FCP to DVDStudioPro... audio problem

Hi,

I'm using a variant of the "Shane's Stock Answer" method listed in a recent post. Export -> Quicktime Movie -> Not self contained, then pull into DVDSP and make it "First Play".

The quicktime movie (both on it's own and inside DVDSP) has audio lagging 3-4 seconds behind by the end of the 22 minute program. The audio at the beginning of the program is dead-on.

Why, and what can I do to fix it?

-MW

Forgetting DVDSP for a minute, what happens if you render everything, mix down your audio, export as a stand-alone QuickTime (in other words, do it the long way) and play that?

Did you include any MP3 music tracks in your show? This is about the time when those show up. CD tracks? Anything out of the ordinary?

<<<lagging 3-4 seconds>>>

It would be really good to know what those exact numbers are. Sometimes that tells us stuff.

Koz

The stand alone quicktime exhibits the same lag, even with mixed down audio. Same with the self-contained quicktime.

There are MP3 music tracks in the show, but they lag at the same rate as the rest of the audio.

Out of the ordinary -- it took more than an hour to get even the self-contained quicktime.

I will look at the exact numbers for the lag, and get back to you.

-MW

The audio is 5 seconds and 15 frames behind the picture, 21 minutes into the show.

At the beginning of the show, the audio is dead on.

The MP3s are one of those "no-no" issues that may throw the rest of your troubleshooting off. It's well known that you can't use MP3s in FCP, period. Go through your timelines and swap them out for AIFFs or WAVs. While I don't remember seeing MP3s causing this kind of sync drift (then again, usually I don't see MP3s in timeilnes, period -- I won't allow them), you need to take them out of the equation.

Barring that, what's the sample rate of your timeline? Is any drive connected to the system filling up? Are the drives you're using properly formatted? You're sure your timeline is completely in sync?

Your issue isn't just DVDSP. If the movie file is broken even as you play it in QuickTime Player, then you have a problem even before you reach the DVD stage. Gotta retrace your steps. If even a self-contained QuickTime movie has sync issues, then odds are something's wrong in either your export settings or, more likely, in your timeline at the editing stage.


www.derekmok.com

My apologies -- no MP3's in the timeline, only AIFF's. I work with so many amateurs who don't know the difference between an MP3 and a WAV and an AIFF and use them interchangeably, that I've just come to nod my head when someone gets close.

The audio settings for the timeline are 48Khz, 16-bit, Channel Grouped.

All of the media was shot on XDCam, 35Mbit. The audio is 48Khz, 16bit.

On second look, all of the music is 44.1Khz. Insert appropriate expletives here. I realize this could be the problem, and this is what everyone will point to, but why then would the dialog (with correct settings) lag also?

edit: On third look, the music that was imported by me is 48Khz, the music that I used that had already been imported was 44.1 Khz. Is there any way to salvage this mess?

<<<Is there any way to salvage this mess?>>>

Yes. Select the sound track and make it xxx% longer or shorter. Arithmetic up to you. Now that you know the exact frame error from the earlier question, it should be a snap.

Drop into the show at the half-way point and trim one frame of track here and there to get rid of the last errors.

Koz

A little weird, but... I did experience a similar problem working on an ntsc timeline in final cut 5.1.1. A 44.1/48khz mixed timeline shouldn't cause an audio drift- it causes other problems but not audio drifts. Is there dialogue in the track? On my end, I ended up speeding up my audio to around 100.1% (i had a lipsync problem at the end of 5 mins). I never actually encountered that problem working in PAL- and I've been exporting AIFF off 20 min eps. And the funniest thing is that all my audio tracks was recorded at 48khz in the browser. I never got to the bottom of the mystery- it's either final cut mixed up the sampling rates, or there was a misinterpretation of dropframes/nondropframes.

A quick remedy is to speed up your audio to match- reimport it back onto the timeline, check how many frames you're off, and use that to calculate the speed your audio should be at.

Drop Frame errors work out to be about one frame per minute. We deliver :30 television commercials all the time in non-drop and nobody notices.

I believe the error is 1000/1001.

Koz