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?

similar thread http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3042373

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.

After numerous video foibles (this being one) I finally caved and got Vegas Pro. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it since it took me a while to get along with it and it's not a negligible investment, but as far as I've personally seen, video is pretty much a dead end in Sonar. I don't know how urgently you need it, but possibly you could wait for X4 and see if there are any improvements. Apparently Cake made a point of the improved video engine in X3, so hopefully they're committed to developing it further.

EDIT:
Also, I think only one of the two video engines allows editing the start time (DirectShow?). I can't remember exactly as it wasn't a fix for me, but you may have some luck switching.

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.

You are running X3E I assume...

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.

To fix start time just drag your video to the right in Vegas, leaving the desired head room at the front.
Render everything including the front empty part and import into Sonar.
Simple as pie.
 
In Sonar.
Create your audio. Export the final mix. (audio only 48/24bit)
Add that to an audio track in Vegas.

Drop markers in Vegas at the beginning of what you want to render and at the end of what you want to render.
Select from marker to marker and render looped area only.
Make sure your frame rates are set the same in both programs.

It couldn't be easier.

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.

Yea. I get that. But if you want to get it done then Vegas is the only way to do it.