Hello.
I start with “I have done this before with Finale” sentence, because it is true. With Finale I synced DigitalPerformer’s video window with MTC via IAC MIDI bus. Worked. Did the whole movie in two files. That meant mingling with offset in DP manually once I started the second file. That is history…
Now to Dorico Pro 6.
Flows. I would like so much to have multiple (seems like around 50+ in total) flows per movie. There are a few reasons for me wanting this:
- safety- changing something somewere at the beginning does not unsync all following music
- string divisi staves that create gaps in Galley view throughout the flow, even when not used
I would still want the movie to play as continuously as possible. I have also set the gaps between flows to zero in playback options. So I would need a workaround, I describe [frame rate: 25fps]:
- lets say Flow 1 ends at 00:05:10.05
- Flow 2 starts at 00:05:30.15
So I need a workaround to add “something” at the end of Flow 1 that lasts 20 seconds and 10 frames. That “something” should not be disturbing the score/parts visually. It is just for my work process to not have gaps in the movie.
I also understand that if I decide to change something in music that affects timing then all the gaps would need adjustment. I can live with that because the beginnings of following flows would still be anchored to a certain time point, thus not messing up the most important stuff.
Back to history:
In Finale I had to do this with hidden bars that had q=60 tempo, necessary amount of durational units and were not included in measure numbering. Those ghost bars messed up the layout so badly and requiered loads of manual tweaking.
Because my issues do not seem to concern too many others- here is a workaround I came up with.
- create player with an instrument that is used nowhere in actual music. I have a player called “gap” with a sketch intrument.
- delete the part layout and verify that the dummy is not present in any flow that contains music
- create a gap flow with only a dummy player present, show this flow only in layout that you work on when composing
- enable one decimal point in tempo markings (tried more but one is enough)
- assign markers to the beginning and the end of every flow with music
So next is to have gap flows between actual music flows (I have one also at the very beginning because I need music to start after movie has run 2 seconds).
Now to calculation, I have all gap flows with one bar and 16/4.
- use online timecode calculator to subrtact the end time of flow from the beginning time of next flow, show it in frames
- divide frames by framerate- the result is seconds for gap (my division is by 25)
- divide seconds by 16- the result is duration of one beat
- divide 60 by beat duration in seconds and MM marking for gap flow is there
Check and tweak the decimal if necessary. You can correct a bit with every gap, if necessary. It is easy because I have burned the timecode into the movie file and it is really easy to see dorico’s transport window and movie window together. This way I can also move the video out of Dorico if I want and host it in DigitalPerformer. TXL Timecode is working with this setup becaus the timecode and actual Dorico time are the same. In case they differ- TXL plugin has no info about the start timecodes of flows.
Because of the serious bugs in last Dorico 6 update it is impossible to work with video: Dorico sends out wrong timecode (20 second shift) and also sometimes the video is just blank without any apparent reason. In Digital Performer there are no such issues. 6.0.10 works with video still. Thinking if to buy 39 EUR TXL Timecode plugin.
Just a follow-up:
I ended up purchasing a TXL Timecode plugin and moving synced video to Digital Performer.
With gap flows, described above, it works just fine. DP’s video format support is also straightforward: “if it plays in quicktime player, it plays in DP”- meaning probably that they are using MacOS video codec support.
Because video window is no longer in Dorico, I don’t get annoyed Dorico not remembering the window size/position: Digital Performer doesn’t have this issue.
TXL timecode plugin also has the offset field and I could switch to the most recent version of Dorico that has “the wrong timecode” bug.
So things are up and running.
2 Likes
As it seems the issue is connected to: Playback options > Timing > Pre-roll before flow.
In case the value is not zero, there is 20 sec. shift.
Value = 0 - no shift in timecode.
Software testing is fascinating, never boring!
Hey.! Although it seems like you’re just conversing with yourself here, don’t despair - people are reading… Lack replies/responses, as you’ve hinted, just means not a lot of folk are doing video sync, quite like you describe in your situation… 
Now, I’ve got interested because your last post suggests a real issue with Dorico’s video playback engine. Could you please take a minute and post some screenshot evidence of where in Dorico you see this 20sec ‘shift’ occurring (when pre-roll value is set to anything other than ‘0’).?
Not saying I can help diagnose any further myself, but that may attract more ‘insight’ from the team (they do read all the posts).
Sorry I’m also not ‘savvy’ to your main concern in this thread - that is a particular workflow conundrum, that you seem to have diligently found a workaround for… I guess its all related, but that one maybe deserves its own ‘Feature Request’ topic (once the ‘20sec offset’ issue is squashed)..?
Good luck.!
PS:- I appreciate the great troubleshooting/QA testing throughout… As a former QA software test engineer, I love trying to break things and reporting those findings, meticulously… 
1 Like
This is the first time (since august 2024) that I am dissapointed in Steinberg support.
As it seems- for now it is expected behaviour: whenever the pre-roll is not 0, video is not in sync.
The dissapointment is because this “expected behaviour” is not described anywhere in help file.
Also I was not told informed about this when discussing about this (in forum messages) by dev. team.
This meant 48 EUR (with VAT) purchase of TXL Timecode plugin for me. Solved the out-of-sync issue, which could have been solved by just setting 0 pre-roll.
I asked the team to add this warning to D6 Help and also warn about video sync issue in Playback Options dialog.
So that is it. It is apparently a complex matter (preroll and video sync) and as I seem to be a niche user (writing full-scale operas and syncing long movies to scores) then these issues are obviously not in the first order to fix. I agree. As long as I know about this and can find a way to work around issues, fine. Not informing was the reason for dissapointment, not the existance of the bug itself.
I would actually like the shadow note pitch change delay to be adressed as the priority, there is no workaround here, besides sometimes [K] to turn off pitch-before-duration when entering runs with notes of uniform duration.
Hmm… Ok, I’m sure the team has taken note of your previous (forum) discussions and your suggested ‘improvement’ and/or temporary solution. Though, these things may well take a bit of time to make it into a release.
Wish you’d said before about the team already knowing (expected behaviour.?) of the 20sec offset issue - don’t think I’d have felt the need to contribute otherwise…
Based on classical logic- there is a wrong assumption here 
