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Quick Start

This is the fastest path from a freshly installed Theia to your first exported spreadsheet. It assumes you've already finished Installation.

1. Open a timeline

In DaVinci Resolve, open the project and timeline you want to export. Theia reads whatever timeline is currently active in the Edit page.

2. Launch a tool

Every Theia tool lives in the same place:

Workspace → Scripts → Edit → [Tool Name]

Click 01 Clip Inventory to start. A standalone window opens — this is a normal Mac app window, not part of Resolve, so you can move it, resize it, or put it on a second monitor while you keep working in Resolve.

Tip

You can also run any tool directly from Terminal without going through Resolve's menu, which is occasionally useful for troubleshooting: 

"/Library/Application Support/Theia/venv/bin/python3" \
  "/Library/Application Support/Theia/clip_inventory_gui.py"

3. Export your first clip inventory

  1. Theia automatically lists the video tracks from your open timeline as checkboxes, all checked by default.
  2. Leave them all checked for now (or uncheck any tracks you don't want included — see Clip Inventory for details on what each option does).
  3. Set Output File to wherever you'd like the spreadsheet saved (it defaults to Downloads/clip_inventory.xlsx).
  4. Click Go.
  5. Watch the log panel — it reports track-by-track progress and flags anything occluded by clips above it.
  6. When it finishes, click Open File in the success dialog to view it immediately in Excel (or your default spreadsheet app).

You now have a spreadsheet with one row per visible clip: a thumbnail, reel name, cut order, Record In/Out, duration, and Source In timecode.

4. Add your own metadata

Open the exported spreadsheet and start typing in the empty columns from column H onward — VFX shot codes, vendor assignments, shot descriptions, whatever your pipeline needs. Theia never touches columns to the left of H; that's reserved for the clip data it generated.

5. Where to go from here

That single spreadsheet is the seed for everything else in Theia:

  • Want frame-numbered reference video for VFX vendors? See Frame Counter.
  • Want to push your shot codes back onto the timeline as a track, or export FCPXML/SRT files from your metadata? See Add Metadata.
  • Want a structured shot list (in/out frames, handles, retimes) for bidding or tracking? See Shot List — but read Export a Clip Inventory and the workflow pages first, since Shot List depends on a frame counter track that Add Metadata creates.

The Workflows section walks through each of these end-to-end, in the order most editors use them.