Before review links, a cut went to the client as a file, and the file carried its own clock.
The timeline’s timecode was burned into the picture, in a strip at the top or bottom of the frame, so whoever watched could pause on a laptop or on the TV in the meeting room and write down exactly where the problem was. Editors call it a window burn, or BITC.
Sound mixers and VFX vendors still expect one. It works for client review too, if the settings below are right, since they decide whether the numbers the client writes down land on the right frame of your timeline. For the format itself, see how to read timecode.
In short
- A burn-in shows the timeline’s own timecode, so the numbers a client writes down land on the right frame.
- Premiere has Timecode Overlay at export, and Resolve has Data Burn-In with Record Timecode.
- Burn in the timeline timecode with frames, outside title safe, and tell the client where the clock starts.
- Keep it off the master, and check the first frames of every delivery file.
Why review copies carry timecode in the picture
Every player keeps its own clock. A phone’s gallery or a browser counts from the first frame of the file, and many players show minutes and seconds with no frames.
Your timeline might start at 01:00:00:00, or the review copy might have been exported from an in point two minutes into the sequence. Either way the client’s player and your timeline disagree.
A burn-in shows the timeline’s own numbers. The client reads 01:02:14:08 off the frame and types it in an email, and the editor types the same number into the timeline without working out any offset.
A screenshot pasted into a slide deck keeps the time too, and so does a phone video of the cut on a projector.
How to burn in timecode in Premiere Pro
For a review copy, the export overlay is the simpler route. In Export mode, open the Effects section and tick Timecode Overlay.
Adobe’s help page lists the controls: nine positions from Top Left to Bottom Right, an X and Y offset in pixels, Size, Opacity and a Time Source.
Media File burns in the timecode of what you’re exporting, which for a sequence means the sequence timecode rather than each clip’s source timecode. Generate Timecode counts from zero on its own, and Offset in Frames shifts the count.
The overlay lives only in that export, so it’s off again next time unless you save it in a preset. Name the preset so nobody picks it for a master, something like “REVIEW TC burn”.
The other route is the Metadata & Timecode Burn-in effect. Put an adjustment layer over the whole sequence, drop the effect on it and set Line 1 to Sequence Timecode in Effect Controls.
One instance shows up to five lines, so the same layer can also carry the clip name or the camera timecode, which the export overlay can’t show.
Adobe removed the older Timecode effect in Premiere 26.0, so tutorials that tell you to search the Effects panel for “Timecode” are out of date. Turn the layer off before you export anything other than a review copy.
How to burn in timecode in DaVinci Resolve
On the Edit page, choose Workspace > Data Burn-In and tick Record Timecode, which Blackmagic’s editor’s guide describes as the timeline’s timecode. Source Timecode shows each clip’s own timecode instead.
Project mode applies the burn to the whole timeline, Clip mode sets it shot by shot, and clicking an item’s name opens its font, size and position settings.
Then check the Deliver page. Under Advanced Settings in the Video tab, Data burn-in defaults to Same as project, so once the burn is on, every render carries it.
Set that field to None for the master, or turn the burn off before you render. New Resolve timelines start at 01:00:00:00, so Record Timecode reads one hour on the first frame unless you’ve changed the start.
The settings that decide where a note lands
Timeline timecode, not source
Burn in the timeline’s timecode. Source timecode, the camera’s clock, belongs on dailies and selects, where the editor has to find the original clip. On a cut it jumps at every edit, and a source time written down by a client can exist in several places on the timeline, or nowhere.
Where the clock starts
Decide where the clock starts, and say it. If the sequence starts at 01:00:00:00, the numbers the client writes go straight onto your timeline, but their player says 0:42 while the picture says 01:00:42:00. Tell them which one to use in the message that goes with the link.
Timecode generated from zero matches their player and moves the conversion to your side. Either choice is fine for a round, as long as it doesn’t change halfway through.
Where the hour comes from and how to fix an offset afterwards are covered in our guide to importing comments as markers in Premiere.
Frames
Keep the frames. A burn with only minutes and seconds is no better than the player clock. It should read HH:MM:SS:FF at the sequence frame rate, with semicolons if the sequence is drop frame.
Position and size
Put it outside title safe, the inner 90% of the frame in the usual HD guides. Lower thirds and subtitles live in there, and a burn on top of them hides what the client is checking.
Top center, between the title-safe line and the edge, usually hides the least. Bottom center sits on the subtitles, and that’s where Resolve puts the first burn-in item until you move it. Size it to read on a phone without being the first thing anyone looks at.
A check before you send
Before you send, park on a cut near the start of the exported file and compare the burned number with your timeline, then do it again near the end. A frame rate mismatch drifts, so one match at the start proves little.
When to leave it off
The master, and anything that might become the master. The usual accident is a preset or a render setting that still has the burn on, so look at the first frames of every delivery file, not only the review copies.
Cuts the client is likely to reuse should go out clean too. Review copies get played at the all-hands and forwarded to agencies, and the timecode strip goes along every time.
A file name that says REVIEW helps, but it doesn’t stop anyone from pressing play. A burn also gets in the way when it covers what’s being reviewed, like a title near the top edge.
In a review tool that pins each note to a frame, a burn mostly adds a second clock. When the two disagree, with 01:00:42:00 on the picture and 0:42 under it, clients copy whichever they see first.
There, keep the burn for the files that leave the tool, such as the copy for the mix or the VFX vendor.
How this works in RecReview
RecReview doesn’t add timecode to the video or to the file you download, so a burned-in copy for the mixer still comes out of Premiere or Resolve.
In review, the time is saved with the note. A time-coded comment is pinned to the moment the person started typing, stored to the millisecond, and clicking it takes the player back to that point. Nobody types a timecode.
For a note about a stretch, press I and O to mark the in and out points, and the comment covers the whole range.
The clock in the player’s control bar counts from 00:00:00:00, the first frame of the file. It shows minutes and seconds by default, and the small arrow next to it switches to SMPTE (HH:MM:SS:FF) or Frames (minutes, seconds and frames) at the file’s frame rate. Clicking the clock copies the time.
If a client pastes 01:00:42:00 from a burned-in copy into a comment on a three-minute video, it stays plain text instead of becoming a link to a moment that doesn’t exist, and the comment still sits where they were when they started writing.
The player can also draw title-safe (90%) and action-safe (93%) guides, toggled with G, and they never end up in a file.
To get the notes onto your timeline, the download icon above the comment list gives workspace members Premiere (XML) and DaVinci Resolve (XML), with a marker per comment on a timeline that starts at 00:00:00:00.
On the Pro and Studio plans, the Premiere panel puts the markers straight onto the active sequence and keeps a time offset in its settings, which it fills in when the sequence you link has an in point.
