AshIf you intend to use Sonar only for the video playback, then you could consider using a video player VST plugin instead. There’s a couple of links here (I haven’t tried these myself):
http://www.zynewave.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1397
I am already familiar with video-playing VST plugins, as I have tried to use them with Renoise. All of them have one fatal flaw – the video doesn’t sync when moving forwards or backwards through a piece of music, so finding the exact moment when a spot effect has to happen takes orders of magnitude longer than it should. (The original poster of that thread acknowledges this issue also.)
The main reason I will use SONAR for video playback is precisely because it maintains perfect sync with the video while moving through a piece of music, even when acting as a slave to MTC sync, providing SPP is supported by the MTC master. In this case, Podium does the job!
I can’t remember if this was implemented after Podium 1.77, but it is possible to simultaneously display bars/beats and HMS in the timeline ruler. Is it important to have the frame numbers as well?
This is important, though I can see where you’re coming from.
Having frame numbers would mean that I can tie effects to a certain frame, and even though the resolution of Podium is greater (1/100 of a second compared to 1/24 or 1/30 of a second), I would then need to make a calculation for every sound effect, in order to convert the frame position of the effect into 1/100s of a second to fit them into Podium properly.
Since SMPTE resolution is less than the 1/100 of a second Podium uses, one frame can be the difference between a door almost closing, and actually being closed. Syncing an effect to a frame, rather than 1/100s of a second mean that there would be less margin for error in getting the timing of an effect right. If we have a three-frame movie (with an FPS of 24, for the sake of argument) and there’s a door slam in frame 2, that gives us only 1 frame where the effect has to take place. If we set the position of the effect by frame, that will mean that there’s only one place to put the effect, on frame 2. Timing by 1/100 of a second in this case would mean that we have (100/24) = 4.166666666… hundredths of a second per frame. That means that there’s four possible places to put the sound effect now, instead of just one. Having a time display with frames would greatly simplify the timing process in this instance.
A couple of years back, a customer who bought a film (whose title I forget) noticed that the soundtrack in the DVD master was three frames out of sync. It was really that noticeable. Millions of copies of the film had to be recalled in order for the soundtrack to be fixed.
Also, since SMPTE time is a standardised format, conversation about timing with others who are working on the film will be taking place purely in this standardised format. In order to communicate with others, I would need to make yet another calculation to turn 1/100 seconds back into frame numbers to be able to let others know what I’m doing.
All these calculations can end up being time-consuming, and there is also the possibility of mathematical errors (mainly associated with rounding numbers) that could potentially throw a soundtrack out of sync with a film.
I know Podium was not intended for film scoring in the first instance, but I really do think it would be nice to see Podium being used for this application more in future, as it grows and evolves. The speed of prototyping musical ideas with Podium is an essential requirement for composers who are hard-pushed for time! The arrangement feature is very nice for composers too, since in a lot of cases, several different versions of a cue may have to be created for different situations. With the arrangement feature, these can all be neatly contained in a single project folder, along with sound effects and anything else that’s required.
Obviously, things will be improved little by little, as Podium gradually becomes what its users always imagined its potential would be, but until then, I will keep working around any issues I find.
I hope you do not mind me issuing these kinds of feature requests that deviate from what might be intended for Podium. I know they stray from Podium’s original purpose, but I just want to do my part in seeing Podium eventually become a real audio power tool for all types of musician.
Ash