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Automated Organization Using Smart Bins
A completely automated way of organizing media in the Media Pool is to use Smart Bins that are either automatically or manually created, in order to collect all clips and timelines in the Media Pool that have commonalities based on any of the intrinsic or user-editable metadata that’s available in the Metadata Editor and Media Pool. If you’re familiar with the Color page, Smart Bins work much the same way as Smart Filters, and they’re created and edited using much the same procedures. For more information about Smart Filters, see Chapter 124, “Using the Color Page.”
Smart Bins are incredibly flexible. Using one or more metadata-based rules, they can be as simple or sophisticated as you require. They’re even capable of using multiple groups of multiple rules for
situations where you need to gather clips that match all of one set of criteria, but only one of a second set of criteria. In this way, you can use Smart Bins to solve a wide variety of organizational needs as you edit your program.
Smart Bins Are Only As Good As Your Metadata
It’s important to point out, however, that as much intrinsic metadata is available to every clip in DaVinci Resolve automatically (clip properties such as frame rate, frame size, codec, file name, and so on), the more time you take entering extra metadata in the Metadata Editor to prepare your project for editing and grading, the more powerful Smart Bins can be in helping you to sift and sort through the contents of a program you’re grading. Examples of metadata entry that will guarantee immediate benefits from Smart Bins include the entry of scene, shot, and take information, keywords identifying key descriptors (day and night, interior and exterior, framing, and so on), and using Face Detection
to assign character names. These categories of metadata can be used for the automatic creation of Smart Bins, but they can also be used in combination when manually creating Smart Bins that are even more specific.
Imagine being able to gather all the clips in a particular scene, find all the interview clips for a particular subject, or find all the edited timelines corresponding to a particular name, all by simply selecting a Smart Bin that automatically examines the current contents of the Media Pool. If you or an assistant can take the time to enter metadata for the source material in a project that identifies these characteristics, you’ll be able to work even more quickly to find the clips you need for any given situation.
Smart Bins Update Their Contents Dynamically
Smart Bins are always dynamically up to date and include whatever new media is added to the Media Pool. This makes it easy to stay organized, even when working on projects where new media is being added to the Media Pool every day, such as when editing during a shoot. By using metadata entered either in-camera, by the DIT or media wrangler managing ingest, or by an Assistant Editor who’s working with you, Smart Bins will automatically include all clips in the Media Pool that have matching criteria, whether they were added a month ago or a minute ago.