The Edit Decision List — or EDL — is one of the oldest file formats still in active use in post-production. Originally designed for linear tape-to-tape editing in the 1970s, EDLs remain the universal lingua franca for exchanging edit data between systems.
What’s in an EDL?
At its core, an EDL is a plain text file. Each line (or “event”) represents a single edit — a cut, dissolve, or wipe — with source reel, timecodes, and transition information. A typical event looks something like this:
003 AX V C 01:02:15:10 01:02:22:04 01:00:12:00 01:00:18:19
* FROM CLIP NAME: A001_C003_0415.mov
That tells you: event 3, from reel AX, video only, a cut, with source in/out and record in/out timecodes.
Where EDLs fall short
EDLs are simple by design, which is both their strength and their limitation. They don’t natively carry rich metadata like camera information, lens data, or color correction values. Some NLEs pack extra data into comment lines, but there’s no standard format for that.
This is where OpenTimelineIO (OTIO) comes in — it’s a more modern, metadata-rich format. Cutlist supports both, so you can use whichever your NLE exports.
How Cutlist helps
Instead of reading EDL files in a text editor or writing scripts to parse them, Cutlist reads your EDL and gives you a visual, sortable table with thumbnails. It understands comment fields from major NLEs and extracts shot codes, scene/take info, and CDL data automatically.
Drop in your EDL, point Cutlist at your source media, and you’ve got a complete visual shot list in seconds.