Audio drift in DR 18 when rendering to DCP

Has anyone heard if BMD is working on this crippling bug in DR Studio 18 where DCP-rendered audio moves in and out of sync? A previous post dove headlong into various and sundry ways of snake charming the MXF audio into tighter alignment but, honestly, I'm getting a little tired of always having to conjure engineering-heavy workarounds just to get my finished work looking and sounding right.

Gear and settings used:

2021 Mac Studio
DR 18.1.2 Build 6
Clip sources: BMD Pocket Cinema cameras shooting primarily in 4 and 6K BRAW
External audio recording: ZOOM H5 in 48000 .wav

Completed Resolve project files output perfectly in sync to ProRes, H.264, etc. Have done multiple renders in DCP using Kakadu in 2K DCI Scope, with the 5.1 audio set to Linear PCM configged for Wild Track Format or 5.1 at 48000. In every case the DCP tests perfectly in sync on my workstation but then plays slightly off at multiple points in the three different Dolby-Christie equipped theatres I've tested in.

The project is a 97-minute feature film.

It would appear Resolve is not playing nice with the theatrical interface and/or playing equipment. It's especially frustrating when Adobe Premiere uses saunter in with projects that play perfectly right off the hop.

What's your native framerate?

24 fps

That's a compliant framerate for DCI so there has been no conversion somewhere. Very strange issue. I have no idea, sorry :\

depends on weither you want to make a DCP or work on a science experment
if you want to make a DCP, export jpeg2000seq +audio and wrap in DCP-0-Matic
if you want a science experment, keep trying (and failing) with Resolve's native

I'm not sure it's a solution. The weird thing is that sync is ok when playing the DCP on DaVinci, but not a server. How to explain this?

depends on weither you want to make a DCP or work on a science experment
if you want to make a DCP, export jpeg2000seq +audio and wrap in DCP-0-Matic
if you want a science experment, keep trying (and failing) with Resolve's native

Now there's a ringing endorsement. We've done our final theatrical for now, but may well condescend to use DCP-O-Matic -- an MS-DOS user's jackpot of cludginess -- and possibly worth the pain.

Only other note is we are using source files stored on a T7 Samsung SSD. But, even if data transfer rates varied, it would then be obvious in the DR test of the MXF outputs. But these are perfectly in sync on my system. It really is just in the hand-off to the theatre.

Thanks.

Maybe your JPEG2000 bitrate is too high and frames are being dropped on cinema servers? It's a bit of a long shot.

DCP-O-Matic -- an MS-DOS user's jackpot of cludginess

The best review yet - I'll remember that one

I'm working on a client's project he wants to enter in film festivals. I have contacted several theaters that host festivals and they say they can now accept H264 high rate files. I also heard some can accept ProRes.

I heard from a viewer that attended a H264 show and he said it looked very good. Better than Netflix which is only 3 to 5 megs cable on his 70 inch TV.

Interesting.