diff --git a/tests/e2e/replay/_tlog_synth.py b/tests/e2e/replay/_tlog_synth.py
index 0791181..ca7ad71 100644
--- a/tests/e2e/replay/_tlog_synth.py
+++ b/tests/e2e/replay/_tlog_synth.py
@@ -53,13 +53,21 @@ SOURCE_SYSTEM: Final[int] = 1  # vehicle id (any non-zero stable integer)
 SOURCE_COMPONENT: Final[int] = mavlink.MAV_COMP_ID_AUTOPILOT1
 _HEARTBEAT_PERIOD_S: Final[float] = 1.0
 # tlog timestamp epoch — pymavlink stores absolute microseconds. The
-# Derkachi CSV's ``timestamp(ms)`` field is a flight-controller boot
-# clock, not Unix epoch. We anchor the synthetic tlog at a fixed
-# Unix-epoch base so the timestamps are monotonically increasing and
-# greater than the MAVLink2-required minimum (2015 cutoff). The
-# absolute value is irrelevant for replay-mode determinism; only the
-# delta-between-rows matters.
-_TLOG_BASE_TIMESTAMP_US: Final[int] = 1_700_000_000_000_000  # 2023-11-14 22:13:20 UTC
+# synthetic tlog must use the SAME time-base as the Derkachi video
+# (CAP_PROP_POS_MSEC, which starts at 0) because the AZ-405 auto-sync
+# coordinator computes ``offset_ns = tlog_takeoff_ns - video_motion_onset_ns``
+# from absolute timestamps. Anchoring the tlog at a Unix epoch (the
+# pre-AZ-614 default of 2023-11-14) produced a ~53-year offset that
+# always tripped the AC-9 frame-window validator (frame-window match
+# 0% < 95% threshold) and hard-failed AC-1 / AC-2 / AC-5 / AC-6.
+#
+# Anchoring at 0 places the tlog on the same axis as the video and
+# also matches the CSV's ``Time`` column (column 2, seconds since
+# row 0). pymavlink's binary record format accepts unsigned 64-bit
+# microseconds and has no lower bound on the absolute value — the
+# 2015-cutoff mentioned in the pre-AZ-614 comment was a misreading
+# of the MAVLink protocol spec.
+_TLOG_BASE_TIMESTAMP_US: Final[int] = 0
 
 
 def synthesize_tlog(csv_path: Path, tlog_path: Path) -> int: