Importing Sequences

You can drag-and-drop files onto the window, use File → Open… (⌘O), or open files from Finder via “Open With” → SequenceSuite. Multiple files at once are fine, and you can mix formats in a single drop.

Once a file is open, you can switch between Sheet, Gather, and Dupe without re-importing.

If an XML, EDL, FCPXML, or OTIO export looks damaged but still resembles the right format, SequenceSuite can offer repair during import. You can also choose File → Repair File… to inspect and save a repaired copy before opening it. See Repairing Damaged Files for the full workflow.

From Avid

1. Select the sequence in its bin.
2. Open Tools → List Tool and click Load on the Input tab.
3. Set the Output Format to File_129 - it carries the most complete metadata.
4. For a multi-track timeline, turn Merge Events off and enable Save List to Multiple Files.
5. Click Save List, then drop the exported .edl file(s) onto SequenceSuite.

For a multi-track set, drop all the EDL files together and SequenceSuite will offer to group them as one multi-track cut. See Multi-track EDLs for the full walkthrough and caveats.

For AAF: drop the .aaf onto SequenceSuite in Gather mode to collect the sequence media. AAF is not used for Sheet reports - use the EDL export for that. See Avid AAF Gather.

From Premiere Pro

1. In Premiere, select the sequence you want to export.
2. Go to File → Export → Final Cut Pro XML (this produces a Premiere XMEML file, despite the label).
3. Drop the .xml file onto SequenceSuite.

Tip

To export every sequence in a project at once, select no sequence before exporting - Premiere will include every timeline in a single XML. SequenceSuite handles multi-sequence files natively and pops a picker so you can choose which timelines to import.

From DaVinci Resolve

1. In Resolve, right-click your timeline in the Media Pool and choose Timelines → Export → Timeline as XML.
2. Drop the exported .xml onto SequenceSuite.

Resolve XML is detected automatically when the sequence name ends in (Resolve). The sidebar source badge will read Resolve rather than Premiere.

From Final Cut Pro

1. In Final Cut Pro, select the project or event.
2. Choose File → Export XML.
3. Drop the exported .fcpxml file, .fcpxmld package, or .fcp package onto SequenceSuite.

Caution

FCPXML support covers normal editorial timelines with video/audio clips, asset paths, markers, and simple retimes. Titles, roles, compound clips, sync clips, multicam, and complex effects are still being expanded.

From an EDL

Drop your .edl file onto SequenceSuite. CMX 3600 format is supported, including comment fields for clip names, reel IDs, and Premiere-style marker metadata. Avid File_16, File_32, and File_129 exports are also supported; SequenceSuite reads Avid SOURCE FILE, REEL, source FPS, patch, and audio level/pan comments where present.

When you drop one or more EDLs, a sheet asks you to set the frame rate for each file - EDLs don’t carry rate metadata. See Timecode & Frame Rates for the rate options, batch Apply to All, and drop-frame handling.

EDLs exported from Avid or Windows systems often aren’t UTF-8; SequenceSuite reads UTF-8, Windows-1252, Latin-1, and Mac Roman.

Multi-track EDL sets

If your NLE exports one EDL per video track (V1, V2, V3, etc.), drop the set together. SequenceSuite can detect matching EDLs and offer to import them as one multi-track cut, so Sheet and Dupe treat the edit as one sequence.

For Avid, the recommended export is Save List to Multiple Files with Merge Events turned off. See Multi-track EDLs for the full workflow and caveats.

From OpenTimelineIO

OpenTimelineIO (.otio) is the interchange format produced by Resolve’s OTIO export, the open-source OTIO adapters for FCPXML and CMX 3600, and AAF-via-OTIO converters.

1. In Resolve, right-click your timeline in the Media Pool and choose Timelines → Export → Timeline as OpenTimelineIO.
2. Drop the .otio file onto SequenceSuite.

Tip

To bundle several Resolve timelines into one file, export each as .otio and join them with the otioconvert tool (or any OTIO-native tool that writes a SerializableCollection). SequenceSuite shows each contained Timeline as a separate sequence in the sidebar, the same way it handles multi-sequence XML.

Drop-frame for 29.97 / 59.94

OTIO doesn’t carry an explicit drop-frame flag. For files at 29.97 or 59.94 fps without a drop-frame hint in the source’s metadata, SequenceSuite asks once per file whether to read its timecode as drop-frame or non-drop-frame. The choice is remembered with the open file across app relaunches. For 24/25/30/50/60 fps OTIO files the question doesn’t apply.

Missing source paths

Resolve OTIO exports occasionally describe a clip with MissingReference rather than a real file path, even when the original path is known - it ends up tucked into the clip’s metadata. SequenceSuite recovers those paths by default. Turn the toggle off in Settings → General if you want a stricter reading of the file’s literal MissingReference markers (e.g. for QC).

What isn’t flattened in v1

Compound clips (a nested timeline inside a track) and trimmed track or stack containers aren’t expanded in v1 - they emit a per-file warning rather than a crash, and the rest of the timeline imports normally. Most Resolve OTIO exports don’t use these. Open the import error overlay (the warning chip at the top of the sidebar) to see which structures were skipped.

Multi-sequence files

When a Premiere or Resolve XML, or an OTIO SerializableCollection, contains more than one sequence, a picker sheet lets you choose which to import. You can also import a subset and add more later by re-importing the same file with a different selection.

Background loading

Files are read in the background, with a progress bar in the bottom-left of the sidebar. The app stays responsive - you can switch modes, change settings, or start work in another file while a load continues.

Restoring and re-parsing

SequenceSuite keeps a parse cache for opened EDL, XML, FCPXML, and OTIO sources. When you relaunch the app, previously opened files can restore from that cache instead of reading the source file again.

This matters for large EDL/XML/OTIO jobs, and for network or external volumes that are no longer mounted. If a cached parse exists, SequenceSuite can show the last parsed sequence without forcing macOS to reconnect the missing volume.

To force a fresh read from disk, right-click the sequence or grouped EDL in the sidebar and choose Re-parse Source. To remove all cached parses, use Settings → General → Clear Parse Cache.

Repaired imports are loaded from a separate repaired copy that SequenceSuite manages, so they never overwrite or masquerade as the original source file.