Companion App

The Companion App is where your markers meet your footage. It runs on your Mac or PC, connects to your editing software, and turns your marked session into a ready-to-edit project - with one click.

No more importing footage, building timelines, and manually placing markers. The Companion does it all.

How It Works

1. Sessions sync automatically from your iPhone via your Marker account
2. Footage is found automatically by scanning your computer for matching video files
3. Press Play - your editing software opens with everything in place

The Interface

The Companion App has a clean two-panel layout:

• Sidebar (left) - Lists all your sessions, newest first. Shows session name, date, marker count, and matched footage status.
• Session Panel (right) - Opens when you click a session. Shows all markers with colors, names, notes, and timecodes. Displays matched footage files.

Pressing Play

The Play button is the core action. What happens depends on your editing software:

DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve Studio - True one-click import. Press Play and your project is created, footage is imported, timelines are built, and markers are placed - all automatically.

You can choose in Settings whether Play creates a new project or adds timelines to your currently open project.

DaVinci Resolve Free - One extra step required. Press Play, then in Resolve go to Workspace > Scripts > Allow Marker Companion Import to trigger the import.

Premiere Pro

Press Play and your project opens in Premiere Pro. Your footage is on the timeline with markers at the correct positions.

You can choose whether markers appear on clips or on the sequence timeline in Settings.

Final Cut Pro

Press Play and your project opens in Final Cut Pro. You can choose between two marker display modes in Settings:

• Subtitles (default) - Markers appear as subtitle/caption text in the viewer, making them visible during playback
• Native markers - Markers appear as standard FCP markers on clips

Final Cut Pro uses four purple-toned marker styles (Enchanted, Lavender, Midnights, Lilac) since FCP doesn't support the full color range of DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro.

Automatic Footage Matching

The Companion automatically finds your video files on your computer. It works intelligently and gets smarter over time - learning your project structure and prioritizing directories where your footage has been found before.

Make sure your footage is on your computer or your external drives are connected. The Companion handles the rest.

Custom Footage Folders

For the fastest matching, add the folders where you typically store your footage in Settings. The Companion always checks these first.

Manual Footage Import

If automatic matching doesn't find your files:

• Drag a folder onto the sidebar to scan it for videos
• Drag video files directly onto the sidebar

The Companion matches them to your sessions automatically.

Editing Markers in the Companion

You don't have to go back to your iPhone to fix a typo or add a missing marker. The Companion lets you edit everything:

• Change marker colors - Click the color dot to pick a new color
• Edit names and notes - Click the name or note field to edit inline
• Delete markers - Remove markers you don't need
• Add markers - Add new markers at specific timecodes

Edits to cloud-synced sessions sync back to your iPhone. Edits to locally imported (.marker file) sessions are saved locally.

Converting Between Editing Softwares

Click the software badge in the session header (e.g., "DaVinci Resolve") to convert the session to a different editing software. Marker colors are automatically remapped to the closest available colors in the target software.

Useful when:

• Your cinematographer marks in DaVinci Resolve but your editor uses Premiere Pro
• You want to try the same edit in a different software
• A collaborator uses a different editor than you

Session Settings

Each session has configurable settings in the header area:

• Framerate - Auto-detected from footage, manually overridable
• Resolution - Auto-detected, manually overridable
• Drop Frame - Toggle drop frame timecode for NTSC framerates

The 3-Dot Menu

Each session has a menu with additional options:

• Share - Export as .marker file or as a project file for any editing software
• Reset - Restore the session to its original imported state (only for imported sessions)
• Delete - Remove the session with confirmation

Importing .marker Files

For sessions shared by collaborators or exported from the iPhone:

1. Drag the .marker file onto the sidebar
2. Or click Browse and select the file
3. The session appears in the sidebar and footage matching begins automatically

Re-importing a .marker file with the same session ID updates the existing session rather than creating a duplicate.

App Settings

Open Settings from the app menu or sidebar.

General

• Default Resolution - Applied to new sessions (default: 3840x2160)
• Default Framerate - Applied to new sessions (default: 25 fps)
• Default Drop Frame - Toggle for NTSC rates
• File Naming - Use session name or full formatted filename for exports

Footage Folders

Add custom folders where you store your footage. These are searched first during automatic matching, making discovery faster.

Per-Software Settings

DaVinci Resolve:

• Studio or Free mode (auto-detected)
• New Project or Current Project
• Remove gaps between clips
• Markers on clips or timeline

Premiere Pro:

• Remove gaps between clips
• Markers on clips or sequence

Final Cut Pro:

• Remove gaps between clips
• Subtitles or native markers

Sync & Discovery

• Suppress session sync - Stop auto-syncing sessions from your iPhone
• Suppress auto-discovery - Stop automatic footage scanning
• Suppress slow discovery - Only search local folders and previously learned paths

Session Cleanup

• Auto-cleanup period - Automatically remove old sessions after 30 days, 90 days, 180 days, or 1 year
• Delete empty sessions - Remove sessions that never had footage matched

Legacy Mode

If you want to use the old app behaviour without the Companion App and without, in the iOS App go to Advanced and enable Legacy Export. This disables features like timelines, auto matching footage, auto creating projects and more.

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