What went so horribly wrong??

[dubaifox]

We did a 6 month job last year writing music for a series released on DVD.

We sent our music tracks off to the producer and the sound effects and mixing was done in a different studio.

It came out on DVD the other day and we bought a copy and were SHOCKED that much of our music was out of sync, anything from .25 to 1.25 seconds, and it was ALWAYS early.

But the bigger problem was the quality of the sound effects. In the 4 episodes we watched, there was often horrific flangeing/phasing in the sound effects track, of varying amounts.

The music occasionally had very slight phasing/flangeing, but not enough that the average guy would notice.

The quality of the voice-over was always excellent.

Anyone experienced this and knows what could have caused it?

Paul

[steppenwolf68]

Are we talking about stereo or multichannel sound ?

About the the drifting: does it get worse the longer the episode runs or is it
a constant drift or a total random thing?

Also: did you produce a M&E track for them ?
Those kinds of phasing problems can occur if you hear the Full Mix and the M&E track at the same time. Since the the voice over is only in the Full Mix there is no phasing on that. So could have happened during transfer or layback.
But that's just a guess.

[dubaifox]

Hi Steppenwolf:

This was on DVD, we gave them only a stereo master of the music. The SFX were done somewhere else.

I think the music may be drifting, but sometimes the music is off right from the start so the placement is for sure sometimes at fault.

[Noiz2]

One poss on the wrong placement would be (if they were cutting on FCP in dropframe) that FCP counts dropframe differently that everyone else in the world. FCP ALWAYS starts counting at midnight, everyone else starts where the the time line starts. So with FCP you will start with X# of dropped frames. That would give them an offset from your placement.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Who did the post production? Who created the DVD masters and approved the proofs?

Rail

[philper]

It could be as simple as a difference of opinion about where the 2 pop was for that show. I often get sync pops from editors that are not exactly on the "2"--I generally leave them alone and in my spec I say that wherever the sync pop is in the OMF and/or the QT I get from them, it will be in the same relationship to the show when I give my files back to them. Another possibility, and my personal fave, is that they made a change to the cut of the show w/o telling you--a simple frame fiddle in the online etc..

Philip Perkins

[EarHole]

Originally Posted by philper

Another possibility, and my personal fave, is that they made a change to the cut of the show w/o telling you--a simple frame fiddle in the online etc..

Philip Perkins

That was going to be my guess. Perhaps some extreme time expansion and compression could also coause the phasing..

[nod25]

Originally Posted by Rail Jon Rogut

Who created the DVD masters and approved the proofs?

Rail

YES. Who approved the proofs?

[dubaifox]

Originally Posted by nod25

YES. Who approved the proofs?

Well...being the music composers, we have no idea.

We have been in contact with the director and he was shocked to hear about these errors.

He and the producer both approved the English version, but there was an Arabic version that came out on TV BEFORE the English version was released. He had nothing to do with the Arabic version, and it looks like there are some further edits and tweaks that they also applied to the English version without his knowledge. Then is the mastering/printing process(that he was not involved with)...something must have gone awry with the M&E track.

[sleadley]

Interestingly, I downloaded MAD MEN from the iTunes site and the last 4 episodes were appalling. The music was out of Phase as was the FX, but the Dialog was fine. My guess they had the M&E and the Mix both routed at the same time when creating the Mix for Itunes. I complained to Apple and was refunded for the last 4 episodes but this does not fix the problem and I either download the bad episodes illegally or buy the Boxed set just for the last 4 episodes, that ain't gonna happen. It seemed to me that the production company was to blame, but they never replied to our emails either. If the Digital delivery of Video content is going to be accepted then it has to be checked as if it were for broadcast not some oversight.
It would be all to easy for this to happen now and too difficult to fix, it seems. This would not pass if it was going to air in Australia I can assure you.
This is what seems to have happened on the DVD as far as the phasing is concerned. Can't help you with the out of sync issue, but I have to agree that the idea of Time code and head and tail pop has become so last century for the modern vidiot.
my 2c
Simon L.