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— If the “Automatically conform missing clips added to Media Pool” setting is enabled in the General Options panel of the Project Settings, then simply reimport the corresponding source clips into the Media Pool and they will be automatically conformed to missing clips with matching timecode and file names in the timeline (this only happens at the time of import, it doesn’t work for matching clips that are already in the Media Pool). Please note, this setting must be disabled if you use collaborative workflow.
— If the “Automatically conform missing clips added to Media Pool” setting is disabled in the General Options panel of the Project Settings, then you’ll have to import the missing clips and either manually reconform them one at a time to the missing timeline clips using the Conform Lock
with Media Pool Clip command, or use the Reconform From Bin(s) or Import Additional Clips With Loose/Tight Filename Match commands to try reconforming them all at once.
However you choose to reconform the missing clips, you won’t get the original remote grades or manually edited metadata back unless you had previously exported the appropriate metadata and grades, in which case you can reimport and apply these in separate steps.
Duplicate Clips are Considered Separate Sources
Another thing that’s good to understand is that in DaVinci Resolve, duplicate clips are considered to be completely separate from the original Media Pool or Timeline clips you duplicated them from. For example, if you import five clips into Media Pool Bin 1, then edit them into a timeline, and then drag the five clips you edited into Media Pool Bin 2, the clips in Bin 1 are not intrinsically linked to the clips in Bin 2.
This means, if you select the clips you originally imported in Bin 1 and choose Unlink Selected Clips, the instances of those clips that you edited into the timeline will also be unlinked, but the duplicate clips you created when you dragged the timeline clips into Bin 2 are completely unaffected.
Summary of Methods for Conforming and Relinking
As a result of timelines and clips being managed separately, there are several ways you can reconform clips in a timeline to clips in the Media Pool, and clips in general to a project’s corresponding source media on disk. Which methods will be most valuable depend entirely on the workflow you’re using.
— Conforming clips during XML and AAF import: When you import a project via AAF or XML, you’re given the option of using the embedded file paths in the AAF or XML file to import all referenced media into the Media Pool for automatic reconforming to the clips in the imported timeline. If the media has been moved so that the file paths are invalid, then you’ll be asked to find the location of the media as part of the import process. You also have the option to ignore the
AAF or XML file’s embedded file paths and instead import another set of media files in a different location (and perhaps in a different media format altogether) that have the same file names and timecode as the clips in the AAF or XML file you’re importing.
— Importing clips before importing an EDL, AAF, or XML: In EDL workflows, you must import the media an EDL will be conformed to into the Media Pool before you import the EDL. However, you can do this for AAF and XML import workflows as well. When you import clips into the Media Pool before importing an AAF or XML, DaVinci Resolve is able to automatically reconform the clips in the imported timeline to those in the Media Pool first, before next looking for media on disk for clips that could not be found in the Media Pool. This behavior depends on what options you’ve selected in the Import AAF/EDL/XML dialog.
— Conform missing clips by importing their source media into the Media Pool: As long as the “Automatically conform missing clips added to Media Pool” setting is enabled in the General
Options panel of the Project Settings, DaVinci Resolve automatically tries to update the conformed relationship between clips you’re adding to the Media Pool and any missing clips in the various timelines of your project. This behavior is triggered whenever you add clips to the Media Pool by importing clips, copying and pasting, or creating duplicates of clips. For example, if a timeline clip is missing because there is no corresponding clip in the Media Pool, the simple act of importing a clip with a matching file name and timecode into the Media Pool will automatically reconform the missing timeline clip without you needing to do anything else. Please note, the “Auto conform clips with media added into Media Pool” setting must be disabled if you use collaborative workflow.
— Using the Import Additional Clips commands: The process of importing media just for missing clips in a timeline can be automated by right-clicking that timeline in the Media Pool and using the Timelines > Import > Additional Clips With Loose (or Tight) Filename Match contextual menu commands, which automatically search the selected directory tree of your file system for media
that matches all of the offline clips in that timeline. The “Loose Filename Match” command ignores file extensions (letting you conform to alternate media formats), while the “Tight Filename Match” command requires file extensions to match.
— Reconform online clips by importing new media into the Media Pool: As long as the “Automatically conform missing clips added to Media Pool” setting is enabled in the General Options panel of the Project Settings, DaVinci Resolve automatically tries to update the conformed relationship between clips you’re adding to the Media Pool and any clips in the various timelines
of your project that have their Conform Lock Enabled setting turned off. This behavior is triggered whenever you add clips to the Media Pool by importing clips, copying and pasting clips, or creating duplicates of clips.
By default, each clip that’s part of an imported timeline, or that you’ve edited into a brand new timeline, has Conform Lock Enabled turned on by default (unless the source media goes missing). Conform Lock Enabled simply means that a particular clip in a timeline is set to only consider the source clip in the Media Pool to which it’s currently conformed as the correct match; all other clips in the Media Pool are ignored, even if there are multiple clips with the same file name and overlapping timecode that would make them also a valid match (such as when you have multiple copies of the same clip that in different formats, or multiple versions of VFX clips with the same name and timecode).
NOTE: The “Auto conform clips with media added into Media Pool” setting must be disabled if you use collaborative workflow.
NOTE: The “Auto conform clips with media added into Media Pool” setting must be disabled if you use collaborative workflow.
NOTE: The “Auto conform clips with media added into Media Pool” setting must be disabled if you use collaborative workflow.
If you right-click a clip with multiple potential matches in the Media Pool in the timeline and turn Conform Lock Enabled off, that clip will display a “clip conflict” error, with an attention badge to the left of its name in the timeline. Double-clicking that badge reveals a dialog showing you every clip in the Media Pool with a matching file name or reel name and overlapping timecode, so that you can choose which Media Pool clip you want to conform that timeline clip to.
— Using Conform Lock commands to force a timeline clip to conform itself to a clip
— Using the Relink command on clips or bins in the Media Pool: If you have a DaVinci Resolve project in which there are unlinked clips in the Media Pool, that means the relationship between those clips and their corresponding source media files on disk have been lost. In this case, you can use the Relink Media, Relink Selected Clips, or Relink Clips in Selected Bins commands to relink clips to the corresponding source media on whatever storage volume it’s on. In the process, you’ll automatically relink any instances of those clips in all timelines in which they appear in that project. You can relink only unlinked clips by selecting them specifically, but you can also relink clips that are already linked if you want to force relink them to different media files (Relink Clips in Selected Bins relinks both unlinked and linked clips at once). The Relink command automatically searches all subdirectories within the currently selected directory, which is useful if you’re relinking to media that’s been moved to another location, and that may have a different directory structure as a result. However, a warning about searching large SAN volumes – you probably don’t want to use this command to choose a starting directory that’s too high up the file path, as the resulting search times may be unexpectedly long.
— Using the Change Source Folder command: You also have the option to relink offline clips in the Media Pool using the Change Source Folder command, which changes the directory structure of each selected clip’s file path into a new file path based on a parent directory you select. This is mainly useful if you’re relinking clips to media that you’ve moved to another location, but that uses the same subdirectory structure as when the media was originally imported. For this reason, it’s a safe and fast command to use when relinking to a structured collection of media on a SAN volume.
— Using the Reconform From Bin(s) command: If you’ve imported multiple versions of the same clips, with identical file names, overlapping timecode, or other matching criteria into separate bins of the Media Pool, you can turn off Conform Lock Enabled for every clip in a timeline you want to reconform, and then use the Reconform From Bin(s) command to reconform those timeline clips to Media Pool clips in one or more specific bins of your choosing. Reconform From Bin(s) also lets you choose the specific conform criteria you want to use to match clips in the timeline with clips
in the selected bins. A key feature of this command is that DaVinci Resolve will only reconform timeline clips that are able to be matched to media in the bins you’ve selected; timeline clips for which no match can be found are left as they were before you used this command.
— Using the Reconform From Media Storage command: This command lets you reconform timeline clips to clips in a selected directory in your file system that hasn’t been imported into the Media Pool first, and also lets you choose the specific conform criteria you want to use to match clips in the timeline with clips in the selected bins. A key feature of this command is that DaVinci Resolve will only reconform timeline clips that are able to be matched to media within the
directory structure you’ve selected; timeline clips for which no match can be found are left as they were before you used this command.
The following sections illustrate each of these methods of conforming and relinking media in more detail.
The following sections illustrate each of these methods of conforming and relinking media in more detail.
The following sections illustrate each of these methods of conforming and relinking media in more detail.
— Overwriting clips on disk that are linked to in a DaVinci Resolve project: Last, but certainly not least, DaVinci Resolve is smart enough to automatically relink clips in the Media Pool that have been overwritten on disk by another version of the same file, so long as the file name, timecode, and reel name (if used) in the new version of the file still match.