Downloaded youtube/google videos lose a/v sync

I've downloaded some documentaries from these sites in .flv and .mp4 format, but they gradually lose sync over time. Starts to become noticeable about 15 minutes into the flick, and gradually progresses until they are about 3 or 4 seconds out by the 1.5 hour play time. I know it's possible to re-encode them, but has anyone found a way to fix it without the need to do that.

I've read that using VLC player doesn't have the sync problem, so I tried that, but they still lose sync in the same manner. Tried ZoomPlayer and Media Player Classic as well. Same problem.

Get fed up with the whole a/v codec situation. Drives me up the wall. About time we had one codec for everything I think.

Any ideas? (other than re-encode)

Sounds like a PAL/NTSC conversion problem.

Never, ever going to happen.

Ever.

There simply are too many competing financial interests and money involved in the various formats with all the lock-in and DRM garbage stapled on top of it.

@Gfk:I'm not so sure its a pal/ntsc thing. I tried loading them into TMPEnc and they still have sync problems even while previewing. Tried the different framerates (25,30,29.97, etc.) but still no sync. Weird thing is that both the audio track and video track are the same play length. I was assuming one would be stretched which would explain the sync problem. Even re-encoding doesn't fix it.

@xlsior: I guess it's not too bad though. Pretty remarkable that you can have a ton of codecs installed and everything pretty much plays okay. Well, at least most of the time anyway:)

I'm beginning to think that youtube/google do this sync problem specifically so you can't download the files and play them properly. I've noticed they play fine from the websites, it's only the downloaded version which loses sync. Oh well, no great loss.

the .flv files can sometimes lose sync on audio/video, we've had tons of problems with this when developing presentations for our clients.