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The “Assist using Reel Names” checkbox in the General Options panel of the Project Settings is an extremely important setting for controlling how the conform process works. By default it’s turned off, and Reel Names are left blank. This is fine for conform workflows where all you need is the file path or file name and source timecode to successfully identify which media files correspond to what clips. However, if you need more information than that to reconform the clips in your project, you can turn on the “Assist using Reel Names” checkbox to enable DaVinci Resolve to use one of four different methods to automatically define reel names for every clip in the Media Pool.
Using the Clip Attributes dialog, you also have the option of manually defining how one or more selected clips in the Media Pool have their Reel Names defined. This is useful when there are certain clips in a project that need to use a different method of reel name extraction, or manually entered reel names. Once you’ve used Clip Attributes to change the reel names of clips, those clips no longer automatically update when you change the “Assist using Reel Names” options in the Project Settings.
You must first turn on “Assist using Reel Names” in the General Options of the Project Settings, and choose a Reel Assist setting, for the reel name attributes in the Clip Attributes window to be editable.
The Reel Name panel of the Clip Attributes Window
— Source clip file pathname: Obtains the reel name by extracting it from each media file’s path. This makes it possible to extract a reel name from all or part of the file name, or from all or part of the name of any folder in the path that encloses that file. This extraction is defined using the Pattern field.
— Pattern: A code that defines how a reel name should be extracted from the source clip pathname. More information about creating patters appears later in this chapter.