User manual

442
Video
Advantage of thumbnail cache files
Ö To display video thumbnails in the Project window, the
option “Show Video Thumbnails” has to be activated in
the Preferences dialog (Event Display–Video page).
When working with video in Cubase, video files are dis-
played as events/clips on the video track with thumbnails
representing the frames in the film. These are calculated in
real time, i.e. they have to be redrawn during scrolling or
moving. As this consumes quite a lot of processor power,
reaction sometimes may be sluggish. To remedy this, you
can generate a thumbnail cache file.
The cache file is used in situations where the processor
load is very high and the correct redrawing or real-time
calculation might use system resources necessary for ed-
iting or processing. When the cache file is used and you
zoom in on the thumbnails, you will see that they are in a
lower resolution, i.e. the pictures are not as clean as when
they are calculated. When the processes that rely heavily
on the computer CPU are finished, the frames will be au-
tomatically recalculated, i.e. the program automatically
switches between real-time calculation of the pictures and
using the cache file.
The generated thumbnail cache file will be stored in the
same folder as the video file and will get the name of the
file with the suffix “.videocache”.
Generating thumbnail cache files during video import
A thumbnail cache file will be created automatically before
the file is inserted in the Project window, if:
• the option “Generate Thumbnail Cache” in the Import
video dialog is activated when you click “Open”.
• you activated “Generate Thumbnail Cache on Import
Video File” in the Preferences (Editing–Video page).
The Generate Thumbnail Cache option in the Import Video dialog.
A window will be displayed, showing you the progress
and the estimated time for the process.
The thumbnail cache file is created.
After the cache file is created, the window will be closed
and the video clip is inserted as usual. When you now
start video playback and perform processor consuming
operations, the thumbnail file is used to display the video
frames in the Project window. When enough processor
power is available, the “real” calculated thumbnail frames
are displayed again.
Generating thumbnail cache files from within the Pool
When you have video files without thumbnail cache files
(e.g. if you did not create a thumbnail cache file during im-
port or if you are working with an older project), you al-
ways have the possibility to generate the thumbnail cache
file at a later stage. This is done from within the Pool.
Proceed as follows:
1. Open the Pool window and locate the video file you
want to create a thumbnail cache file for.
2. Right-click on the file to open the context menu and
select “Generate Thumbnail Cache”, or select “Generate
Thumbnail Cache” from the Media menu.
Just as when creating the file during import, the status window opens
(see above).
After the file is created, the window will be closed and the
thumbnail cache file is used when necessary, i.e. under
high load.
!
Please note that the cache file will not be automati-
cally updated if a video file is edited. Whenever you
change a video file (e.g. in a video editing applica-
tion), you need to create a new thumbnail cache file
manually, as described above. (To refresh the “real”
thumbnails of an edited video file, resize the video
track so that they are calculated again.)