Video Start Time

So it is my understanding that in Sonar X3 (I'm still relatively new to the X series... I only upgraded from 8.5 right to X3 a few months ago) that you can no longer change the start time of a video file. Something to do with the video engine. In the help file it says you can edit the initialize file to change the video engine, but that doesn't seem to really do anything anyway.
 
SO, is there any way to before hand choose what bar a video gets loaded to when first importing a video or is it 0:00 and that's the only option for now until a fix is made?

Ugh. so basically no go is what I'm reading in that thread. My friend says he can move videos though... I'm wondering if certain formats work and certain don't... I don't know.

Haha I bought vegas too. I actually got a retail box copy for like $5 at a garage sale and luckily they hadn't registered so I was able to upgrade to the newest version for the cheap upgrade price... And yea that's always an option, it's just to move the video to start a few seconds in, that's SUCH a hassle haha. Open in Vegas, move it, render a new video. Ugh. But it is what it is I guess... for now my work around is gonna be to just get the music 100% done except for the little opening, save a new version and then just ignore the video and  work with just the music to build my opening notes that were supposed to come in before the video starts. Can't wait for X4 :-)
 
EDIT: I should mention that the reason I bought Vegas wasn't for this issue, it was for the lack of video format support in Sonar 8.5... I was constantly having to convert videos people sent me since you never get avi's or wmv's from clients.

yep. loading in an mp4 video file. the start time option is grayed out. in help it pretty much straight up says you can't move the start time without changing the video engine with the text file edit, but even after doing that i still can't... and i see people saying that if you do that and get it to work, it makes Sonar very unstable.

I think you're misunderstanding... Everything you just stated is a total roundabout way of doing things... I'm not trying to do this in Vegas, I'm trying to just start the video a few seconds in in SONAR, so I can compose a little bit before the video starts... I don't even need to render any videos.... I'm only going to be exporting audio.
 
If the client says "Can you make it so there's about 3 seconds of music before the picture appears" ... I can't do that without taking his video he sent me and going to Vegas, adding some blank space at the beginning and sit there waiting for it to export. I should be able to just drag the video in Sonar a few bars to the right.

I happen to use Adobe Premiere elements but I do understand this is the Sony Vegas forums :) :)

Cheers...

to Jimbo: If it was me I'd always leave some blank space at the beginning just in case, but these are paying clients. I don't want to bother them with that or accuse them of doing something wrong here, you know what I mean. And I'm just trying to save myself some time from having to fix it.
 
to Scook: Yea I tried that. I did exactly as it said and the option didn't un-gray. And I've read tons of comments from people that said changing to the DirectShow engine made Sonar more unstable for them. Also, I'm assuming there's a reason for using the new Media Foundation Engine by default... It must be better at everything else... except this haha.

Yea that's what I was wondering up above, maybe it works but only for certain video formats... In this particular project I was given an mp4, but of course every format seems to have a million possible options for how they were exported, and any number of those things could be making this mp4 not have the ability to be moved. It's just a shame... The video format support was so amazingly increased in Sonar X3(d i think it was), yet it's 2 steps forward 1 step back with now not being able to do something as simple as move the video around.
 
The funny thing is I won't even be exporting the video with my composition. I just export a wav at the end of the project and let them import it into their premire/finalcut project. So I seriously just need the video to not play at 0:00 and that's it. Seems so simple.
 
So for now I guess my only real option unless I want to load up Vegas/Premiere and create a new version of the video which will take forever with rendering time, is to just compose the score as perfectly as possible, then just remove the video altogether, move my composition back a few bars and compose an intro blindly.

polarbear
to Jimbo: If it was me I'd always leave some blank space at the beginning just in case, but these are paying clients. I don't want to bother them with that or accuse them of doing something wrong here, you know what I mean. And I'm just trying to save myself some time from having to fix it.
 

 
 
Correct...I never bother my clients or accuse them or have them do anything out of the ordinary.  I just say "get me your video"...whatever/however they are working.  I take their video and prepare it in Vegas.  I let Vegas handle any video issues.  It saves Tons of time. Sometimes there is blank space at the beginning, sometimes not,  rarely ever the same.  So I make sure there is exactly :10 before music starts and I have my streamers for Sonar.  I stay in close contact with the mixers or editors on the project.  I usually use a "2 beep" for sync.  If I'm working with an inexperienced mixer or video editor, I could drop my music back into the original Vegas file and make sure it matches the size of the original pic file.  i can send them a wav file or a high quality Quicktime file (for visual reference if needed)  with just music.  Usually I'm sending stems to be mixed in Protools.  An OMF file will be timestamped and drop my stems right into the proper place on the timeline.  Quick and easy....The 10-15 minutes i spend in Vegas ends up saving way more time and preventing many headaches.