BUG: iMovie '09, Audio Sync Problem on Export

I'm having a similar issue with iMovie 09. Halfway through my movie the audio cuts out and then is replaced with audio from a clip that appears later in the movie. To top it off the clip's audio that is playing is muted in iMovie. This only appears in the exported finished videos, all of the playhead previews in iMovie play the audio properly.

Having a similar and annoying problem.
I exported the movie once fine, no problems. I had to make a few adjustments, and now when I export it, near the end there is one clip of a guy talking and the audio track for this clip starts playing about 20 seconds too early, overtop of other stuff.

In iMovie, the preview looks and sounds fine.
This is footage from a MiniDV camera - but it's weird that it would work fine once, but now I can't get it to export properly after a very minor adjustment.

Having the same exact problem: the background music is not in sync with the movieclips any more.
Second issue:
I've muted the audio of the movieclips themself, but I can hear the audio loud for half a second now and then.

iMovie works pretty well, and looks amazing, but if I can't export my movie the way it should be... I'l have to go back to iMovie HD AGAIN!

I think I found exactly where the problem lies. When I slowed down one of the clips, the duration of the clip changes, but the position of the background music stays the same.
That's why, when the whole video get's renderd, the background music is off.

After i set all the clips to normal speed I didn't have any issues any more.

The second problem I had, with muted clips, that went loud for a fraction of a second seemed to have disapeard too.

That solves my problem, but it is STILL a bug.

Paljasken,

there are some more threads with exactly your problems and it seems that you have to make sure none of your clips are using custom slow motion percentages. Only use what the slow motion slider snaps to and you should have no problems. It's a bug alright but easy to avoid if you know how. Let's hope it gets fixed soon.

Yes indeed, that seems to be the problem.

Also: strange thing, when I'm selecting a portion of a clip in the bottom window (source material) it shows, for example, 2.1 seconds. OK.
But when I drag it into the main timeline, suddenly it reports as being 1.7s. The SAME clip? ***? Is it shaving off the time for transition or is it mis-calculating something based on a framerate disrepancy? This appears to be related to the problem with entering a custom speed %.

To fix my project I had to copy+paste all the footage into a new project and redo titles.

Had the same problems with Export in iMovie 09, also with speed changes. Most forms of export (including to Media Browser, Quicktime and others) caused random bursts of original audio even when muted. Happily, the Export to iDVD worked almost perfectly.

Hi, we're having the same problem and it's holding up my studio badly... basically, WE CANNOT EXPORT so we can't deliver. Apple, please deal with this NOW. What's the point of the software if we can't actually use it.

Anyway, for the benefit of everyone else I'm putting up our workaround for those of you who want to use custom speed changes. Here goes:

1. Create a movie exactly how you want it - with speeds of 33% or whatever you want.
2. Ready to export? Duplicate the movie.
3. In the duplicate, open every clip you've slowed down and change the speed back to 50% or 100% - whatever iMovies' slider snaps to.
4. But just before you change the speed, note the duration of the clip (just above speed).
5. After changing the speed, re-enter the duration that you had in the previous step.
6. Do this for all the clips that require it.
7. Export both this version, and the original version.

You now have two versions that you can open in Quicktime (PRO). One has correct speeds but bogus audio; the other has bogus speeds but good audio. Because you carefully retained the durations of each clip however, both movies are exactly the same length.

Moreover, when you open movie properties in QuickTime and view the audio track of each, you can remove the bogus one from the good video (delete). Then go in the version with the good audio, select all and do:: edit > copy. Now go back in to your version with the right speeds and do: Edit Add to Movie. Save the resulting file (it will want to 'flatten' it but doesn't change the quality as far as we can tell.) Same file size as your original.

Voila. You have exactly what you were trying to get.

I'm very sorry I can't be more detailed or answer many questions - we have a LOT of this to go fix now. Good luck!!!!! Hopefully Apple will release an update. Today's update to iLife did not help.

James

I had the same problem (but imovie 8) I went and changed a title on a movie short to export and burn in idvd and the music track was muted in the dvd. When I went back to the original movie the track was there with sound turned up as far as the indicators said- but somehow the track was silent?!!

I had originally exported it to idvd and it was fine. I made one little change and now the music track is silent? We had to reinsert the music underneath the first music track and then erase the silent one and it kept the sound?...

Also to make a music video and synch sound- can any one tell me- do I have to buy final cut xpress in order to lock (synch parts) to track- so they don't keep moving around each time I make a change in the video?

Thanks
Diana

I tried to use Quicktime Pro trick but can't seem to get the audio to copy/insert correctly. It completely messes up everything - video and time. It adds a frozen pic and plays the entire soundtrack then it plays the video (it inserts it wherever the video is paused it). It does that or all I get is 3 seconds of sound added to the front of the video. I'm editing .m4v files. Is this what is causing this to not work right (I make different sized videos ranging from use on iPhone/iPod to DVD movies so I don't use the Quicktime Converter in iMovie). Anyone else having this problem and figure out what they were doing wrong? I followed jtography's directions without success...

The whole reason I switched to using Apple's for video editing as they were supposed to be less buggy and easier to use than Micro$oft's glitchy programs. Micro$oft wouldn't call this a bug - they would call it an "added feature." I sure hope they fix this soon.

Any update to this bug from Apple? It's quite embarassing can't using the slowmotion in a project!

Guys - just quickly... it sounds like you are 'pasting the audio' instead of 'adding to movie' (both in the edit menu). Two important things:

1. Make sure you go into properties and delete the tracks you don't want in each movie (bogus audio and bogus video). Then:

2. Select all - to get the whole audio movie. COPY.

3. Select all of your video movie. Go into edit > ADD to movie. If you don't select all it will add your audio wherever the playhead is and screw things up. Deleting the bogus audio first makes sure you don't have multiple audio tracks running. Hope this helps!

J

I am having the same audio bug issue with iMovie 09. I am getting annoying bursts of audio from clips that had been set to not play sound (and are silent in the project playback).
In the video that I am working on, I have a number of short clips in a montage (with the sound of the clip set to 0, and I have also tried detaching the audio and deleting), with an audio track overlay. When exporting in any format, the clips that I applied a slow motion effect (not using the preset time choices, as they didn't give me the desired timing), bleed the clip's original audio over the song.
I tried jtography's workaround (posted in this thread), but I was not successful.
Does anyone else have any ideas that will still allow the use of specific motion settings (instead of the limited choices in the preset slide)?
Thanks!

Yes I'm Having a similar problem the audio was going nuts on export and yes I have several slow and sped up clips. wspasilly in the begining with a driving scene. What I Ulitmatly have to to was:

1. Export the Bad move as Quicktime

2. Import the Quicktime file and then load it in my project. Since most of my clips where good expect for like 30 sec of my 8 min video. All I I did was clip out the bad part and move the orginals in there place. It worked, but was a huge hassel. I don't think I'll use iMovie again any time soon.

I agree with George. It's a BUG. Apple has to fix it.

All others solutions are only stopgap.

Bye.