BUG: iMovie '09, Audio Sync Problem on Export

Augh! My project is due tomorrow and I am still struggling with this audio bug!
The clips that have a slow motion effect have bursts of audio bleed through after export. The video's audio track is muted, and works fine during project playback, but not after export.
I tried jtography's quicktime Pro workaround a number of times...still not working. When I duplicated the iMovie project and followed his instructions to set the clips back to 100% (remove the slow motion) and then reset duration to the time that they would have played if the slow-mo was still in place I kept on losing .1 of a second on a few of the clips. So, the end product was 4 seconds off from the original. I also tried using Garage Band to record the project's audio during playback but the sound was awful.
Any other suggestions??

After noodling around with Quick Time Pro and trying every other MacGuiver (just short of duct tape and bubble gum) work around I could think of, I found the LEAST painful of the options was to fix the sound in iMovie 06.
I made my movie in iMovie 09, exported at the best quick time settings, then imported the quicktime file into iMovie 06 HD. I then edited the audio by >view>show audio clip levels> muting the sound on the bad sections of the file, used iTunes share function to import the music clip (again), and then edited the music clip down to cover the section with the unwanted sound bursts...then I increased the audio clip level again on the movie clip...until the next section of bad audio.
It was a hassle, but my project was completed on time. I too hope that Apple fixes this bug so that when the movie is exported from iMovie 09, that the muted sound of the clips that have the motion effect does not burst through.

confirmed. i am experiencing the same bug.

equipment: intel imac aluminum 20" core 2 duo. using external fw drive to store the clips/project. then export to internal hd. camera is panasonic pv-gs250 mini dv.

anyway, using imovie 09 is starting to make me not love my mac.

hoping apple fixes this, since exporting my project is not happening. when i play the project in imovie, the audio is off about halfway through. if i stop playback and move the playhead back a few seconds, it plays the transition and clip just fine. on export, the error is still there. tried deleting/adding the clip. closing imovie, restarting, etc.

sure would be nice to have a fix.

*Do you have clips in your Project that are Speed Adjusted?*

If so, give this a try, it works for me:

Find ALL the clips in your Project that are Speed Adjusted.
Instead of using a "_Custom Speed_" percentage, use any of the "_Preset Speeds_"

Preset Speeds on the Slider = *12.5%, 25%, 50%, 100%, 200%, 400%, 800%*

Then, export your project as usual.
No more sync issues. Enjoy!

yes, the speeds are set using the slider. still no good.

i have 2 points in my project where the audio is out of sync. i was able to fix the first one by moving the clip elsewhere in the project, deleting the transitions on either side of the clip, and then putting the clip back where it was orignally....

but it's still messing up on the second one.

On more suggestion, unless you already tried it:
Go to iMovie Preference and check HH:MM:SS:Frames (Timecodes).
This allows you to edit to the frame level.
If you have the default settings, you can only edit to the nearest 10th of a second.
I have noticed that with the default settings, if I use custom speed adjustments some of the above issues are more likely to happen, as you might accidentally hit an odd frame...
However, when adjusting speed at preset values, I didn't find any out of synch issues. My latest project is over 50 minutes.

thanks for the suggestions.

i found that splitting the audio from the clips solved the problem

the clip that was out of sync did NOT have a custom speed setting. detaching the audio from this clip solved the problem.

Has this bug been fixed yet? I just ran into the misplaced audio problem (custom slow motion) on May 2nd. I had to show the dvd as soon as it burned, and boy, did I have egg on my face... Come on Apple!

OH MY GOODNESS! I am so glad I found this thread just in time. I have been slaving over this movie project I've been working on for hours and trying to perfect it. When I reviewed the file I exported, I was horrified at the audio and video being a complete mess. There was audio from one portion of the movie being played on another. It was ridiculous. I spent the last two days trying to export into different formats, iDVD included. I was so worried since none of formats I exported to worked. The movie played flawlessly on imovie playback so I had no idea what was going on. I have to present this video in two days and since I had already spent so long editing it, I was going to just going to play it straight from iMovie! Again, SO glad I found this topic!

It was my first time using the speed feature on iMovie 09. I set a custom speed for some of the clips. I would have had no idea that this was the cause behind the mayhem. I changed the speed settings to the preset ones on the slider and now the exports are perfect. WHEW! I am so sorry for those that need the custom speed and the negative effect this bug has caused. Apple really needs to fix this problem stat for all of us!

We had the same problem and, like everyone in the thread, got frustrated. After tooling around with it and doing all the suggested fixes in this thread, nothing was resolved.

We finally found a solution:
We detached the audio from the buggy clips and everything seemed to work!

When working on a project in iMovie I had a similar problem; towards the end there was an audio offset of about 8 seconds. I detached the audio from all the affected clips and that seemed to fix the problem. But then when I shared the project to iTunes and iDVD the entire project was out of sync. The audio from certain clips plays up to 30 seconds before the actual clip plays (during which there is no sound). There is also audio from muted clips that plays before the clip plays. In iMovie, the project plays perfectly. I tried taking the clips out and putting them back in again. But nothing I've done has worked.

I am experiencing the same bugs. After scene with custom speed (slower) starts sound from another scene few seconds earlier. I happends only on exported movie (Media Browser and even Export itself). I can confirm also the second issue. There are audiable sound in the custom speed (slower) scene which should be muted. Now I am trying to detach all the sounds from slower scene and from folowing normal speed scenes too. And after that I will try to delete all the detached sounds which are muted just to keep the session as simple as possible. I will let you know how this worked out.

I normally use final cut for all my work but I decided on a recent project to send everything to YouTube through iMovie. I exported it as a quicktime out of FCP and imported it into iMovie no problem. Because all the work was done in FC there was no need to make changes. So I have not adjusted timing or anything to the audio. And I am experiencing the same issues this post has been discussing.

I sent 2 videos to YouTube and my client emailed me to let me know that neither of them contained audio. So I decided to try out Share>Export Movie. Oddly enough it worked with both movies. So from then on I figured that was the way to go. Until I got to the very last in a series of 7 (because they only allow 10 min clips). No matter what I do it will not export with audio. So I said screw it and exported it as a FC XML file and used that instead.

Needless to say I'm not thrilled with the results.

I am working on a music video in iMovie '09 on my new Macbook and hitting this audio bug.

My project is about 60 minutes long and plays fine in iMovie. when I export it to iDVD, my project hits spots about 15-20 minutes into it, where the muted audio from a clip near the end of the video comes into the clips at the beginning, along with random mixed audio from other clips...all of which are muted.

I have muted all of the audio because I have music tracks that I have imported that are providing the score to the video clips in my project. The varying speed adjustments (some of which are Apple preset and some of which are custom) are essential to the flow of the music matching up with the video.

To go back and set all of the time adjustments to Apple preset time adjustments and not use the custom time settings I have worked out, would be like going back to the beginning of all of the work I put into syncing up the music and custom timed clips in the first place. My project is due in September and I'm frustrated at best.

Has anyone found a way to remedy something like this?

I've also experienced these symptoms of the speed-adjustment bug. There is another symptom that no-one seems to have reported, so I will, in the hope that Apple will make sure it gets fixed too.

In a recent project that included clips set to 70% and 80%, I also have a couple of separate audio clips accompanying some later video clips. When I reduce the volume of one of them using the volume slider in the audio adjustment panel, its volume itsn't reduced, but the volume of the other clip is! Similarly, if I turn on ducking in one clip, the volume of that clip is reduced instead of the volume of the other. This anomalous behaviour goes away if I reset play speeds of all preceding clips to 100%.