imovie sync problem

[jason_nevin]

I've just spent two weeks editing a movie using iMovie 3. All of a sudden the timeline and preview screen are out of sync. i.e the pointer on the timeline is indicating one clip but a different one is playing in the preview screen. Any ideas on how I can force iMovie to fix his?

Thanks in advance.

[FCPguy]

I am a big fan of trashing prefs
Just do a search on google for trashing prefs in OSX and it will walk you through- I'd explain, but I'm not in front of my Mac- Good luck with that, sync issues suck, but we've all been there Believe me!

[jason_nevin]

I tried deleting my prefs and this didn't work so I bought the latest version of iLife and upgraded to iMovie 4. Unfortunately this still hasn't fixed the problem. Does anyone have any more suggestions?

[FCPguy]

is there any chance that you are seeing the pics from the first frame of the clip and it's throwing off your sences? - If not, I recommend the worst... simply re-capture your clips and see if you can't re-connect them. - This will be the worst case senerio if you can't find something else better first, but that's all I can think of- Good luck!

[jason_nevin]

No its definitely out of sync. Problem is that I'm tying to add audio to it and I can't get it to sync because where I'm seeing one thing on the screen the pointer is actualy elsewhere in the project and when I click to add the audio it puts it in completely the wrong place. This is an operation that I'm going to have to carry out many times and I've already spent about 30 hours cutting the video clips.

I'm loathe to trash and start again because this happened to me on the last project and I spent ages trying to get round it. What's to say that it won't happen again?

I really am desperate so any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.

[FCPguy]

Another quick idea- Are you listening to the audio out of the speakers on the computer? or the monitor out? (Essentially- do you have a tv hooked up via deck or camera and watching your edits on a Monitor? or just through your Apple?) Sometimes that makes a difference. If it is all in your computer... that isn't good then - Stange that this has happened to you before.
BTW- you aren't saving your material to the same harddrive your OS is on are you? That can have major issues like you are talking about. Best to save ALL media to an external HD if you are into video editing- (You prob. know this, but I'm trying every aspect). I noticed 90% of my sync issues fade after I went to external HD. (just too much for one HD to handle) - Hope this is another avenue to explore-