Client notes reach a Resolve editor the same way they reach everyone else, as an email full of timecodes or a PDF exported from a review tool. The list sits on the second monitor, and every fix starts with typing a timecode and ends with finding your place in the list again.
As markers, the notes sit on their frames. Shift+Down Arrow jumps to the next one, Shift+Up Arrow goes back, and the Edit Index lists them once you choose Show Markers in its options menu.
Resolve beats Premiere here, because it can add markers to the timeline you’re already cutting. It also starts every new timeline an hour in, which is the usual reason imported markers seem to vanish. Premiere editors have their own guide to importing comments as markers in Premiere Pro.
In short
- A marker EDL, imported with Timelines > Import > Timeline Markers from EDL, puts the notes on the timeline you’re already cutting.
- New Resolve timelines start at 01:00:00:00, so notes counted from zero fall before the first frame and seem to vanish.
- The list’s frame rate and drop frame setting have to match the project.
- Give each marker a short name and keep the full note in the marker’s notes field.
- Use marker colors as a to-do list and work from the last note back to the first.
Three ways to get markers into Resolve
The most direct route is a marker EDL. In the Media Pool, right-click the timeline you’re cutting and choose Timelines > Import > Timeline Markers from EDL.
The markers land on that timeline at the timecodes in the file. The same submenu has Timelines > Export > Timeline Markers to EDL, which is how you move markers between Resolve timelines.
A marker EDL is a plain text list from the tape era. Each marker is an event with its timecode, followed by a comment line where Resolve reads the color, the name and the duration in frames:
|C:ResolveColorBlue |M:Logo too small |D:1
Review tools and marker converters write this format, and so can a short script run over a spreadsheet of notes.
The second route is a timeline file. File > Import > Timeline (Shift+Cmd+I on a Mac) reads FCPXML and XML and creates a new timeline carrying the markers.
Premiere has the same trap, since the markers end up on a timeline you aren’t cutting. In Resolve the way out is the EDL submenu above: export the markers from the imported timeline and import them into yours.
The third is scripting. Resolve’s scripting API has an AddMarker call on the timeline that takes a frame, a color, a name, a note and a duration, so a pipeline can pull notes straight from a review tool.
What the free version lets you run has changed between releases, so read the scripting README in Resolve’s Developer folder before you build on it.
Start timecode, or why the markers vanish
New Resolve timelines start at 01:00:00:00, the default under Preferences > User > Editing > New Timeline Settings. The client’s timecodes count from zero, the first frame of the file they watched.
So a note written as 00:00:42:00 in an EDL falls before the first frame of a timeline that starts at one hour. There’s nowhere on the timeline for it to go, and you won’t see it. Marker converter guides put this at the top of their troubleshooting for an import that shows nothing.
You can fix it on either side. A good marker converter asks for the start timecode of the destination timeline and adds the hour for you.
Or you change the timeline that holds the markers by right-clicking it in the Media Pool and choosing Timelines > Starting Timecode. If a delivery spec fixes where a timeline starts, leave that one alone and change the file.
Starting Timecode also handles small offsets. Say the export the client reviewed began ten seconds into your timeline, after a slate. Set the start of the timeline carrying the notes to 01:00:10:00 before you export its markers, and every note moves by those ten seconds.
Small offsets are the dangerous ones, because the markers land a shot early and still look right. The Premiere guide shows how to find the offset with one note you can place for certain.
Frame rate and drop frame
The last field of a timecode counts frames, so an EDL only means something at a given frame rate.
Resolve sets the timeline frame rate in Project Settings > Master Settings and locks it once media is in the project, so the list has to match the project. A list taken at 30 fps can mention frame 27, and a 25 fps timeline has no frame 27.
At 29.97 there’s also drop frame, a project checkbox called Use drop frame timecode, under the frame rate. The FCM line at the top of an EDL reads DROP FRAME or NON-DROP FRAME.
When it doesn’t match the project, check a marker near the end of the timeline before you trust the rest. A list counted one way and read the other is off by about 1.8 seconds at the half-hour mark, and the Premiere guide has the arithmetic.
An FCPXML places markers by time rather than by timecode label, so drop frame doesn’t apply to it.
Accents, line breaks and long notes
Marker converter guides warn that Resolve may not support special characters in marker names and comments, and the converters offer to strip accents and line breaks before they write the EDL.
Accented names and emoji typed on a phone are the usual suspects, along with curly quotes pasted from a document. If a note arrives garbled or a marker is missing, simplify the text and import again.
Long notes are a separate problem. In a marker EDL everything rides on that one comment line, so a note with a line break no longer fits the pattern, and a paragraph squeezed into the name is hard to read.
Give each marker a short name, like “Logo too small at the end”, and keep the full text in the marker’s notes field, which opens when you double-click the marker. For long notes an FCPXML carries more, because its markers have a note separate from the name.
Marker colors as a to-do list
Imported notes in a single color make a to-do list. Resolve has 16 marker colors. New markers are blue, and no color means anything until your team decides it does.
When a fix is done, double-click the marker and switch it to green, and keep red for the notes you need to ask the client about.
To see what’s left, open the Edit Index, choose Show Markers from its options menu and pick the color you’re still working through. Double-clicking a row moves the playhead to that marker. Before you export v2, one run down the timeline with Shift+Down Arrow shows whether anything is still blue.
Work from the last note back to the first. A trim near the start changes where every later note should sit, and going backwards keeps the notes you haven’t reached on picture you haven’t touched.
How this works in RecReview
In RecReview the client leaves comments on the frame in the browser, without creating an account. On the review page, the download icon above the comment list offers DaVinci Resolve (XML) to members of your workspace once the video is ready to watch.
The file is an FCPXML timeline at the frame rate of the video you uploaded, NTSC rates like 23.976 and 29.97 included, and it starts at 00:00:00:00 with non-drop timecode. Bring it in with File > Import > Timeline.
Each comment becomes a marker named [Comment] with the author and the first line of the note, and the full text goes into the marker’s note. AI Review findings go into the same file as [AI] markers.
The file is UTF-8 and escapes the characters that would break the XML, so accents are written as the client typed them. It doesn’t set marker colors, which leaves the color system to you.
A comment on a range becomes a one-frame marker at the start of the range. Replies stay in RecReview, and comments already marked as resolved are included, so look at those before you start.
To get the markers onto your cut:
- Set the imported timeline’s starting timecode to the point where the reviewed export begins in your timeline.
- Export its markers to an EDL.
- Import that file into your timeline.
Resolve versions don’t all handle markers from an imported timeline the same way, so run it once on a test timeline before a real round of notes depends on it.
There’s no RecReview panel for Resolve. The Premiere panel only runs inside Premiere.
