Notes into the edit
Client notes in DaVinci Resolve.
Every timecoded note, as a marker on your timeline.
The client leaves notes in the review room at the frame they are talking about. A script you run from inside Resolve pulls those notes over the network and writes them onto the open timeline as native markers: red while a note is open, green once it is marked done. It is the same trip a Premiere editor makes through the panel, done with a script instead.
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The mechanism
A script, not a plugin,
and it writes real Resolve markers.
There is no extension to install and nothing to approve in a marketplace. What exists is a Python script you download, put where Resolve looks for scripts, and run from inside Resolve while the timeline is open. Everything below describes that script and nothing else.
What it is
A downloadable Python script. You run it from inside Resolve, the same way you would run any other user script. It is not a plugin, not an extension and not a marketplace item, and no endorsement or certification stands behind it. The Premiere side of the same workflow is a signed panel; on Resolve it is a script, and that difference is worth knowing before you plan a round around it.
What it does
It pulls the review room's notes over the network for the film you point it at, and adds a native Resolve timeline marker at each note's timecode. The markers are ordinary Resolve markers once they exist: they sit on the ruler, they navigate like any other marker, and they survive being looked at by someone who has never heard of the review room.
Color carries state
Red means the note is still open. Green means it has been marked done in the room. You are not painting them by hand. You close notes where the client left them and the next run repaints the ruler, so the timeline itself shows how much of the round is left.
It respects your markers
The script tags the markers it creates. A later run finds its own tags, refreshes those markers in place, and leaves every marker you set yourself exactly where it is. That is the difference between a tool you can run at the start of every session and a one-shot import you only dare do once.
Getting it running
A file in a folder,
then a menu entry inside Resolve.
The setup is short, and it is worth doing on a test project first rather than the afternoon a client round is due. Resolve keeps user scripts in a Scripts folder inside its own application support directory, and the exact path differs by operating system, so take it from the download rather than from memory.
Confirm scripting is available in your edition
Do this first, because everything after it depends on it. Resolve's scripting availability differs between editions, and this page will not tell you which one you have. Open Resolve and check that user scripts appear in the application's Scripts submenu before you plan a delivery around this workflow.
Put the script where Resolve looks for scripts
Download the file and drop it in Resolve's Scripts folder, in the location the download names for your operating system. There is no installer and nothing to authorize. Restart Resolve if it was already open, so the application picks up the new file when it builds its menu.
Open the timeline, then run the script
Open the sequence the client reviewed, then run the script from the Scripts submenu in Resolve's Workspace menu, where user scripts appear once they are in the folder. It pulls the room's notes for the film you point it at and writes a marker at each note's timecode on the timeline that is open.
Check the first marker against the note
Once, on the first project. Open a note in the review room, note the frame it sits on, and confirm the marker in Resolve lands where you expect. Timelines that start at an hour rather than at zero are the usual source of a constant offset, and it is a five-second check that saves an afternoon of doubt.
If a step above does not match what you see
The loop
Across three rounds,
you watch the ruler turn green.
The value is not in the first run. It is in the third, when forty notes have accumulated across two rounds and the question stops being what the client said and becomes which of it is still outstanding. The loop is the same every time.
The client watches the cut in the review room and leaves notes. Each note is stored against the film with a timecode, which is what makes it a note on a frame rather than a paragraph that mentions a time. Reviewers can draw on the image and the drawing is saved with the note. Notes thread into replies, carry a done flag, and group into rounds.
You open the timeline in Resolve and run the script. Every note becomes a marker at its frame, red because nothing has been closed yet. You work down the ruler rather than down an email, because the notes are now in timeline order rather than in the order somebody typed them. Nothing has to be translated from a sentence into a frame, which is the step where notes go missing.
When a note is handled you mark it done in the review room, which is where the state lives and where the client can see it. Run the script again and that marker turns green without moving. What is left on the ruler in red is the round, and the round is finished when there is no red left. Post a new version and the next round starts on it; a note posted on an approved cut revokes that approval, so the record on the version stays honest rather than drifting out of date.
The one thing to keep straight
Why a colorist gets more out of it
A note on a grade is
almost never about a scene.
An editorial note can be about a stretch of film. The middle drags, the interview runs long, that section needs to breathe. A grade note is almost never that. It is about a frame: the skin has gone magenta on the close-up, the sky clips at the top of the handheld push, the match is off at the cut back to the wide. The person writing it was looking at one image when they wrote it.
Which means the expensive part of a grading round is not the correction. It is finding the shot. A colorist reading a written note scrubs for the frame the client meant, on a timeline where a hundred shots look broadly similar and the note says something like after the second cutaway. A marker removes that entirely: the frame the client was looking at is the frame the marker sits on, and the next note is the next marker along.
The second gain is the round itself. Grading rounds are usually short and dense, several passes over the same reel in a week, and the risk is not misunderstanding a note but losing track of which of the twenty from last Tuesday were already handled. Red and green on the ruler is that state, in the one place you are already looking. You can see the shape of the remaining round without opening a browser.
One honest limit. The client is watching the file you uploaded, on their own display, which is not your reference monitor and is not calibrated. Timecoded notes make a disagreement about the grade precise; they do not make it a measurement. The frame is reliable, the perception of the color on the other end is not, and it is worth agreeing with a client early about which screen the conversation is happening on.
The three ways this gets done
Retyping from email,
a second monitor, or the ruler.
Almost every Resolve suite runs one of these three. The differences are not about convenience; they are about whether a note keeps its frame, what each round costs in attention, and whether anybody can say what is still open without asking.
A second monitor is a real answer, not a straw man: for a live session with the client talking, the room open beside the timeline is often better than any marker. The script earns its place when the notes arrive without you, in writing, and have to be worked through later.
What this is not
It is a script you run,
and that is the trade.
Say the obvious thing plainly. This is a file you place in a folder and a menu entry you click, not a polished panel docked inside the application. Nobody certified it, it is not listed in a marketplace, and the Premiere side of the same workflow is a more finished object than the Resolve side is. If a script in a Scripts folder is not something you want in a delivery pipeline, that is a reasonable position and this is not the tool for you.
Scripting also has to be available in your edition of Resolve, and that is the check to run before anything else. This page will not tell you which editions expose it, because stating a version fact that turns out to be wrong is worse than sending you to look. Confirm it on the machine that will actually run the round.
The trip is one-way by design. The script writes markers into Resolve; it does not push anything back to the room. Notes are closed where the client can see them being closed, and the ruler catches up on the next run. That keeps one record of the round instead of two, at the cost of a browser tab you still have to open. The timecoded comments guide covers how the notes are captured in the first place, and the review and approval guide covers the wider question of choosing a tool for this at all.
Questions
Frequently asked
Is this a Resolve plugin or an extension?
Neither. It is a Python script that you download and place where Resolve looks for scripts, and then run from inside Resolve. There is no installer, no marketplace listing and no certification behind it. It is a file you put in a folder and a menu entry you click.
Will it work in my version of Resolve?
Confirm that scripting is available in your edition before you build a round around this. Resolve's scripting availability is not the same on every edition, and the honest answer is to check yours rather than take a claim from a marketing page. Run it once on a test timeline before a client round depends on it.
Does running it a second time duplicate the markers?
No. The script tags the markers it creates, so a later run finds its own markers and refreshes them in place. Markers you set yourself are not touched, not moved and not removed. That is what makes it safe to run at the top of every session rather than once per project.
What do the marker colors mean?
Red is an open note. Green is a note that has been marked done in the review room. You do not maintain the colors by hand: you close notes in the room, run the script again, and the ruler repaints itself.
Does the client need an account to leave the notes?
No. The share link is itself the authentication. A client opens it, watches and comments without an account, a password or an invitation, and never consumes a seat. Seats are a separate mechanism that reviewers never touch.
Does a drawing on the frame come across as a marker?
The drawing stays in the review room, where it was made. A marker is a position on the timeline, so what it gives you is the frame the drawing was made on. Open the note in the room to see the circle around the lower third, then cut to the marker in Resolve.
Do I need a paid plan for this?
The review room is available on every plan, including the free Starter plan, which carries 5 GB of storage and one film at a time. Paid plans buy storage, not review features.
Send one link, get one round of markers
The review room is on every plan, including the free one. Share a link, let the client leave timecoded notes on the frame, then run the script and work down the ruler.