
Transitions
| Code | Name | Lines | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
C | Cut | 1 | One source, no duration. |
D | Dissolve | 2 | Followed by the length in frames, for example D 024. |
Wnnn | Wipe | 2 | Followed by the length in frames; nnn is a wipe code. |
K | Key | 2 | A key effect. Final Cut Pro writes V2 as the foreground of a key over V1. |
K B | Key background | 2 | The background line of a key, in the EDL Management Guide’s examples. |
K O | Key overlay | 2 | The overlay line of a key, in the same examples, with duration 000. |
A transition needs two sources, so it takes two lines with the same event number. The
first gives the outgoing source and the second gives the incoming one, and the
transition code and duration are on the second line. The outgoing line is often a
zero-length cut, with source in equal to source out. Key syntax is not consistently
documented, and the meanings of K B and K O are taken from one
source only.
003 TAPE01 V C 01:00:20:00 01:00:20:00 00:00:10:00 00:00:10:00
003 TAPE02 V D 024 02:00:00:00 02:00:02:00 00:00:10:00 00:00:12:00A split edit, with video and audio cut at different points, needs three lines and a
SPLIT: line.
Reel names
- CMX 3600 allows up to eight characters, using A to Z and 0 to 9 only.
- A linear edit cannot dissolve between two clips on the same tape, so a copy of the
tape is used. Its reel name gets the letter
B, replacing the eighth character when the name is already that long. Seven characters are therefore the safe limit. - Final Cut Pro labels clips with no reel name, such as non-tape sources,
AX. OpenTimelineIO readsBLorBLACKas black andBARSas colour bars. - Some editors write longer names in their own dialects, which tape-based systems cannot use.
Limits and what is lost
A list holds one video track, plus the key layer. Final Cut Pro writes V1 as the picture and V2 as keys, and ignores higher tracks, so each further track needs its own list. Nested sequences, filters, motion settings and keyframes do not survive; notes may carry their values as text.
The event layout on this page follows the Final Cut Pro 7 manual, the EDL Management Guide and OpenTimelineIO’s parser. The original CMX manual is not available as a public web page, so exact column widths and the full key syntax remain unconfirmed.