Sick Scores

Digital Performer recognizes DV and MOV QuickTime movies (.dv and .mov extensions, respectively). MOV is a compressed file format. Importing a movie from a camcorder into Apple's iMovie, for example, saves the video by default in the DV file format. DV files are not compressed, so their file sizes are much larger (20 times or more) than MOV files. When you open a movie in Digital Performer, it is automatically snapped to the beginning of your sequence (such as bar 1, beat 1). Alternately, from the Movie window's minimenu, you can employ the Set Movie Start Time to adjust the movie's SMPTE start position. Obviously, you can't physically alter QuickTime movie frames. But Digital Performer 5 creates these same types of visual cues by overlaying streamers, punches and flutters directly onto QuickTime movies playing in a session. Streamers can be associated with any marker in your session or inserted into the Conductor Track without being tied to a specific marker. To view the streamers in the Markers window, from its minimenu, you must select Show Streamers. Industry standard streamer times (2, 2.67, 3 or 3.33 seconds) can be set for each streamer. Flutters and punches are not tied to the markers and can be inserted directly into the Conductor Track. All three types of visual cues are enabled and can be color-coded in the Film Scoring Events preferences. Although streamers, punches and flutters will appear in a QuickTime movie within Digital Performer, they are not output to FireWire video. Consequently, if you want to see these visual cues on a television, you'll need to render them into a new QuickTime DV movie. After you've created the visual cues in Digital Performer, bounce the QuickTime movie to disk. Select Bounce to Disk, and set the Format to QuickTime Export Movie. In the QuickTime Export Options dialog box, check the "Include film scoring events track" option. Your visual cues will then be bounced to disk as part of the QuickTime movie. This process may be inconvenient, but it beats not having any visual cues on your television monitor.