Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 1470)

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Importing and Exporting EDLs
Edit Decision Lists (EDLs) are useful for transferring edit
information between editing systems.
This chapter includes:
 What Is an EDL? (p. 119)
 Learning to Read an EDL (p. 120)
 Exporting EDLs (p. 124)
 Importing Edit Decision Lists (EDLs) (p. 132)
 Creating Better EDLs (p. 135)
 Transition Wipe Codes for EDL Export (p. 142)
What Is an EDL?
In the days of linear tape editing, EDLs were used to save and restore the timecode
information for each edit performed on a computer-controlled editing system. Since
timecode editing systems were expensive, many editors would perform offline edits
with window dubs (low-quality copies of original footage with timecode visually
superimposed, or burned, directly onto the image) and then create an EDL by hand for
delivery to a computer-controlled editing system for the online edit.
You should export your sequence to an EDL when you are transferring it to an older,
tape-to-tape system, or a system that doesn’t recognize more recent interchange
formats (such as OMF, AAF, or the Final Cut Pro XML Interchange Format). Because EDLs
are relatively simple, they are still the lowest-common-denominator file format for
exchanging edit information between editing systems.