VTR Jog Response & QC

[Tom Smith]

Hi all,

Been doing a lot of layback to tape lately and have had some tapes rejected by QC for audio sync issues. QC claims 4-5 frames late across the board for the entire 90 minute feature.

Everything looks great when you play at normal speed, but our QC folks don't seem to care about that. They pick a couple of spots and using the VTRs remote controller, jog the tape back and forth frame by frame. When I do it myself, it seems like the slower I jog, the worse the sync.

Is this even a valid test? It seems like the deck would have a tough time keeping up with this in a frame accurate way. These are dubbed language versions so lip sync isn't really a good test so mostly sound effects are checked. To make matters worse, the QC'ers picked some spots where the actual visual event (that creates the sound) isn't even clearly visible!

Any advice on dealing with this? I told them to trust their eyes & ears but was told "this is the way we do it"... Any advice would be greatly appredciated!

Cheers,

Tom