Video Format Woes

Also, have now tried several of the available codec's for WMV's, and essentially the same results each time.  Also, Movie Maker now feels the need to process the input - which it never did before?
 
Again, any hits much appreciated.
 

Sony's movie thing is a totally un-intuitive piece of junk, as far as I can tell.    I suppose I could spend a few days with the manual, but it's absolutely unusable without a lot of doc reading - which is why I love Movie Maker - never read a doc one on Movie Maker, and was making movies in 30 seconds after the first time I opened it.    And of course, I have a deadline for the video which I was never in a million years expecting to be un-useable in the new version of Sonar when I used to be able to make these fine (after I learned a bunch of things that didn't work) in the old version of Sonar.
 
 

I really honestly do appreciate your feedback, and please don't take anything I'm about to say as anything otherwise.   But, I have several problems with that idea.
 
1)  Practical problem: I have no idea how to use Sony's Movie Maker thingy, and it's not intuitive enough to just fake my way through like I do with Microsoft Movie Maker.      I spent better part of an hour with it tonight, got nothing useful done other than to trim the start/end of the video I exported from Cakewalk.    I found the whole experience of trying to muddle my way through it really (really) frustrating, and I am not really keen to give Sony money for that mess (I just have the trial version I downloaded to try with it).
 
So, at this point, I am pretty confident, that doing it with Sony's stuff is a "hey, go read a book and spend a day or two putzing with it till you know what you're doing" kind of proposition (at least it is for me, maybe smarter folks than I find it easy).    That's what I was/am trying to avoid.
 
2) Then there's the non-practical problem.   Are you telling me that really really, Sonar Platinum, the most expensive version of any software that Cakewalk makes, is broken so as to be incapable of exporting a video (when previous versions exported video just fine)?   I mean, at this point, I'm not disagreeing with you, because practical experience is saying "yes, it really is", but if that's the case, That would be just .... wow... so 'just wow' I still think surely I am just doing something wrong here (though I have worked my way through most of the codec's available in the Cakewalk export dialog, and 0 joy, and also all the MP4 based exports just die with an error (but it was a MP4 video I imported, wat?).
 
Anyway, maybe AnyVideoConverter can save the day tomorrow when I get back at this or something.   I am hoping so, because between the day job and other responsibilities, I've only got another 2 or 3 hours tops I can put into this till next week.   :(
 
Anyway... 
 

Platinum has had significant video updates. While I know you hate to read manuals perhaps it's time to read up on those changes and how they work.

I found Vegas about as simple as a piece of software can be for straight video editing, etc.
 
If you have no problems with the old SONAR, use that for your videos.  Make a feature request or bug report so Cakewalk will know of your problem and see if they have an answer for your problem.

Also, to be clear, the Sony trial version I have is called Sony Movie Studio Platinum, and as noted earlier, it also fails to work with the exported video from Cakewalk (though it does better than MS Movie Maker), and it fails at making sense to me as to how I would do what I want to do with it.   I am not a media software genius by any means, but I have been around enough various platforms over the years to know intuitive UI when I see it, and the Sony stuff is not it.

No clue what's going on here, maybe this is a WMV Windows library bug or something.   I got the Sony Movie Studio thing to sync the audio and video, and it will export a WMV that I can play in Media Player, but not in Movie Maker.  It won't work with the video exported from Cakewalk.    Soooo weird... no idea what's up here.
 
Anyway... no idea if it's all Cakewalk's fault or not anymore.

I don't take any offense to any of that man, I didn't see you say anything that was an insult to me in any way.  
 
But, to respond to your devil's advocacy:
 
1) I can not, using any of the available codec's or other options, export a video that I can use with any other video platform at my disposal (anyvideoconverter even hates it).   I have tried all of the file formats and codec's available in the export dialog box.   Also, all but one of the output file formats I can select crashes and burns with an error message saying disk may be full (there's actually 1.2 ish terabytes free) or maybe some other problem it doesn't name.   That's Cakewalk fail, there is no two ways about it.  It happens with both the old and the new video engine.   The only other argument that could be made is that it's codec fail, but come on - Sony's Movie Maker works, Movie Maker works, Media Player works,  and they should in theory be using the same MS supplied CODEC/underlying file format framework.
 
2) I am not in any way trying to use Sonar as a video editing platform.  I am trying to use it as it was designed, which is something I can pull a video into, edit/add audio related to that video, and export the results.   Nothing ever happens to the video itself other than 1's and 0's in and 1's and 0's out; no 'editing' ever happens.    If it wasn't designed for that exact purpose, it would be one thing, but it has all the software UI and documented features that says it should do what I am trying to do.
 
3) Having choices doesn't bother me at all.  It could have 1000 choices of CODEC's and formats, and I'd not have a single complaint.  Having choices, none of which work in a functional sense (ie: they don't function), this is what pisses me off a lot.     There is no reason why Sonar, doing video in the context it was designed to do, which is to say 'it should play it and export it along with the audio, nothing else', should not be able to get me a working video if I just clicked  'export video' and left all the options at default.   There should be (and are) some advanced options wherein I can select encoding/codec options and other useful things about how I want it exported; but touching any of those should not be necessary (and as discussed, I can touch them all I want, it still won't export a video that works).
 
That's my $0.02 - seriously, let me know if and how you think I'm wrong about it - I will take no offense.
 
Cheers!
 

It sounds like you're somewhat of a casual video user, which is fine, but working in the video world can get complicated fast. I use SONAR's new audio engine without issues, but remember when you export and click on the Encoding Options button, there are four different video codecs, four audio codecs, and too many audio formats to count...along with height, width, and bitrate parameters. That's your basic "combination lock" and all the tumblers need to be in place for the export to work in your target.
 
I just finished five videos with the soundtrack and narration done in SONAR, and the videos in Vegas. I do as others suggest here - bring a copy of the video into SONAR (I use a compressed WMV so it doesn't stress out SONAR), do the audio, export the audio, then bring it into Vegas. I can then export from Vegas in a zillion different formats, which I often need to do.
 
But, you found something that works for you, and that's great. The main reason I'm writing this is to warn fellow travelers that working with video can make your head explode if you're not careful...and sometimes, even if you are .

A differentiator here is that Windows Movie Maker does a lot of backend work to accommodate a novice. As you get higher up the food chain that should be even more refined, but most rely on the user knowing good from bad and make them choose (and inundate them with choices).

Premiere Pro is the same, the user needs to navigate a rat's nest to export (and sometimes just edit).

pwalpwal
maybe some video export templates, designed and tested for standard formats, should be provided?

 
SONAR doesn't have a way to store video export templates. That would be a useful feature request, although despite Vegas offering templates, 90% of the time I have to customize them anyway...