Apple Kbase Doc on A/V Sync Issues/iMovie 3.0.3: *Update* - on June 3rd 2003 Apple released QT 6.3 and iMovie 3.0.3. The Apple Kbase doc on the A/V sync issue has now been changed to note that iMovie 3.0.3 solves the A/V sync issues. (Note - past discussions here (see below) on this issue mentioned 12bit audio as the cause with a link to the above Kbase doc, but a reader (thanks Alan) said that Apple has a different kbase doc on 12bit audio sync issues that has not been revised to show iMovie 3.0.3/QT 6.3 as a fix. If anyone can report if iMovie 3.0.3 and QT 6.3 solve the 12bit audio sync, let me know.) iMovie 3.0.3 is available via OS X's Software Update or at http://www.apple.com/imovie/download/. QT 6.3 is available via software updates or at Apple's Quicktime page.

Reader Reports/Tips: (most recent first)

Although one reader said iMovie 3.0.3 (w/QT 6.3 update) solved his A/V sync issue he apparently didn't have 12bit audio in the movie. Two other readers said that the iMovie 3.0.3 update (w/Quicktime 6.3 also applied I assume) didn't solve the 12bit audio issue noted in this Apple doc. See that doc for more info/tips.

(Previous info from the April 25th, 2003 www.xlr8yourmac.com news page) Several readers have noted they had an audio sync problem in iMovie3 or iDVD - one reader sent a tip:

" Apple has a KBase article addressing this (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42974). Assuming the audio was 16-bit and not 12-bit, the quickest workaround is to extract the audio from the clips in iMovie3 before exporting to iDVD3.
Alan S. "

Another reader's comments:

"Mike,
Regarding the audio synch problem in iMovie/iDVD, I've fought this for some time and I can tell you that is almost certainly revolves around folks mixing 12-bit and 16-bit audio sources in their iMovies (and probably not even realizing that they are doing it). In short, if you export an entire finished movie to a camcorder set to record audio at 16-bit, then re-import the footage, the problem goes away. Apple's technical article describes this process, but it's a problem with the Quicktime component responsible for the MPEG encoding. Hope this info helps.
Steve"

Another reader also noted:

"I have audio sync problems on all the stuff I've done once I moved to iMovie3 & iDVD3. To work around these problems instead of exporting to iDVD from iMovie, I must pick Export from File menu in iMovie, then pick from pull down "To Quicktime", next dialog from pull down pick "movie, selfcontained". I've been doing about an hour of video (per DVD) this way and have had no audio sync trouble.
Ryan S"

(Previous feedback from February 2003 follows)

A reader that originally reported A/V sync problems with iMovie3 sent an update/tip:

"I wrote you last night about problems I was having with A/V sync with iMovie 3.

After playing around with the offending project, I noticed that some of my clips had different owners than others. The project is on a second hard drive, not my boot disk. When I changed all the ownerships with get info, the project worked fine.

Apparently iMovie 3 is much more sensitive to permission problems than iMovie 2.
Thanks
DuBose M.
(his original mail, before the one above with his solution)
I have had A/V sync problems with iMovie 3.
A project which was created with iMovie 2 and includes two audio files in different audio tracks exhibits two distinct problems:

1) When using the time scale with iMovie, the boxes representing the clips on the scale do not line up with the actual clips.

2) The movie plays fine in iMovie, but when I export it the Audio and Video are initially in sync, but rapidly become out of sync. After 4 minutes, the audio and video are about 3-4 seconds out of sync.

I have not had this problem with any other files, including those with audio tracks, although, this is the only project I've tried with two audio clips in separate tracks.

Note - Apple's repair permissions as far as I know only checks/corrects system/apps files, not user's data files. If anyone else sees the problem solved by correcting permissions as DuBose noted, let me know. (Odd that it would matter, but many have noted in the past correcting permissions sped up performance, normally I'd think you either have permissions to read/write the file or not and if permissions were not correct there'd be a problem reading or modifying it.)

" When exporting to a DVD file (not bouncing to burn adisk) audio sometimes leads video by about one second after render. B&W, 500 G4, PCI Radeon.
-Mike J. "

" Mike:
I too have audio video synch problems, not from importing from an older version, but when saving (exporting) to DVD format after a fresh edit from camera. After rendering, the audio leads the video by about one second. However, this is not consistent, sometimes it works fine, but it sure is a drag to wade through multiple renders to satisfy oneself that he has a copy that works.

I also noted that the camera was much harder to be found by the computer. Much jacking in and out of the firewire cable was necessary to hook up.

The required screen resolutions are annoying too. Shifting back and forth so I can read the screen without glasses throws off the margin settings on my monitor and it's a drag to have to deal with keystoning that comes with changing resolutions around so often.
B&W, G4 500, Radeon PCI.
-Mike "

" As of now, there are 316 new topics on Apples discussion boards since the launch of iMovie 3. Almost all of them are very negative. Due to the weekend there was no time for Apple to censor these as the usually do with negativ opinions.
Gulliver
(reader who first reported the A/V sync issue - see first report at bottom of page) "

" I installed iPhoto and iMovie yesterday and ever since my computer won't shut off! I unplugged it for the night and when I plugged in again in the morning it started up again with out pressing the power buttons. I have a Sawtooth 450 mhz G4
Scott T.
Three Winds Claw and Fist Productions "

"I installed iMovie 3 using the downloadable installer and found that any project files I create will have a generic (blank) icon, not the standard iMovie project icon. I then installed iMovie 3 on another mac using Software Update and found it's project icons look just fine. I'm interested in knowing if this has happened to anyone else.
Rick "

(More replies regarding an earlier report below where a reader noted his MP3 files on another partition were not listed)

" Hi Mike,
iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 both find my MP3's fine tho it does take it quite some time to load them ( over 30 gigs for almost 6,000 songs) . Mine are not only on a separate partition but a whole separate drive even on a different bus!!! ( the OS and applications are on a SCSI2ultra bus and the MP3's are on the ATA bus) also i have NOT set this location as my iTunes library.... Maybe this has something to do with why it does work.
G4 867 Quicksilver 1.5GB ram 174GB of HD's
Kade B. "

" I have about 80 gigs of mp3's on a seperate drive. iphoto can't find itunes. seems like this is indeed a problem.
John F. "

" I also noticed the missing mp3 problem when I first opened iMovie. (regarding an earlier report below where a reader noted his MP3 files on another partition were not listed-Mike) On the second launch, I think iTunes was open this time, everything appeared as it should. I have all my mp3s on an external firewire drive.
System: eMac 700Mhz, 1GB RAM, 10.2.3, Quicktime 6.1
Jesse"

" I am running all the new iLife updates on my PowerComputing PowerWave (may 1995) and everything works perfectly. iMovie took 17 seconds to initially open. I quit and the preceding opens took about 8 secs. I dont know what you guys are complaining about. (I wasn't complaining, although some were-Mike) OK for me. And if I can run it, and I mean it runs it nicely, you all should be able. iPicture (iPhoto2) is a dream. You get to pick your own iTune for the slideshow and they're all listed right there. The enhance button works wonders. Bravo Apple. I did not and have never repaired permissions. (try it - on 3 macs here after the iMovie3/iPhoto2 updates there were many files that had permissions 'corrected'-Mike)

System
PowerWave w/XCL8 PPC 450 G4
Origional 1gig scsi HD
9 gig UltraWide SCSI HD
about 620 gigs of ram
USB/FIREWIRE card
MacOSX 10.2.3
QUICKtime 6.1
gunna pickup a 80 gig firewire drive this weekend
I wish everyone else my luck
Pope "

" I'm running iTunes 3 on a 400Mhz AGP G4 tower and it comes ready in about 15 seconds. Like you, I noticed a longer startup the first time while it loaded my 20GB of MP3's from iTunes. After that it was much faster.
-Ian "

I had commented earlier today that the first launch is the slowest since it seems to search the drive for audio, video, and photo files at the first run.

" Hello,
I just installed my ilife DVD today.
iphoto upchucked "unexpectedly quit" three times trying to burn a disk.
First I tried a dvd-rw, next a dvd-r and next a cd-r.
Each time it never made it to actually writing the disk. It died while making the image. at least I can use the disks again.
go figure!
I'm running 10.2.3 on a 466Mhz G4 with a pioneer dvr-a105 (Supported since 10.2.2) in place of the apple cd-rw that shipped with the machine.
Jeff A. "

I burned a CD from iPhoto2 OK with my PB G4/800 combo drive (only 85 photos though, but worked first time.) I suggested if he hadn't already, he run repair permissions from disk utility to see if that helps (I rebooted and repaired permissions immediately after installing the update - old habit.)

" iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 don*t seem to see iTunes 3. When I want to choose music in iPhoto2 (slideshow) it says it can't find iTunes (iTunes is greyed out).
Itunes 3.0.1 is installed in my applications folder on my OSX folder, but the songs are on a different partition. Maybe that's why the 2 programs won't see it?
I have around 8GB of songs.
Yuen "

(Update - see later reports above from others w/MP3s on separate disks/partitions.) The update found all my MP3 files but they're on the same partition. I created a slideshow and it listed all my songs as options. (and burned a CD from iPhoto2 OK.) If anyone else has MP3 files on another partition let me know if the files are listed ok.

" Just downloaded iMovie 3 and iPhoto 2. After repairing permissions and running fsck, iMovie 3 performance on my Dual800 with 1.5GB of RAM is absolutely pathetic making it un usable. I've also experienced the out of sync problem another of your readers reported with the video and audio. Overall, a very disappointing update.

iPhoto appears to be OK after a ton of permission problems were fixed, though still not as snappy as I would have hoped. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting sick and tired of constantly having to fix permissions on Apple updates. You'd think they could get on the stick with this, or at least incorporate a permission fix routine into their installers so we don't have to deal with these problems anymore.
Just my 2¢.
Gary "

I noted earlier today I have a habit of running repair permissions after OS X updates (and even if not prompted, I restart.) I've not used them very much yet (PB G4/800 with nearly full 2.5" notebook drive, not tried it on a desktop mac yet) but I can't really complain about this free update from what I've seen of it so far.

" I'm not sure what the other people's problem with iMovie was.. On the first launch for me, it took about 3 seconds in the dock bouncing, then perhaps another 13 to realize I don't have a movie file. (many people have hundreds of MP3 files, etc. which it also searches for on the first run. how many files, how fast the drive is, etc. will affect this time - but you said 13+3 = 16 seconds, about the same as most everyone else saw.-Mike) Once I created one, it dropped down to 3 in the dock, and 5 to switch to the movie file and let me work. These aren't very scientific times, but I definitely don't feel there's any problem with the launch times.

As for iPhoto, same story. 3 seconds in the dock, then a few seconds determining I need to upgrade my library, which takes about 10 seconds. After the initial launch it runs fine though. I just wish programs these days would quit immediately. I'm not sure why I care about quitting rather than launching, but I do.
This is on a Quicksilver 866 single processor, 512mb ram, 10.2.3.
Geoff"

" when looking at the audio section(itunes library), drag table header to resize a column and the sorting gets weird.
Ming "

I think it resorts by the column touched when you try that - every time I try, I end up resorting by the column I'm trying to resize. (Can't seem to help but select the column header when trying to resize, selecting it sorts by it.) Ming later wrote:

"i think the problem is worse than it appears. although the column header is selected like it is sorting, it doesn't sort correctly. clicking on the same header again really sorts it."

I double checked here and the sorting seems fine first time. (Accidental column selection during resizing still seems to sort correctly first time here.)

(First report from earlier news page follows)

" Launching iMovie 3 takes 16 seconds and after the windows show up another 12 seconds until I can do anything. I ran prebinding and removed unneeded language packages, no success. There is only one movie in my database (48 minutes).
Another problem is, that when I work on a movie (originally from iMovie 2) with a soundtrack iMovie 3 looses synchronization between video and audio. It shows the timebar in the right place, but the video played is appr. 20 seconds ahead with the audio from where the timebar is. Confused? So was I. I hear the correct sound, but see wrong pictures with the progress bar in a random location.

System: QS Dual 1GHz, 512MB RAM, 2x80GB HD, MacOS X 10.2.3, QuickTime 6.1 Pro.
Regards.
Gulliver "

Note - when iMovie3 first runs it apparently searches your hard drive for files (like itunes/MP3 files also) - it seemed to launch a lot faster the 2nd time. (I also ran repair permissions via Disk Utility after the install and there were some corrections done.) I've not checked for A/V sync yet. If anyone else sees a problem, let me know.