# Getting Started (Desktop)

**Tin Man** is an elegant video playback and export application, designed with a customizable interface featuring resizable and dockable windows. This flexibility allows you to tailor the workspace to best fit your post-production workflow.

**Playback**

To import media files for playback:

* Click the **File Import** icon in the **File List** window
* Or choose **Import Files** from the **File** menu
* Or simply **drag and drop** media files directly from your operating system into either the **File List** or **Playback Viewer** windows

Once imported, click on a file in the **File List** to load it into the **Player Window**, where you can use the playback controls to play, scrub, or seek to a specific frame. A thumbnail scrub bar beneath the player lets you visually scrub through clips for quicker navigation and review. To enable or disable it, right-click the standard scrub bar and select the option from the context menu.

#### Additional Playback Tools:

* **Video Image** window: Adjust **video source properties**, set the **color space**, and configure **monitor settings**.
* **Metadata Windows**:
  * **NRT (Non-Real-Time)**: Displays static metadata that doesn’t change over time
  * **RT (Real-Time)**: Displays timecode-based metadata that updates during playback
  * **Inspect**: Shows key metadata in a concise, easy-to-read format. Also allows editing of supported metadata fields.
* **Audio Mapping** window: Route individual audio channels to different speakers and adjust their volumes independently.
* **Video Analyze** window:
  * Enable **gamut warnings**
  * View individual **RGB channels**
  * Toggle **action/safe title overlays**
  * Use the **pixel color picker** to inspect precise values
* **Video Scopes** and **Audio Meters**: Monitor video signal and audio levels in real-time.
* **Issues** window: Displays any problems encountered during import, playback, or export.

**Export**

To add files to the export queue:

* Click the **File Import** icon in the **Export** window
* Or right-click a file in the **File List** or **Player Controls** and select **Add to Export Queue**
* Or drag and drop media files directly into the **Export** window

> **Note:** Once a file is in the export queue, its source properties cannot be changed until it is removed from the queue.

**Reports**

Tin Man can generate detailed reports for your imported media in multiple formats:

* PDF and HTML: Styled, self-contained reports with support for dark and light modes. HTML reports embed all CSS and images in a single file for easy sharing.
* CSV and XLSX: Tabular reports for spreadsheet workflows.
* JSON (Pro, Server): Structured reports with embedded base64 thumbnails and summary data, viewable in the included Tin Man JSON Report Viewer.

Two report types are available:

* Clip/Camera Reports: Metadata summaries for imported media files.
* Marker Reports: Include marker metadata with optional thumbnails and annotations composited into the output.

**Tips**

* Use **Reset Panels** from the **Main Application** menu to restore all dockable windows to their default layout.
* Many controls have additional options available via **right-click** context menus.
* On **Windows**, the **first launch** (or first launch after an update with RAW support changes) may take longer due to compilation of OpenCL GPU programs.
  * **AMD GPUs** may take over **5 minutes** for this initial setup.
  * Once compiled, future launches will be significantly faster.


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