1.5

This makes it easy to create and maintain a film frame-to-timecode correspondence
between the original camera negative and the transferred video or DPX media. This
correspondence carries through to the captured or converted QuickTime media that you
edit in Final Cut Pro. As an added benefit of this process, you can always go back to the
original rolls of camera negative and retransfer the exact frames of film you need, as long
as you accurately maintain the reel number and timecode of each clip in your edited
sequence.
If you’re having a datacine transfer done, you also need to request that the frame numbers
incorporated into the filenames of the transferred image files be based on the absolute
timecode that starts at each camera roll’s marker frame. Your final DPX or Cineon image
sequences should then have frame numbers in the filename that, using a bit of
mathematical conversion, match the timecode value in the header information, providing
valuable data redundancy.
How Color Relinks DPX/Cineon Media to EDLs Using Timecode
Later, when Color attempts to relink the EDL that you’ve exported from Final Cut Pro to
the transferred DPX or Cineon image sequence media, it relies on several different
methods, depending on what information is available in the image sequence files:
• First, Color looks for a timecode value in the header metadata of each DPX or Cineon
frame file. If this is found, it's the most reliable method of relinking.
• If there's no matching timecode number in the header metadata, then Color looks for
a correspondence between the timecode value requested in the EDL and the frame
numbers in the filename of each DPX or Cineon frame. This also requires that the files
be strictly named. For more information, see Required Image Sequence Filenaming.
• Color also looks for each shot’s corresponding reel number (as listed in the EDL) in the
name of the directory in which the media is stored. Each frame of DPX or Cineon media
from a particular roll of camera negative should be stored in a separate directory that’s
named after the roll number it was scanned from. If there are no roll numbers in the
enclosing directory names, then Color attempts to relink all the shots using the timecode
number only.
After you import an EDL with linked DPX or Cineon image sequence media, a Match
column appears in the Shots browser. This column displays the percentage of confidence
that each shot in the Timeline has been correctly linked to its corresponding DPX, Cineon,
or QuickTime source media, based on the methods used to do the linking. For more
information, see Explanation of Percentages in the Match Column.
Relinking DPX/Cineon Frames to an EDL Using a Cinema Tools Database
If issues arise when conforming an EDL to DPX or Cineon media in Color, you can create
a Cinema Tools database with which to troubleshoot the problem.
74 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows