Delay compensation when used with AV receivers

I think you've missed my point.

Whilst it appears to be possible to implement and, the maths isn't hard, the low-level code to manage buffers and retain relative sync in real-time across multiple zones whilst implemented that math is probably a significant thing to implement, bearing in mind that most other vendors have struggled to get basic sync working reliably.

And, more importantly, it will involve many man months of development, debugging, and testing resource. That has to come from somewhere.



Since nobody who codes for Sonos has weighed in on this thread we're all left to make assumptions as to how simple or complex the coding would be. What I was trying to explain is that in at least one implementation there's actually very little complexity and NO coordination needed amongst zones. Once the MAX DELAY figure has been propogated across the system there's no
"retain[ing] relative sync in real-time across multiple zones". There's simply each zone player making one calculation (MAX DELAY minus LOCAL DELAY) and buffering that number of milliseconds. It doesn't care what the other zones are doing, it's just doing it's thing.

Maybe that would involve "many man months of development, debugging and testing" but I highly doubt it. I've managed significantly more complex coding requests on far more diverse platforms (remember, there is only 1 device on earth that needs to be able to run the "I delay by" code and 6 devices in the world that need to run the MAX DELAY minus LOCAL DELAY code. The controller is just an interface to that but even there we're talking about a fairly limited set of Win, Mac, iOS, Android.

And yes, I think we're all clever enough to understand that the most important features are the ones that get developed. If you ask me, that makes it well worthwhile for those who feel THIS is important to contribute their thoughts and insights to a thread that now numbers 122 posts, overwhelmingly supportive and spanning several years of requests.

Moreover, many of those who've commented are -- like me -- Sonos authorized dealers who specifically avoid putting Sonos in clients' theatres and surround sound rooms specifically because of this issue. Others are Sonos customers whose "showcase rooms" make their Sonos system sound terrible, which means lost sales opportunities for Sonos every time one customers' guests leave a party thinking "I've heard good things about Sonos but all I heard when listening to it was an echo. I guess I'll stick with my iPod in a Bose dock. ;-)

I for one look forward to this problem eventually attracting the right attention at Sonos and getting fixed. Given how good Sonos is at what they do, I remain hopeful that will happen.

--Jason

Maybe that would involve "many man months of development, debugging and testing" but I highly doubt it.

You would be surprised. I've been on several alpha and beta testing runs for a number products (including Sonos) and the amount of testing and rework is significant. Even seemingly simply changes can have unintended consequences and unwanted feature interactions.

And yes, I think we're all clever enough to understand that the most important features are the ones that get developed.

Again, you would be surprised at the sense of entitlement some people have when it comes to their pet feature request.

Cheers,

Keith

You would be surprised. I've been on several alpha and beta testing runs for a number products (including Sonos) and the amount of testing and rework is significant. Even seemingly simply changes can have unintended consequences and unwanted feature interactions.

Again, you would be surprised at the sense of entitlement some people have when it comes to their pet feature request.

Cheers,

Keith

Again, neither of us has access to the source code so it's pure speculation, but you're now talking about *any* feature, not the specific complexity of THIS feature. We can safely assume that Sonos plans on continuing to introduce new features as they have since their inception. They all have complexity, they all have testing needs. My point is that this feature is -- RELATIVE TO OTHER FEATURES -- not especially complex. This is even more true today than it was a month ago since we now know that the Soundbar has a lip-sync feature built into it which allows it to buffer sound coming over the optical input in order to match processing happening in a receiver. So at least that part of the coding appears to already have been done. And tested. And debugged . . .

Frankly the discussion of coding, man months and unintended consequences is not particularly useful. Neither you nor I have any inside information about development at Sonos (other than as users and dealers who've alpha- and beta-tested features. There's a clearly demonstrated need here, it's currently blocking a certain category of sales, and I'm sure the smart people at Sonos are capable of determining when and if it makes sense to solve the problem and capture those sales.

I came back to the thread a few weeks ago when the Playbar lipsync feature came to light, and I'm happy to see the overwhelming majority of thread participants continue to add their "+1's".

--Jason

Majik, I think most apreciate that any development as simple as it might seem would require man hours of development and testing. moving away from the complications of if this is "simple" or not to implement, the point is I think most folks are surprised at the amount of people that have noticed this and more importantly impacts their setup/use of the solution. its clear this is a VERY useful feature to get the Sonos system to play nice with the bulk of folks using more than one zone and existing receivers/ other equipment that introduces delay, I have to imagine this is is the case of over 50% of folks with a Sonos system at home. so the fact it has not registered in the priority scale at some level given the years of complaints/forum posts does reflect to some extent the values of a company to its customer base and folks notice. The view at sonos might be that this is somehow a niche issue and does not impact most users, but I find that hard to believe. Reality is most users probably consider this a anoying issue and have adjusted the use of the solution to playing in one zone at a time or for those with budgets changed equipment to minimize, reduce the issue. But its this kind of flexibility in the configuration that would make take sonos from the great category to the trully standout. Just surprising this has not been recognized yet. I keep crossing my fingers this recognized at some point soon by sonos development.

I have two issues with the system this feature would resolve, I have multiple play'3 3x sonos amps and and 2x connects,and my first issue comes down to when we have outdoor parties, I have a pool deck with 2 sonos amps and 4 outdoor speakers sound great no issues synched with the rest of the house, now when we need to "pump things up" I have two pairs of outcasts wireless speakers which really "thump" unfortunatelly when connected to the connect delay is completely unmanagle due to the 150-200 ms delay the souncast system introduces to transmit wirelessly, so my 4 outdoor speakers connected via the sonos amps are completely out of wack with soundcast speakers. solution, well only use the soundcasts outside when we need to pump it up. workable yes, but far from ideal. Second problem is similar and probably faced by most users, when listeing to music in the house across all zones the delay from the living room 5.1 setup connected to the yamaha amp and then to a connect is exactly the same, i.e out of wack with the rest of the house, delay here is is less probably 50ms which makes is bearable but a bit anoying when the others play 3s are pumping through the house. solution put up with it or do not group the living room to play at the same time.

while I love the sonos system and have tons of $$$ invested in it these are the things that keep it locked in the great category to becoming amazing

Just my two cents.

I didn't bother finishing reading this as you played the "Sonos isn't listening to/doesn't value their customers" card. To me there's no point continuing this discussion if that's your starting point.

I will, however, add that you could take your text and (with a few minor changes) apply it to almost any feature request that any customer has ever made. You can be as passionate as you want about a feature, and can claim anything you are prepared to invent about impacting markets size, benefits to the product line, or what you think Sonos's view of their customers is, but you are more likely than not to be wrong in making such gross assumptions.

The fact is, for whatever reason, this hasn't so far made it onto Sonos's development shortlist. There will be sound reasons for that.

Cheers,

Keith

...the fact it has not registered in the priority scale at some level given the years of complaints/forum posts does reflect to some extent the values of a company to its customer base

Again, this feature has been marked as "Under Consideration". It's not that it's 'not planned'. It's on the 'priority scale', just not as high up as you'd like.

Majik, I think most apreciate that any development as simple as it might seem would require man hours of development and testing. moving away from the complications of if this is "simple" or not to implement,


Nobody should "move away" from the difficulty of implementing something when discussing future developments.

the point is I think most folks are surprised at the amount of people that have noticed this and more importantly impacts their setup/use of the solution. its clear this is a VERY useful feature to get the Sonos system to play nice with the bulk of folks using more than one zone and existing receivers/ other equipment that introduces delay, I have to imagine this is is the case of over 50% of folks with a Sonos system at home.



The bold is pure speculation.


so the fact it has not registered in the priority scale at some level given the years of complaints/forum posts does reflect to some extent the values of a company to its customer base and folks notice.

It has registered on the priority scale. It has been marked "Under Consderation". If it was not on the priority scale, it would be marked "Not Planned." After "Under Consderation", the next status is "Planned" which will indicate an imminent release.


The view at sonos might be that this is somehow a niche issue and does not impact most users, but I find that hard to believe.

Pure speculation.


Reality is most users probably consider this a anoying issue and have adjusted the use of the solution to playing in one zone at a time or for those with budgets changed equipment to minimize, reduce the issue.

Again, pure speculation. This does not affect me in the least because I use no DSP when I listen to music.


But its this kind of flexibility in the configuration that would make take sonos from the great category to the trully standout. Just surprising this has not been recognized yet. I keep crossing my fingers this recognized at some point soon by sonos development.


As Majik stated, you could take this quote and paste it into any and all requests on this forum. For you this is what separates the "great" from the "standout." For others is is Google Play, Android streaming, 24/96, static IPs, Amazon Cloud for EU, Playbar DTS, Playbar HDMI, Windows 8 support, etc., etc., etc.


I have two issues with the system this feature would resolve, . . .

I have zero issues this would resolve. Instead, I would love the 'i' button to access an online database so that I can see Artist/Album info for my local library like that available to online services. I would also kill for the new SiriusXM 'On-Demand' and station customization features. These two would greatly enhance my Sonos experience, and would most certainly move Sonos from "great" to "standout" and "amazing" for me. But these are my personal needs and wants, and I would never state that my needs and wants are anymore important to Sonos sales/success than anyone else's. YMMV.


PS - Over at ask.sonos, this idea is currently 23 on the list of customer submitted Ideas (ranked by # of "Likes"), with 47 votes in favor (including mine). Compare and contrast with Windows 8 support (690 votes), Google Music (283), and DTS for the Playbar (256). Now this is by no means a reliable marketing study, and I highly suspect there is some campaigning going on (esp. for Windows 😎, but it is the best insight we have on the wishes of Sonos owners.

Hi,

I have just bought a Play5, Bridge and Connect for my surround sound system in the lounge. I am disappointing to find there is a delay when using the connect and play5 together. I thought everything is meant to sync perfectly. Please update the software to allow for delay compensation. Thanks.

I've been meaning to drop in here for an update since I've now had some experience using the Playbar. I'll write more separately but I wanted to post a video here showing how the Lipsync delay in the Playbar works. Bottom line is all of the functionality I've been describing (requesting) for managing the Connect delay has ALREADY been developed and programmed by Sonos. The slider is there, but ALSO the ability to propogate a delay across multiple zones. So everyone who's been saying that it would be too complicated and take too much programming time can rest easy. It's already been done.

Now, if Sonos could just apply the work to the Connect then I can get back to selling Connects. ;-)

http://vimeo.com/65532574

Apologies for the quality of the video. Taking a video of my tablet proved to be a bit of a challenge.

The slider is there, but ALSO the ability to propogate a delay across multiple zones.
Actually that's not the case. The Playbar lip-sync delay applies only to the Playbar (and any bonded sub/surrounds), not to any Players grouped with it. Other Players have the standard 70ms Line-In delay.

In fact, as the FAQ explains, one can use the lip-sync adjustment to add Playbar delay so as to bring grouped Players back into sync:

Latency and Lip-sync Delays

When playing a line-in source, all players other than the PLAYBAR insert a 70 ms delay to allow all rooms to be synchronized. When the line-in source is a TV, this 70 ms delay results in a small, but perceptible, lip-sync delay.


The PLAYBAR is designed to have a much lower delay when playing from the TOSLink (optical) input and as a result, provides much better lip-sync performance than other players. All players bonded with the PLAYBAR (SUB and PLAY:3 surrounds) are synchronized with the PLAYBAR at all times.


When other rooms are grouped to the PLAYBAR, the same 70 ms delay is used for transmission to those rooms. As a result, the other rooms are slightly delayed relative to the PLAYBAR when it’s playing from its TV source (optical input). In practice, this is often not noticeable, but depends on how close the other rooms are and the relative volume of the PLAYBAR and the other rooms. If it is noticeable, you can adjust the Audio Delay setting to add additional delay to the PLAYBAR for perfect room-to–room synchronization. Select Settings->Room Settings->Advanced Audio->TV Dialog Settings to adjust this setting.