Frame Counter

Generates a MOV video of burned-in frame numbers, with real timecode metadata embedded — the standard reference video VFX vendors use to confirm exactly which frame they're looking at.

Frame Counter doesn't read anything from Resolve — it's a standalone generator. You set the size, frame range, and frame rate, and it renders a video to a folder you choose.

Launching it

Workspace → Scripts → Edit → 02 Frame Counter — no timeline needs to be open.

Interface reference

Video Size

• Width / Height — in pixels, up to 3840×2160. Defaults to a small 200×80 burn-in box rather than a full frame, since this is usually composited as an overlay rather than viewed full-screen.
• Text Color — White, Green, or Yellow.

Frame Range

• Start / End — the first and last frame numbers to generate. A live label shows the resulting frame count, or a warning if End isn't greater than Start.

Frame Rate

Choose a preset (23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 60) or Custom... to type any other value. This determines both the embedded timecode and the playback rate of the rendered video — it should match the frame rate of the timeline or footage you're counting against.

Font

Path to a .otf or .ttf font file used to draw the numbers. Defaults to the SF Pro font bundled with Theia (/Library/Application Support/Theia/resources/fonts/SF-Pro-Text-Regular.otf). If the path is invalid when you click Go, you'll be asked whether to continue with a plain default font instead of being blocked outright.

Output Directory

Where the finished video is written. Defaults to ~/Downloads/frame-counters.

Go

Generates the video. This happens in two passes, both visible in the log:

1. Render one PNG image per frame number, then encode them into a temporary video at your chosen frame rate.
2. Re-wrap that video to stamp in the starting timecode as embedded metadata (matching your Start frame), without re-encoding the image data.

The output file is named frame_counter_<fps>fps.mov (for example frame_counter_24fps.mov) in your chosen output directory.

Encoder fallback

Frame Counter tries Apple's hardware encoder (h264_videotoolbox) first for speed, and falls back to software libx264 automatically if that's unavailable. You'll see whichever one succeeded in the log.

Tips

• Generate a range comfortably wider than you expect to need — re-running with a new range later is cheap, but matching an existing video's exact frame numbering after the fact is not.
• The frame rate you choose here must match what you'll tell Add Metadata when you place this video on the timeline, or the embedded timecodes won't line up with your shots.
• See Generate Frame Counters for the full workflow, including how this video feeds into Add Metadata and Shot List.