First off, let me tell you that whoever is reading this Sonar x2 is so infuriating to get working, its to the point of inferior.  Who sends these products out with all these bugs, and why can't I find tutorials for specific questions I have?  Come on cakewalk, your tutorials are so general!!!  Im a composer, and I just had an 1 hour and half movie to score, and I had nothing but crashes! I have a 6 core processor, 4 hard drives in a raid, memory is not a problem.  When I import the video it gets unworkably slow and freezes all the time.  I can't add eq, I can't add tracks, nothing because its constantly crashing.  I tried a test with a 1 minute video I had, same thing.  I tried disabling my antivirus to free memory, same thing!  I have clients that are expecting due dates for these things, and have been a loyal customer since cakewalk pro audio 9.  But come on, at least make sonar useable for composers that do films and score movies and work with large video files, not just people that put loops together for a 3 minute song.  

i have not used Sonar for video work however, i believe this may have something to do with the formats going into Sonar. The thing to note is that Sonar is not a native video editor.

first thing to note is the format going into Sonar:
1.     use and external video encoder to export your video to either NTSC or PAL 
2.     during the export set the formats to the following:
     a.     NTSC - DV 720 x 480 (frame rate 29.97)

     b.     PAL - DV 720 x 576 (frame rate 25)

3.     depending on the aspect ratios; set them accordingly to either letterbox or widescreen
4.     ensure the audio output is the same as what you would set in Sonar for new projects (very impt)
     a.     if your Sonar is set at 48kHz 24 bit - do the same for the audio settings for the video export

5.     save the particular video format as AVI - well because Sonar only reads AVI
6.     when done, you should have a single AVI file in your Explorer Browser
7.     open up Sonar - create a new project
8.     before importing in anything goto Preferences to set the playback frame rate to sync with your video file.
9.     all should be well


hope it helps...

You can't edit video in Sonar, only audio. 

Do you have the latest update, i.e., X2A?

What soundcard? Are you using 64 bit Sonar and 64 bit Windows? If its crashing, its probably either your soundcard drivers or an issue with your computer. X2 rarely crashes on my computer. 

Without video imported you don't have these issues?  
Keyzs seems to know what he's talking about.
If these problems only occur when there is video present, I'd follow his suggestions carefully and report back.

I've worked with video quite a bit using Sonar and if you follow Keyzs post I don't think you will go far wrong. Sonar likes avi and has issues with other formats. Also exporting can be a right royal pain especially if you need it compressing for upload to something like youtube, that is where windows movie maker comes in. Once you have exported the video from Sonar Import it into windows movie maker and export it using the Youtube setting.

Good luck 

i like working with wmv in sonar, yeah Keyz has nailed it, you got to make sure its the right format PAL or NTSC

Bear in mind that AVI is not a video codec; it's a container format, and Sonar will still get upset with some codecs within AVI.

mgrisan1


First off, let me tell you that whoever is reading this Sonar x2 is so infuriating to get working, its to the point of inferior.  Who sends these products out with all these bugs, and why can't I find tutorials for specific questions I have?  Come on cakewalk, your tutorials are so general!!!  Im a composer, and I just had an 1 hour and half movie to score, and I had nothing but crashes! I have a 6 core processor, 4 hard drives in a raid, memory is not a problem.  When I import the video it gets unworkably slow and freezes all the time.  I can't add eq, I can't add tracks, nothing because its constantly crashing.  I tried a test with a 1 minute video I had, same thing.  I tried disabling my antivirus to free memory, same thing!  I have clients that are expecting due dates for these things, and have been a loyal customer since cakewalk pro audio 9.  But come on, at least make sonar useable for composers that do films and score movies and work with large video files, not just people that put loops together for a 3 minute song.  

i've scored hundreds of hours of picture in Sonar.  TV shows, Films, Commercials, industrial videos.  I just completed 10 hour long shows for a cable series.  No crashes with a computer not as powerful.   i think you are not using the correct type of picture format.
 

I'm a sound designer and have no issues at all.

Basically dude, check your codecs.

I just completed 10 hour long shows for a cable series.

What series? I'd like to hear your work.