What are frame-accurate comments?

The client writes “around minute two, the logo looks wrong”. The editor parks at 2:00 and finds a fast montage with four shots in that second, two of them with a logo.

So the editor guesses, fixes the logo that seems most likely and exports v3. If the guess was wrong, the client sends the same note again, a little less patient this time.

A frame-accurate comment exists so that exchange never happens. The note is saved at the frame the reviewer was looking at, and opening it puts the editor on the same picture.

What makes a comment frame-accurate

A frame-accurate comment is a note stored with the position of one specific frame. Click it and the player lands on that frame, with the same picture the reviewer saw when they wrote it.

Video is a run of still images, usually 24, 25 or 30 per second. At 25 fps each frame is on screen for 40 milliseconds, so a position saved in whole seconds can be off by up to 24 frames.

Timecode is how people write the position down. It reads HH:MM:SS:FF, and the last field counts frames inside the current second. Our guide on how to read timecode covers the format, drop frame and where the clock starts.

A good review tool adds two things on top of the timecode. A drawing on the frame says where in the picture the problem is, and a range says how long it lasts.

Why “around minute two” sends the editor to the wrong shot

Vague times fail in a few predictable ways, and only the first one is about rounding:

1. The second is too wide. In a talking head, one second is one shot. In a montage or a cutdown for social, it can hold three cuts.
2. The video kept playing. Someone sees the problem, reaches for the keyboard and starts typing. By the time they read the clock, the playhead is two seconds further on.
3. The note belongs to an older version. A recut moves everything after the change, so a v2 time applied to v3 points at a different shot.
4. The two clocks don’t match. The client’s player counts from zero, while many edit timelines start at 01:00:00:00.

A note pinned to the frame solves the first two by itself. The other two are about which version and which clock, and a tool that keeps each note on its own version handles the third.

When the exact frame matters, and when it doesn’t

Frame accuracy matters when the problem is one frame long or sits on a cut. Typical cases:

• A flash frame or a stray black frame left between two clips.
• A cut that lands a frame early and clips the first syllable.
• Lip sync that drifts by a frame or two.
• A lower third or subtitle that appears before the speaker starts or stays after the shot changes.
• A typo in on-screen text that is only up for a second.

Most creative notes don’t need a frame. “The music is too loud under the interview” or “this section drags” is about a stretch of the video, and a range from where it starts to where it ends tells the editor more than a single point.

Some notes have no moment at all, like “it feels long overall”. Put those in one general note instead of pinning them to whatever frame happened to be on screen.

How to leave a comment that lands on the frame

Five habits get the note onto the right picture on the first try:

1. Pause first, then write. Stop the video on the moment you mean before you open the comment box, so the time doesn’t keep running while you type.
2. Step frame by frame when it’s tight. The arrow keys in most review players move one frame, which is how you find the first frame of a flash or the exact cut.
3. Mark a range for anything that lasts. Set the in and out points and write the note once for the whole stretch.
4. Draw when the problem has a place. A circle on the logo beats a sentence about the top right corner. Our post on annotating a video covers when a drawing helps.
5. One problem per note. Two issues in one comment share one frame, and one of them is usually somewhere else. More in our guide to giving video feedback.

What happens to the frame on the way to the edit

The comment is exact in the review player. The editor’s timeline is a different clock, so the frame can shift when notes become markers.

Three things move markers. A sequence that starts at 01:00:00:00 puts every marker an hour off until you shift them, and a review copy exported from an in point moves them by a few seconds.

A frame rate that doesn’t match the sequence, like a 29.97 timeline receiving markers counted at 30, drifts a little more every minute.

Whatever tool you use, check the first two or three markers against the picture before working through the list. When those sit on the right shots, the rest of the list usually does as well. Our posts on importing markers into Premiere and DaVinci Resolve cover the fixes.

How this works in RecReview

With time-coded comments in RecReview, the comment is pinned to the moment you start writing it. The time is locked when you open the box, so scrubbing or clicking another comment while you type doesn’t move it, and it’s stored to the millisecond.

When you pause, the player matches its time to the frame actually on screen, so the note sits on the picture you were looking at. Pressing C opens the comment box at the current frame, and the arrow keys step one frame back or forward.

The clock can show SMPTE timecode (HH:MM:SS:FF), frames or plain minutes and seconds, from the small arrow next to the time.

Press I and O to mark a range, and the comment covers the whole stretch. A range shows as a bar under the timeline, next to a marker for every comment with the author’s picture. Clicking a marker jumps to its frame and opens the note.

A comment can carry a drawing on the frame, and each comment stays on the version it was written on, so a v2 note never points at v3.

From the review page, your team can download every comment as markers for Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. Each marker carries the author and the first line of the note, and the file counts from 00:00:00:00, the first frame of the review copy.