Resolve Telemetry Overlay user guide

01Requirements and installation

Requires DaVinci Resolve 18.6.6 or later (Free or Studio), macOS 12 or later, and an Apple Silicon Mac.

1. Get the DMG from the download page and open it.
2. Quit DaVinci Resolve completely.
3. Drag "Resolve Telemetry Overlay Activator" into "Applications".
4. Open the Activator, click "Install plugin", and enter your Mac administrator password.
5. In the same window, paste the license key from your purchase email and click "Activate this Mac".
6. Restart Resolve. You can confirm the plugin loaded under Preferences > Video Plugins.

02Activation and license management

The Activator doubles as the plugin and license manager: activate this Mac, check status, deactivate this Mac, and reset. With any telemetry generator selected on the timeline, the "Open License Manager…" button in the Inspector opens it directly.

• One license activates up to 2 Macs you own at the same time.
• Each successful online refresh grants a 5-day lease plus a 5-day grace period — up to 10 consecutive days offline.
• Restart Resolve after installing, uninstalling, activating, or deactivating.
• Switching Macs: deactivate on the old device first, then activate on the new one. If the old device is unavailable, verify your purchase email on the license reset page.
• When the license is inactive or expired, generators draw an activation notice instead of telemetry.

03First use: put a gauge on the timeline

1. On the Edit page, place your footage on V1 and add a V2 track.
2. Open Effects Library > OpenFX > Generators: the Telemetry group holds the combined Resolve Telemetry Overlay; Telemetry > Gauges holds the eleven standalone gauges. Drag what you need onto V2 (or any higher track).
3. Select the generator clip, click "Choose FIT File…" in the Inspector, and pick a local .fit file. When Status shows Ready: 1234.5 s (the detected activity duration), you're set.
4. Play the timeline and the values follow the FIT data. Multiple gauges can point at the same FIT file — it is parsed only once.

No frame-rate setup needed: rendering follows the active timeline frame rate automatically, even if you change it later.

04Time alignment: Activity Clip Start

The Hours / Minutes / Seconds / Milliseconds under "Activity Clip Start" define which instant of the activity appears at the clip's first frame. Set 00:01:02.500 and the first frame shows second 62.5 of the activity.

• Editing works like regular footage: moving the whole clip never changes the mapping; trimming the left in-point advances the instant shown at the first frame; the right out-point only decides where the layer ends.
• Alignment tip: find a recognizable moment in the video (the start, a bridge), work out its time in the activity, and enter it.
• When the playhead falls outside the activity's duration, the gauge renders fully transparent.

05The eleven standalone gauges

Pace, Speed, Cadence, Power, Calories, Activity Time, Clock Time, Distance, Distance Progress, Route (GPS track), and Weather. Each is an independent transparent generator — use only what you need.

• Position, scale, rotation, and keyframes are controlled with Resolve's native Transform (Inspector > Video > Transform); the plugin does not duplicate them.
• If the FIT lacks a field (e.g. Power with no power meter), that gauge renders fully transparent instead of showing an error.
• Clock Time adds "Clock Format" (24-hour / 12-hour) and displays in this Mac's system time zone.
• Distance Progress adds Length / Track Color / Line Width / Knob Size and shows current distance against the activity's total distance.
• Route adds Completed Color / Remaining Color / Line Width / Marker Size. The track is drawn to scale, the completed portion is highlighted, and the marker follows the playhead. Route has no text parameters.

06Styling: Content / Typography / Appearance

Content

• Units: metric / imperial, available on Pace, Speed, Distance, Distance Progress, Cadence, Power, and Calories only.
• Label Text / Unit Text override the default copy; Show Label / Show Unit toggle visibility.

Typography

• Label, Value, and Unit each get their own Size (0.5–4×), Font (Helvetica Neue, Avenir Next, Menlo, Arial), and Weight (Regular / Medium / Bold).

Appearance

• Text Alignment (left / center / right); separate Value / Label / Unit colors.
• Panel: Show Panel, Panel Color, Panel Opacity, Corner Radius, Padding.
• Border and accent line: Show Border, Border Color, Border Width, Show Accent Line, Accent Line Width.
• Opacity controls the whole gauge. Color and numeric parameters support Resolve keyframes.

07The combined overlay: a full dashboard in one generator

Resolve Telemetry Overlay bundles 8 components: Top Progress (distance progress bar), Route, Pace, Heart Rate, Cadence, Calories, Weather, and Time & Date. The default layout: progress across the top, route top-left, PACE / HR / CAD / CAL tiles bottom-left, weather and time & date bottom-right.

• Each component has a collapsible group: Enabled, Position (0–1 relative frame coordinates), Scale, Opacity, plus the same text, font, color, and panel parameters as the standalone gauges.
• Global parameters: Global Opacity and Units apply to every component.
• Top Progress adds Length, Track Color, Line Width, and Knob Size.
• Heart Rate currently exists only inside the combined overlay; standalone Power, Distance, Activity Time, and Clock Time are not part of it — the two can be stacked freely.

08Layout presets (.rtolayout)

• "Save Layout…" stores the layout and styling of all components as an .rtolayout file; "Load Layout…" restores it.
• "Set Current as Default" makes the current layout this Mac's default: after restarting Resolve, newly added combined overlays use it; existing instances are untouched.
• FIT file paths and the OpenWeather API key are never written into layout files, so they are safe to share.
• Layout files are tied to the plugin's parameter version; loading a mismatched file shows a clear error.

09Weather overlay (OpenWeather)

1. Bring your own OpenWeather API key with One Call ("One Call by Call") access; the account, usage, and any charges are not included in this product.
2. Enter the key in the Weather gauge or the combined overlay's Weather group. It is saved for the current macOS user, shared by all Weather instances, and pre-filled in new ones.
3. After selecting a FIT with GPS and timestamps, historical weather for the activity window loads automatically; "Refresh Weather" forces an update.
4. Temperature and humidity follow the activity instant under the playhead; the Temperature / Detail override fields let you set the text manually.

Privacy note: with weather enabled, the plugin sends the latitude, longitude, and activity time extracted from FIT plus your API key to OpenWeather. Everything else runs entirely locally.

10Exporting

• Overlay on top of footage: export from the Deliver page as usual — nothing special required.
• Transparent telemetry layer only (for compositing elsewhere): disable the video track, then use Format QuickTime, Codec Apple ProRes 4444, Export Alpha enabled, and premultiplied alpha.

11Status messages and troubleshooting

12Uninstalling

Open the Activator and click "Uninstall plugin". The Activator itself stays for easy reinstallation or deactivation; if you are leaving this Mac for good, deactivate first to free up the device slot.