[Add-on] Export EDL

Export Video Sequence Editor material in EDL files from Blender to ex. Davinci Resolve, Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro.

Download

Installation
Download from Github right-click on ‘RAW’ and select “Save link as”.
Blender User Preferences > Add-ons > Install from file > Check the checbox
(Or paste the code from “Raw” into the text editor of Blender and run the script)

Location
File > Export > Timeline(.edl)

Before Exporting
The script will export one .edl file pr. track, so before exporting, merge channels into as few as possible. The Edl format has very limited opportunities to indicate tracks separation(actually only one video and 4 audio).

Import an EDL in Davinci Resolve

  • In Davinci Resolve set the project framerate to the framerate of the EDL(the edl files do not carry this information)
  • And select in project settings “Use time code from source clip frame count”, “Assist using reel names from source clip filenames” and “Extract reel names from EDL comments”
  • Import all your raw video assets into the Media bins.
  • In the Timeline Management pane, click load to import your EDL
  • NB. Resolve can’t import audio from edl files.

Using the import EDL addon in Blender
( https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/EDL_Import )

  • Open Blender.
  • File > User preferences > Addons > Categories > Import – Export > Import – Export Import EDL > Check it.
  • Click button > Save user settings (so that setting will be used each time you start Blender).
  • Close the user preferences window.
  • Change the combo box in the top bar saying Default to Video Editing.
  • To the right of the time line you’ll see EDL import
  • Click the open folder button under the offset line and select your edl file.
  • Click ‘Refresh Reels’.
  • Add paths to the missing reels using the open folder buttons.
  • When all is set click ‘Import video sequence (.edl)
  • The timeline should now show your EDL project.

Limitations

  • Only one Video channel and max. 4 audio tracks can be exported(with hope of proper import in other apps)
  • No dropframe fps supported.
  • Only video, audio clips and dissolves(on same channel) are supported.
  • File embedded timecodes and reelnames are not supported.

The project started here:
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?418606-EDL-export-script-help-needed!

Attachments


Hi tin2tin, your addon looks great ! didn’t have any time to test yet, but this feature was missing for a looooong time to allow blender vse to be part on a project workflow !
about the limitations, the only real bummer could be, imo, the file embedded timecodes. For examples, if you have a project with a lot of slow motion footages (fs700 for example, i saw this case a year ago) without these timecodes, da vinci would mess your timeline up because of a framerate issue (not sure about specifics, we ended up conforming clip by clip manually because lake of time)
Anyway, great addon, thanks for your work ! can’t wait to try it on a project :smiley:

Thanks. Premiere Pro exports one video track and four audio tracks and Resolve chokes on more than one video track, so to get less import errors I’m working on doing the same with this addon. (Thanks to batFINGER the ui is now solved). But I still need to implement the functionality.


On embedded time codes and reel names, most NLEs have options to not use these elements and if not ex. Eyeframe Converter(ffmbc/ffmpeg) can easily be set up to overwrite existing time codes or reelnames. So there are workarounds.

Very thanks.

New version uploaded: https://github.com/tin2tin/ExportEDL

The UI to select one video track and four audio tracks before export, as mentioned above, is now implemented.

I hope someone with Premiere can test it for me. I’m especially curious about cross transitions - if they are working in Premiere?

Cross transitions gave strange information causing a bug: a cross dissolve consists of and input_1 and input_2 clip, but they are in the order they are selected! I wonder why!? So selecting right strip handle before left strip handle and then add a cross transition would export wrong. Doing the opposite would go well. Strange. And all the info on the inputs 1+2 were not about the parts of the clips used, but what came before or after the cross transition. The API implementation doesn’t seem finished here(or I don’t understand the purpose). Anyway grab the latest version here. I think, I’ve fixed the transitions: https://github.com/tin2tin/ExportEDL

I think I finally got the timings correct. The API was causing me headaches.
Download: https://github.com/tin2tin/ExportEDL/blob/master/io_export_sequencer_edl.py

Tutorial video here:

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Great thank you!
I’m badly missing image sequences though. Not sure even if the EDL-format can handle them.

For image sequences, you probably have to export a cut pr. image, but that is not implemented in my script(EDL format has a limit of 999 cuts afaik). Alternatively, you can export in the best possible quality from Blender and let Davinci Resolve detect the cuts - if you need to do color grading.

Aw, was hoping this would work with reaper, seems to use a different edl format (samplitude edl). Any thoughts about implementing other edl formats?
If not, id suggest putting in the edl format in the addon name, might save someone the same pain i just experienced :slight_smile:

The common EDL format is called CMX 3600, which this script is using. It’s being used by all Pro NLEs. But not Vegas. For some wierd reason Reaper can only import this Vegas format. So you’ll have to go through Vegas(I guess?) or try to change the export formatting of this script. The Vegas format is also just a text file.

A Vegas EDL sample can be found in the zip file here: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/321056-EDL-File-Format

Small update to convert frames in float to int.

1 Like