Audio no longer syncs with video thanks to some frame changes I made - HELP

Question

I had frame issues with a feature-length movie recorded at 24p and edited on a 24fps timeline. My early settings led to a repeat frame every 3 frames. I have since changed the pulldown, though I don't know from what to what to be honest. Maybe it WAS 2:3:2:3 and now it's 2:3:3:2, or the other way around. Not sure at this point.
I made other changes, too. I found a setting to change from interlaced to progressive, which only made sense since my footage was captured on the progressive setting on the Panasonic DVX100. So I changed that, too.
I may have changed another setting or two as well until the video looked more accurate and lost the 'flicker' or 'jerky' appearance on long, tracking shots.
Through all these changes, the audio didn't suffer anything. Now, with a new audio mix from my sound engineer, the dialogue matches perfectly for the first several minutes, but by the end of the movie, it is off by several seconds. I have tried to revert to my original video settings to see if I can sync the video and audio, but I have had absolutely no success. Even the earlier audio mixes that kept sync through the video changes are now out of sync.
And the movie's length has not changed.
HOWEVER... my music selections have held their positions perfectly throughout. I am at my wit's end with this and I am, no doubt, lacking in explanation to expect one of you experts out there to solve my problem. Anyone who is willing to take a shot at this, please let me know!
I should mention, too, that I have opened a backup copy of the movie from another hard drive - a backup copy saved before any of the video settings were altered. And that file has the same problems, too. I'm frustrated with the way Final Cut handles system preferences and doesn't adjust to the preferences of the individual file, but rather the last saved settings. Makes it difficult to backtrack.
Again, thank you for struggling through this tome and accept my gratitude in advance for any effort given to assist me!
Justen
Message was edited by: prov

Answer 1

It's going to be very important for you to figure out what format your video was captured in. You have almost definitely been editing at a frame rate that was different from the frame rate of your video, which is why you were seeing problems with panning. Have you been watching the video on an external television or just on your computer screen? Chances are there isn't a quick fix for this issue. You're either going to have to learn about this technical stuff or you need to find someone who knows about it who can troubleshoot with you in person. I've written a little bit about editing in 24p on my website. This post is a good start. http://www.kylegilman.net/2007/03/01/24p-headaches/
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Your audio was probably not recorded in Pro Tools, it was edited and mixed in Pro Tools. How was your audio recorded on set? Did you have microphones going into the camera or did you record into a separate machine like a DAT player or a hard disk recorder?
My advice for now, not really knowing exactly what the problem is, and assuming the timecode on your imported AVI files matches the timecode on your DV tapes is to do a batch capture of your sequence straight from the DV tapes, capturing using the DV NTSC 48 kHz Advanced (2:3:3:2) Pulldown Removal preset. This will at least ensure that your video is at the correct frame rate. Unfortunately it won't ensure that your audio will sync up.
Also, have you tried changing the speed of your mixed audio to either 99.9% or 100.1%? This will not be a complete fix because you still probably have some duplicated frames in your video, but it might put it back in sync.
And make sure you have a back up of your project and media before you do anything else.