Since we are close getting a new major release of Nuendo I wanted to speak out about the nuances which can make ADR sessions painful:
From the most critical to least critical:
Lack of formatting options for texts displayed on the video player fed from the ADR panel. This results in long lines showing cut-off from the bottom and makes it impossible for talents to read them. This possess a very big problem for our sessions where we do voice-overs on series of separate audio clips with long monologues. Workarounds are extremely time-consuming and inappropriate. It seems the latest release brought the formatting options for the texts displayed in the ADR panel, but I am not sure how this can be useful since the video player screen matters more than the ADR panel itself for talents.
Pre-roll and Post-roll configurations are applied to all ADR statuses. It makes sense having the pre-roll and post-roll while recording a take. But having to wait for the take to play during a review(or even during a rehearse) can waste time and break the tempo in certain workflows. Please bring an option to adjust the settings per status instead of offering a global setting.
Record File Naming Scheme does not give enough freedom. It is not possible to remove the Track Name and configure the separator symbol(ā_ā) in the schema. As a result, removing the track name and the take numbers from the bulk-exported events becomes a tedious process where exported clips need to match the marker descriptions.
Rename Events from List tool lacks basic sorting, search and replace functions. This would make life easier when bulk renaming events. A very basic CSV export functionality would also work to fix the names outside Nuendo and import them back if the features are not straightforward to implement inside the dialog.
ADR setup does not allow to choose columns to be shown in the video player. Show Dialogues during ADR option shows texts from the Dialogue column in the CSV file. For dubbing workflows it is the Dialogue Translations matter instead of the original dialogues. Yes, the workaround is much easier in this one compared to the previous issues, but importing the marker file with columns swapped does not feel correct. Having a drop-down to choose the column in the Video tab of the ADR Setup screen would be an appropriate resolution.
I want to hope work is in progress for at least some of these issues for the very next release since they have been being requested for several years. I understand the current state can work perfectly for movie projects but ADR is not only about movies. It is pity potentials of such a powerful tool in Nuendo still are not utilized well for broader range of workflows. Lack of the above-mentioned elementary options causes a lot of pain for some workflows(game dubbing in our case). This is a key reason holding us from fully switching to Nuendo in our studio.
I would like to get a response from a Steinberg staff on these concerns to set an expectation for the future releases of the product and plan our project accordingly. I am so obsessed with these issues that I can be a volunteer(seriously) to contribute my 7-years of software development experience(hear me out!) to bring a resolution for these issues if the developers are busy with other tasks in the roadmap.
My guess is heās basing it on the fact that Steinberg seems to like a new version about once a year. based on that, it would be sometime in April probably that the next version would come along.
unlikely - for if they did they would know if it was getting close that adding feature requests would be a little late - despite having ā7 years of software development experienceā
FWIW totally agree with the improvements that are desperately needed in the ADR system.
If a new version is expected for the upcoming spring all the requested features are possible to implement by that time given there will be a developer dedicated to this, which is why I offered my help. But if some of the requests are already in progress for the next release, this becomes a much simpler task to take the above details into the account by the current developer teams.
Obviously I cannot know how well the architecture was designed or how the teams are managed in the company. Unless you are the project manager or have an experience in software development, I donāt think there is much we can argue about here. You can still remain skeptic on my experience, but I am not willing to prove my proficiency if you are not in charge in the company.
Iām not (obviously) and wasnāt asking you to, you were the one who offered up the information. Although your reply shows your level of experience IMO.
good luck with that - itās notable that virtually all your posts on this forum are about the ADR feature - youāve never had a formal reply yet. Not sure why you think this time will be different ?
I donāt know if it will be different or not, I just wanted to wrap up all issues with our experience in a single post as a feature request since this is the only way of doing that as far as I know. I guessed the feature-request tag serves this purpose, but I may be wrong. I would be glad to get advice from you if you really have better suggestions to make Steinberg hear the concerns. But I ask you to speak from your expertise if you are going to contribute to the discussion. Otherwise, I donāt think it will benefit any of us.
And yes, ADR is pretty much the only thing we care in Nuendo and it is still immature despite it was debuted several years ago.
I think they already know about them - but with limited developer resources they seem to be focusing on other features that they feel will be more beneficial. Unfortunately there are so many half finished , half implemented or half baked features. Iād love to see them polishing up ALL these areas.
I mostly agree with the points you make in the original post - I was just questioning the feature requests for a release that you suggest is āgetting closeā.
If you would genuinely like to work for Steinberg then itās probably worth applying via the usual channelsā¦not here.
Personally I donāt believe that they would employ a volunteer external contractor specifically to implement the feature requests you listed. Iād love to be proven wrong - and bear in mind that I donāt have your 7 years of experience.
I believe they would already have a developer for this if they wanted to hire at the market rate. That is why I am offering to contribute on a voluntary basis. Although it would not be appropriate to compare it with working for open source projects, the motivation to work āfreeā is same. Whether they will take it seriously or not, I made my offer just in case.
This is fine. You should not have to. My objection was against making a confident statements without being in the industry.
Anyway, letās hope for the best and hope these are already in the radar of Steinberg for the next release.
I didnāt say I was or wasnāt in the industry - I said āI didnāt have your 7 year experienceā
but I do admire your confidence so lets leave it at that.
