[Adriel Brunson]

I did find that it was a problem with drop-frame and non-drop.
FCP was set one way, the subtitle app was set the opposite. It takes about 5 minutes for the difference to be enough to be a problem but you’ll be off about 2 seconds with a 30 minute program.

I thought I’d checked this before – maybe I had. I’ve updated all the apps several times since this started. At any rate, (no pun intended) this problem disappears with subtitles when everything is exactly the same regarding drop vs non-drop.

-a-

[Adriel Brunson]

I’ve been dealing with this issue for weeks.

We subtitle our programs, about 30:00 long, with 12 to 14 languages. I exported the final edit with sound to a h.264 file and used a 3rd party program to manage the subtitles with final delivery on DVD using DVD Studio Pro.

By the end of every 30:00 program I had a time shift with the h.264 file running about two seconds longer than the m2v (MPEG2) file. This happened no matter how I exported the file – Compressor, QuickTime Conversion, Export for Soundtrack, etc. And it happened with all file formats except m2v through Compressor – then it matched the program length shown in FCP.

Today, after reading this post, I exported from FCP using the Export QuickTime Movie choice. This export matched the timing with the m2v file and the FCP timeline perfectly.

I opened it in QT Player and the Inspector window showed perfect program length. But… the Movie Properties window showed the +2:00 length. Very weird.

I believe it has something to do with timecode at 29.97 vs 30 fps. Whatever it is, at least I now know how to output a QT file directly from FCP with correct time.

Thanks for the help,
-a-