Steinberg Cubase SE 3 Operation Manual

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Video 

CUBASE SE
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Background
Video support in Cubase SE
Cubase SE plays back video films in a number of formats. 
Under Windows, video playback can be done using one of three play-
back engines: Video for Windows, DirectShow or Quicktime. This en-
sures compatibility with as wide a range of video files as possible. 
The following file formats are supported: AVI, Windows Media Video, 
Quicktime or MPEG formats.
Under Mac OS X, Quicktime is always used as playback engine. 
QuickTime supports the...

CUBASE SE
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Operations
About the video playback engine
In Cubase SE for Windows, you select a playback engine in the De-
vice Setup - Video Player page:
What playback engine to select depends largely on which type of video 
system you are using, as well as on the file format and codec of the 
video files you want to work with.
• Make sure to read the section “Before you start” on page 527.
• Generally, you can expect most Windows hardware to work with Direct-
Show.
On a Windows system, the...

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• For the Quicktime playback method to be available, you must have 
QuickTime installed on your computer (Windows).
There is a freeware version (a QuickTime installer is included on the Cubase SE DVD if 
required, or you can download it from www.quicktime.com) and a “pro” version, which 
offers additional video cutting options. The player engine is the same in both versions, 
so for mere playback in Cubase SE there is no need to purchase the “pro” version.
Under Mac OS X, there...

CUBASE SE
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Playing back a video file
Video files are displayed as events/clips on the video track, with 
thumbnails representing the frames in the film (if the option Show 
Video Thumbnails is activated in the Preferences dialog).
A video event on a video track.
To view the video on the computer screen (as opposed to on an exter-
nal monitor, see below), proceed as follows:
•If you’re running MacOS X, first open the Device Setup dialog from the 
Devices menu, click Video Player in the list...

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Playing back video file using grahics cards (Windows only) 
Multi-head graphics cards which support overlay functionality can be 
used to display the video picture on an external TV or computer mon-
itor in full screen mode. As of this writing, the manufacturers nVIDIA 
and Matrox have working solutions available. Check the card’s docu-
mentation for information on how it handles video output and how to 
set it up for multi-monitor display.
Playing back a video via FireWire (Mac...

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Before you start (Windows only)
When working on a project involving a video file, there are several 
points to bear in mind:
Have you selected the right player?
The player is used not only for playback of the video file, but also to 
provide file information in the Pool. Therefore, to make sure that you 
have chosen the right player for a particular type of video file, check 
the file information displayed in the Pool prior to trying to import or 
playing back the file.
When this...

CUBASE SE
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When you have a video file in a format not supported by Cubase SE, 
use an external application to convert the file to a format that Cubase 
SE can import.
Options
In the Preferences dialog (Event Display–Video page), there are two 
options for video playback:
•Show Video Thumbnails.
When this is activated, thumbnail frames of the video contents are shown in the track.
•Video Cache Size.
This determines how much memory is available for video thumbnails. If you have long 
video...

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ReWire 

CUBASE SE
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Introduction
ReWire and ReWire2 are special protocols for streaming audio bet-
ween two computer applications. Developed by Propellerhead Soft-
ware and Steinberg, ReWire provides the following possibilities and 
features:
•Real-time streaming of up to 64 separate audio channels, at full band-
width, from the “synthesizer application” into the “mixer application”.
In this case, the “mixer application” is of course Cubase SE. An example of a “synthe-
sizer application” is...