Managing takes on Reels

For Reels which have continuous time code and a specific order, would like to be able to move clips around either by drag and drop or by an up or down button.

Just for some clarify on how things actually work:

The order the takes are placed on the actual deliverables is still governed by the choice you make in the config for the sort order:

In the case of continuous reels the ‘Timecode’ referenced here is the Record Timecode, which is determined by the order in which you add the events to the reel.

But if you have the sort order set to ‘Scene’ instead, the takes will sort by Scene/Take/Camera, regardless of how they are added to the reel.

As a test, I created two configs for a File-Per-Reel H.264 file. One is set to sort by Scene and one is set to sort by Timecode.

I added three takes to the reel in this order (Sc-Tk: 3-1, 2,1, 1-1). Here’s what the ALE’s look like:

Sort by Scene:

Name	Tracks	Scene	Take	Camroll	Start	End	Duration	

Data
1-1 (A)	V	1	1	A707	01:00:20:00	01:00:30:00	00:00:10:00	
2-1 (A)	V	2	1	A707	01:00:10:00	01:00:20:00	00:00:10:00	
3-1 (A)	V	3	1	A707	01:00:00:00	01:00:10:00	00:00:10:00

Sort by Timecode:

Name	Tracks	Scene	Take	Camroll	Start	End	Duration	

Data
3-1 (A)	V	3	1	A707	01:00:00:00	01:00:10:00	00:00:10:00	
2-1 (A)	V	2	1	A707	01:00:10:00	01:00:20:00	00:00:10:00	
1-1 (A)	V	1	1	A707	01:00:20:00	01:00:30:00	00:00:10:00	

Note that they are ordered differently, but that the timecodes assigned to a given clip match each other.

In the .mp4 file output, the takes match the order you see in each respective ALE.

So on the file output in Scene order, you would actually see Record Timecode start at 01:00:20:00, count to 01:00:29:23 and then roll to 01:00:10:00 when it cuts to the next take.

If you’re not burning timecode in, you wouldn’t know the difference.

If you’re outputting things as File-Per-Clip, then sorting doesn’t really matter anyway.

… So for starters, just to be sure - is there still a reason when you really care for the timecode order that things are on the reel?

If so I can totally understand the request. Not sure the best way to accomodate it since we let you sort reels by any column right now for viewing purposes and don’t necessarily want that to affect how timecode is assigned to the takes on the reel.

We would probably have to do this in the Edit Reel dialog or something…

So we still have a client who has requested continuous code Avid reels (they do their own onlines). This issue pops up in this situation.
Yeah something like the old Control Dailies dialog box which allows you to move stuff around on a continuous reel would work.
How often do we encounter this, not very.

Are they finicky about what timecode is assigned to each take though? Since its Avid media, won’t they just shuffle things around in their bin at will anyway?

Not sure, and you are correct. They haven’t been super finicky about anything but they have always been specific about the continuous code for avid.

Yep, and if they sort their bin by start timecode, it will appear as such on their end. Sorting it by any other way on their end will obviously disrupt that (whether or not we made this change). So if its just the Avid media I don’t think you should be too concerned with how things are ordered on your end.

In any case, we’ll keep this topic open for discussion in case there are other cases you or others come across where it’d be useful to be able to re-order things on the reel easily.