MOTUnation.com

Thanks, B. Yes, avi always ran best in Sonar, and that's the film format I used in Sonar for this project, which is a series of small interviews. I just abandoned DP8 for the project, but then kept thinking there had to be a solution other than "MOTU just hasn't figured it out." Good question, and that's why I tried avi in spite of MOTU's techs advising other formats. I was just blindly following their advise. I'm wondering if it could be something in my system, like the video cards. Of course, avi is an older tried and true format.

So it may be that PCs, (or at least your installed supporting frameworks and drivers), prefer AVIs over the usual Apple formats.

Of course, avi is an older tried and true format.

but not compatible with Mac unless certain 3rd party plugins are installed such a Perian or others from Microsoft.

All of those plugs have their downsides (especially Perian). As this is the first Windows release for DP, that might explain why no one thinks to recommend .avi.

Not sure why MOTU tech guys are not suggesting avi for us Windows users. Here's a link to composer Chad Leiter's PC DP8 system:

http://vimeo.com/channels/digitalperformer/81720956

Sorry, Bayswater. Pretty much abandoned DP8, but here's some info on your question "for the record":
From Sweetwater tech...
Cannot load MOV files in Sonar X1.
Article #33585
Below is a link to a Codec Pack that many of our users have used to successfully import videos into SONAR:

http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

In addition, you should download WinFF which is an outstanding free video conversion tool. http://winff.org/html_new/downloads.html

SONAR works best with AVI files. Converting your file to a standard AVI using the “MS Compatible” preset in WinFF should make it compatible with SONAR.

SONAR’s movie importing capabilities are based on Direct X, which only allows Standard Quicktime movies to be imported. You can open your movie in Quicktime and look at the Properties | then the Format of the Video and Sound Track. If there are any odd compression codecs like H.263 or other streaming formats, then SONAR may not be able to read it. Your best bet would be to Export the movie from Quicktime Pro as an AVI file or use WinFF to do this.

When Exporting from SONAR, make sure you click “Encoding Options” in the Export window and choose “No Compression”. This should retain the video’s original codec.

The following video compression codecs have been found to be compatible. Different codecs provide varying degrees of compression performance:

MJPEG Compressor

DV Video Encoder

Indeo Video 5.04

Intel I.263

Cinepak Codec by Radius

Microsoft Video 1

Microsoft RLE

These codecs have been found not to work:

H.261

H.263

Intel 4:2:0 Video V2.50

MSScreen 9 encoder

MSScreen encoder

WMVideo Encoder DMO

WM9Video Encoder DMO