After Effects PC Quicktime Audio Sync

Question

I'm putting this here for fellow PC-users who are experiencing this major frustration.
When RAM previewing, your audio is in sync.  But after rendering, when you play back a rendered Quicktime movie in Quicktime player - no matter WHICH codec you render to - the audio is out of sync.  If you try playing it in a browser (Quicktime plugin), it is also out of sync.
Fear not, PC users: your movie audio is not out of sync.  Quicktime playback via either standalone or browser plug-in is not playing the file properly.  You can test this a couple of ways: 1) Try playing it with VLC on your PC: magically, it's in sync.  2) Open your rendered movie on any Mac, or via a browser on any Mac: magically, it's in sync.
The Quicktime platform and its various implementations continue to set the lowest standard, given the enormity of the resources at Apple, and its prevalence in production.  As a VFX and multimedia content creator for 20+ years, I wince every time a client asks for ProRes, lossy files, as "masters."  Between the inconsistent gamma-shift issues and local playback sync, I avoid using Quicktime wherever possible. 
Hope this helps,
_Mike

Answer 1

Well, first off, my personal preference whenever any media comes to me is to immediately split the audio and video, and convert to .wav and image sequences.  With any .mov or .avi or .mp4-type container, one small corruption and the entire file is lost.  For safety's sake, image sequences are infintiely safer.  They're also easier during the production phase, where changes from a client can mean simple patching of just the relevant frames.  On tight deadlines, knowing that the entire output comp is ready to go at a moment's notice is often a lifesaver, and this allows me to make changes and re-output approval masters very quickly.  Time is money.
My preferred image sequence codec is OpenEXR, but I'll use TIFF, or even PNG, depending.  Ultimately, I deliver client masters as uncompressed TIFFs with .wav and/or .aiff audio. For as long as I've been in post-production, these formats have been around and withstood the test of time.  Usually, clients will want some sort of Quicktime with the master files, in which case it's Animation (lossless) codec with embedded audio.  But I can't sleep at night knowing how easily corruptible that is as a master, so I provide it in addition to the image sequences and audio files.
During production, I'll render to whatever the client wants to see/whatever's easiest, and I have plenty of Macs and PCs around here, though my primary workstation is PC.  Locally, I render my disposable tests to After Effects' default: lossless .avi.  I posted the original information about working with Quicktime above because I see this error 1000x a week, as many of my clients like to see .h264 media, and about 1% of them ever seem to notice the [obvious!] gamma issues or sync problems.  These are the world's biggest media corporations spending millions, and they rarely seem to notice or care.  Miss a word in the legal disclaimer, though, and they can see that in 6-point type from across the room...  priorities.
_Mike