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Video
Playing back video file using video hardware
Under Windows, multi-head graphics cards that support
overlay functionality can be used to display the video pic-
ture on an external TV or computer monitor in full screen
mode. The manufacturers nVIDIA and Matrox have work-
ing (and tested) solutions available. Check the card’s do-
cumentation for information on how it handles video
output and how to set it up for multi-monitor display.
For Apple computers equipped with a FireWire port, you
can easily connect external video hardware via this, as
OS X has built-in video support for the most common for-
mats (NTSC/PAL/DVCPRO). FireWire is capable of high
data-transfer speed and is the most common standard for
communicating with video-related peripheral equipment.
To play back a video file via hardware connected to the
FireWire port, select “FireWire” in the Outputs pop-up of
the Device Setup–Video Player dialog. When FireWire is
selected as output, a number of format options appear on
the Format pop-up, allowing you to select between vari-
ous video formats and resolutions.
Operations
Importing a video file
Video files are imported in the same manner as audio files.
• By using the File menu (Import–Video File).
• By using drag and drop from the Windows Explorer/
Mac OS Finder or the Pool.
This requires that a video track has been added to the Project and that
you drop the video file onto this track.
• By importing the file to the Pool first and then dragging
it into the Project window (see the chapter “The Pool” on
page 143 for details).
Please note the following:
• You can only have one video track in each project. The Video
track is added like other tracks in the Project window by using
the Add Track submenu on the Project menu. If a project does
not contain a video track when you import a video file via File–
Import–Video file, this is added automatically.
• All video files on the track must be of the same size and com-
pression format.
Video import preferences
In the Preferences dialog (Editing–Video page), you will
find one option that affects the import of video files:
• Generate Thumbnail Cache on Import Video File
When this is activated, a thumbnail cache file will be created automati-
cally when you import a video file. This is handy, as a cache file will also
be created when you import a video file using drag and drop.
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 AI, video files are dis-
played as events/clips on the video track with thumbnails
representing the frames in the film. These are calculated in
realtime, 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 realtime cal-
culation might use system resources necessary for editing
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 automati-
cally recalculated, i.e. the program automatically switches
between realtime 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”.