X1c: Was hoping for a video upgrade

Still hitting on the same nail I guess. When will Cakewalk adress Sonar's poor video interface. Oh well, guess I'll have to continue working with another daw program till that day comes....

Of all the major DAWs I have used Sonar has the worst video support around.

I do use Vegas Pro for my video needs and it works great but it would be really nice to have some better video implementation in X1. For one thing the thumbnails don't do a good job of showing when scrolling. Makes their use a bit useless.

Then X1 is very limited as to what sort of video it will import. I have had to use AVI only for the most part.

Outside those things I don't expect X1 to be a video editor but a few additions would go a long way in making it a lot more video friendly. 

I agree with you there John. But IMO anyway, the video functionality is no show stopper for me. Just curious about what the OP meant with poor interface.

On th eother hand, I'm very happy that the video can't be edited in anyway in Sonar. Like you say, Vegas is more than adeqate for that and I love Vegas. But I'm happy the bakers put developement time into what matters rather than video. As long as it plays back video, I say it's doing what it's supposed to;)

File support and offseting etc would be nice. And I'm not sure, but can Sonar play back video through a FW connection, HDMI, S-Video or something like that? I always use the floating window but it would be nice to have it on a dedicated video playback monitor with a top notch connection.

either way, it wtill works

"Not with X1. It wont use just any codec. I wish it did."


Hopefully humans will use some knowledge of codecs to outsmart the situation.

I don't know of any application that can work with just any codec.


For example; When you said  "AVI" earlier... my first thought was "what codec"

If some one had mentioned ".mov" ... my first thought would be "what codec"

I have to ask this question very frequently.

I find it awkward because, typically, the answer will be something like mp4 or h.264... and then I have to ask again "what codec" because those are "definitions" or "standards" that encompass a family of specific codecs.

Sometimes, if I know what video edit system the person uses I can contextualize their statement and understand, for example, that when they say h.264 that they mean Apple's QuickTime version of h.264... the one that spits out of Final Cut Pro.

When people start speaking about and considering actual codecs it is easy to describe a solution. When people mistake a "definition" like mp4 ( or a wrapper like .avi or .mov ) for a "codec" it creates confusion when compatibility issues are discussed.

I have found that many people can successfully employ codecs and process conversions within their familiar workflow without having much or even any knowledge of codecs. Often times the misunderstanding only creates confusion when the video is being shared with other facilities that have their own successful yet not fully understood workflows.


Once codecs are differentiated from wrappers, definitions, and standards then it becomes pretty easy to decide when and where to use what codec.

After that it is simply a matter of executing the plan.


best regards,
mike

Well the point I'm am attempting to make is that once you understand codecs then it's much easier to understand that there are limitations such as you just described.


Then you can focus on converting to a codec that will work... and more importantly will work smoothly.



I don't have knowledge of the good reasons why the circumstance is the way it is. For Example; WMP couldn't play Apple h.264 and now I think it can. etc.

I think many times it is a licensing issue.

You can usually find some vid player app that ignores and hacks licensing issues... but the big companies can't do that.


In any event, a familiarity with codecs will allow one an opportunity to create solutions.

When people were complaining about not getting to playback Apple h.264 within SONAR it made me wonder why anyone would want to do so.

If you understand the h.264 family of codecs you know they are very aggressive capture and delivery codecs that do not lend themselves to editing because they monopolize the cpu.

It's not ideal.

Ideally, you'll convert to a codec that runs very smoothly and leaves you lots of cpu to make music with.



best regards,
mike

mike_mccue

John


What good is any of that when Sonar only understands what Windows offers to it. If you know of a way for Sonar to use other non Windows codecs please tell us. All my codec are 64 bits.  I use WMP and VLC to play all sorts of vid types.  Sonar has access to the same codecs but can't use them or at least I know of no way to get Sonar to use them. Same is true of Vegas it can only use what it knows.

Can you load a flash vid in Sonar? I can't.

Can we edit an .ogg, .mp3 .aiff .swf or any of the dozens of audio codesc that are not pcm .wav files in SONAR?

Doesn't it all get converted to the .wav CODEC before we start?


Honestly, I may have missed something, like direct mp3 editing, so I am actually asking... but I think the point I am trying to make is clear.


best regards,
mike

You're right on this but Sonar does not convert video at all. At least not on loading. If its not an approved type it wont load. And it has very few approved types. LOL

Eric Beam


Might helpout some.
http://rhythminmind.net/1313/?p=1892

That's a pretty good overview, but I do have a quibble with it with respect to Sonar.  The problem is that Windows 7 is relying on Media Foundation for most of its video file duties, whereas Sonar relies on Direct Show for its video file duties.

So while Win 7 can show thumbnails and play various files through Windows Media Player using various modern codecs (mpeg2, h264, etc... I'll not go into files vs codecs vs variants here since it's been covered elsewhere in the thread...) Sonar can't deal with those same files since Win 7 is using Media Foundation to accomplish it, and Win 7 doesn't have Direct Show codecs for those which Sonar needs.

It used to be (the XP days and before?) that if you could play it in Windows Media Player, Sonar could play it as well. That's not the case anymore. The codec choices out of the box for Windows 7 and Sonar are severely limited.

While I agree that AVI is a dead container format, it is still the best-performing container in Sonar given the right codec. And by best-performing, I mainly mean scrubability, transport responsiveness, and overall system hit wrt cpu and disk. (others might have different metrics) Sadly, Sonar works best with a dead container (AVI) containing a dead codec (MJPEG).