Strange PDF header? problem

[Brad Crocker]

We have a camera ready PDF ad that comes from a nearby car dealer. We 
have been running the same ad for weeks and it has always run correctly.

Our camera ready PDF is placed on a Creator 7.0.6 document and then 
updated (cover up parts with boxes, retypeset things, etc. etc.) The new 
PDF is produced (Export EPS from Creator, Distiller 7.0 distills -> new 
PDF) and is then placed on an InDesign CS3 document, along with other ad 
PDFs and editorial content. A final PDF of the entire page is produced 
(Export EPS from InDesign, Distiller 7.0 distills ->final PDF) and that 
goes to rip, print...

The ad we did last week was based on the original camera ready PDF, 
changes made, what appears to be a good PDF is distilled out of Creator, 
dropped in InDesign, final PDf produced. This week however, the PDF that 
comes from InDesign has "garbled", pixelly graphics in some instances. 
Some pictures on the ad are good, others look like white noise, pixelly 
filled outlines of those graphics.

Our resident tech guru said this was a "PDF Header error". Said to take 
the Creator PDF, save as tiff and try again. Same result. When I place 
the Creator EPS (the one that was distilled), place that in InDesign and 
redistill, it works, graphics are right.

Any suggestions on what went wrong, how we could avoid this? We could 
just start placing EPS instead of PDFs, but I hate to revamp our entire 
process because of one bad PDF. Plus EPSs take a little longer to place, 
process.

Does this sound like a Creator, InDesign or Distiller issue? (I'm 
leaning toward the latter since the Creator EPS works).

Any advice or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Brad,
The Hartwell Sun Composition Dept.