Hi guys,
What’s the best workflow to deliver QT videos to a client? I’m a former DP user and I used to deliver them by bouncing to video, but as far as I know Cubase can only replace the full video, which takes too long with film reels.
I’ve been exporting the full video and then using QT to crop the cue, but the exporting from Cubase takes just too long.
Any other ways of achieving this?
Thanks!
I keep the film reels on a dedicated hard drive and export only my score audio out of cubase by the reel, and then use Sony Vegas to put it together and render low Rez QuickTime for score review.
I wish cubase could do what dp can regarding video export, I might check out dp 8 when I complete my current project
To be honest – and this isn’t a technical answer but a workflow one – I’ve found that most editors are happy to sync it themselves, especially if they’re still working on color etc. I found out that many of them were just dumping the video file, extracting the audio, and manually putting it on the timeline - even for quick previews. Consequently, for the last several years I’ve been putting in a 2-pop (for separate reels) and/or TC reference per cue and letting them sync it (making sure the export is on a frame and not sample boundary). Not sure if this is possible in your situation, just wanted to throw it out there 
I use TMPGenc for this (I think it’s now been superceded), but it’s still not too pretty in that in cubase I need to export audio from the beginning up to the end of where I need it to be - so if I need to send a 10s clip 20m into the production, I’d need to export over 20 minutes of audio. Then in TMPGenc you import the original video, change the audio source to your new export, and clip up the in and out.
In fact what I’d do now in a case like this is just bounce out the short clip from Cubase and import / sync into Pro Tools, which can bounce out any length of Quicktime clip with your new audio.
Have you checked out Nuendo?
Thanks Indiescore. Yes, I was thinking on doing it in on some quick video editor. I’m on a Mac though (no Sony Vegas).
For me it really varies depending on the client. Some times the music editor will do it for me as well and sometimes the director just skips the video.
Most of the time is better to have the ref video done by myself just to make sure the music is properly placed before the director sees it.
Yeah, that more or less what I’m doing, but with quicktime. It takes too long when you are at the end of the reel…
Not really, but it looks amazing. A bit pricey just getting it for that function, though?
Agreed, but if your tendency is toward more and more video/sound production, might be worth considering.
Does anyone here use dp8, aside from video export, how does the chunks feature help with reels, or cues, it looks like you can summon a chunk for each cue/spot your scoring and that chunk is like a cubase project except you don’t have to re load everything and you just see vst folders for those associated with the cue, I think
Maybe, but I think this is a pretty basic film scoring feature that all major DAW have, so I’m hopeful that they will include it at some point, especially since most film composers use Cubase these days. Going to Nuendo just for this reason is a bit overkill imo unless you are working on post, etc. (or don’t mind expending the extra money). It does look bad ass, though…
Um… you do know that Nuendo does not export video, right BriHar?
I use both Dp8 & Cubase. The chunk in DP are amazing. It works like you stated, plus you can share the VI instrument rack with other chunks, so when you switch chunks (cues) they are still loaded it. It’s also super powerful for exchanging date between cues and recycling ideas. However, if you work with VEP it doesn’t work well. In fact, I’ve been avoiding this feature for a a while because of this. The problem is that when you switch chunks you might lose some of the VEP routine within a chunk (not the ones being shared), and this is annoying. So it’s a great feature that I can’t really use…
The main issue with DP and what made me learn Cubase is how well Cubase integrates with VEP using VST3. It’s way more powerful than DP and reason enough to use Cubase.
thanks for the scoop, I am going to try the demo, the modular approach ,chunks, sounds great for film. My cubase projects even with folders and track view are to much to manage
so does vep allow vst expression? You can write lines for cello track and control each lines volume?
No, I’m not really familiar with Nuendo at all, but as it’s touted as a post production software and that it is used by numerous major film scoring producers, I just assumed - my bad. 
So why is it so cherished by producers? 
Other than Hans zimmer (cubase) and Harry Gregson Williams ( cubendo ) and a few post houses, I haven’t seen many articles on others who use it for film…not to say it’s not popular in some circles, and I am not saying that’s it, but I just don’t see a whole lot of buzz in the press as compared to other daws.
Nuendo has tons of technical stuff in it relating to broadcast, dialog replacement, tools to collaborate with film editors, and my favorite regret, Edit Mode, where the cursor follows as the user drags an event. That last one would be great for composers but they won’t let us have it. 
There’s a good chance your client is using Pro Tools. I just dump all of my rendered cues into PT (sync’d to the video), and email the PT project file to the editors.
This. What I often resort to in Cubase is creating separate projects named by timecode, and leaving them all open. Of course when you switch projects you’re waiting an eternity for everything to reload. And when you close the active one, it automatically loads the next one in the stack – there goes the next five minutes 
I wish it would wait for us to click on the “Activate Project” button for the project we actually want.
I was using VEP for a while, but I couldn’t get used to the bussing – I use intrument tracks heavily, because I need the channel settings window (audio) to be on the same track as the MIDI data. Unfortunately with VEP you have to separate your MIDI tracks from the instrument output tracks in the session, and this drives me crazy! With large projects, I was constantly hunting around to find the audio channel associated with a MIDI track just to make a simple EQ/FX tweak.
Sorry for off-topic – just like hearing how people get around these “scoring for picture” issues!