Synch drift: FCP5 -> Compressor -> Toast

On a dual 2 GHz G5 with 3 GB of RAM, using Final Cut 5, I tried to export a sequence that's HDV 1080p24 through compressor using the DV NTSC Anamorphic preset and then burning that using Toast 8.

I keep getting these little glitches where there will be gray pixelation with some color for three frames. It happens about a dozen or more times throughout the 2-hour video file.

Another issue is that as the DVD plays straight through, the video drifts out of sync so that by the end of the movie the picture is about 5-10 frames ahead of the sound. I checked the quicktime and if I move the play head to the end of the movie, that synch problem doesn't exist.

I guess I should let the quicktime play through to the end to see if that problem was a result of the DVD encoding process or just a problem with the quicktime.

It seems like these problems are a result of going from 24 to 30 frames.

I'm not a DVD expert by any means but i would get theee the heck out of HDV ASAP. Maybe export to a friendlier HD codec like DVCPro100, bring that to Compressor to crunch down to MPEG2, and then burn away.

Brighter minds will chime but here's my thinking -

- you have an HDV timeline, and anamorphic to boot;
- you have 24 going to 30-- I expect that's really 23.98 to 29.97, right?
- you may have unrendered effects on an HDV timeline.

Could be three strikes against you. It may be just too much work for the CPU to hold all that in synch. Which is why I suggest transcoding HDV to a "real" edit format for MPEG2 export/encoding.

My .02.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:
Set Video In & Out separate from Audio with Control I & O !

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Had the same problem with SD project. The reason: All my 3 Macs were burning weak DVDs. Had them checked at the duplication lab and they confirmed this with their analyzing software. It seems this is not a bug but a feature in Mac DVD RW drives.

Use Toast to make an image file and run it through you computer's DVD player. The glitches should be gone.

Never send your work to duplication lab in DVD video format. All the problems in your burner are transferred to the copies. Use image file instead. If something goes sour, you are free to blame others

I was having the problem in the quicktime itself. But I will keep that in mind for the future. Thanks, Nick.