If you're experiencing audio delay issues, read this

Prodan · 2017-11-03T01:34:38+00:00

I've been living with lip sync issues (audio behind the video) since I got my Playbar about a year ago but I finally decided to do something about it. After multiple conversations with Sonos support and the LG's support people (they kept blaming each other for the audio delay), I decided to email Sonos' CEO about the issue. After a few hours, I got a reply back from him, CCing a team manager who was going to look into the issue. We scheduled a call and he had me send various diagnostics to him. He said that the engineering team was going to investigate and get back to me. A week later, I got an update. He told that they are still working on the issue. He also said that only one other person had reported the same issue (I assume that means that only one other person with an LG TV). So, if you're having audio delay issues and you've tried all other troubleshooting, reach out to Sonos support and have them look into it. If it helps you might mention my reference number, which has already been escalated: Keep in mind that my setup is pretty straight forward (LG C6 OLED TV connected directly to the Playbar via Optical, audio playing from the built-in apps) and every single thing LG and Sonos suggested, including going into the TV's service menu and changing things there. I know there are multiple post on the topic so hopefully we can solve at least some of the issues causing audio delay.

Could not have been a problem of process on Sonos to »translate » the LG signal and to diffuse it on the different speakers?

Not in my opinion, no. To the best of my knowledge, what the PLAYBAR is expecting is the Dolby Digital standard. This is why the PLAYBAR works with so many TVs, it only has to deal with one "standard" signal, and not a signal specific to each kind of TV. So there shouldn't be anything unique about the signal being sent by the LG, it's simply a matter of timing.

In my world, the PLAYBAR is actually a pretty "dumb" device. The only thing it does is take 2 specific types of signals, either stereo (PCM) or Dolby Digital, and do a minimal amount of processing to get it out to the appropriate speakers (the three in the device itself, the SUB and surrounds if they're connected). Not a bunch of processing there.

I do think that some of the issues that have been seen in the past were due to various manufacturers inserting their own special codes added to the Dolby Digital signal so that they could do something special with the manufacturer's soundbars. I would hazard a guess that in some cases, it "broke" the standard that Sonos was expecting, and in other cases, the manufacturers were able to keep it "outside" of the standard, and it had no affect on the Sonos' ability to interpret the signal.

Word of warning, though, fredacqua, this is all entirely supposition on my part. Don't take any of this as gospel, please. It's logical based on the knowledge I have regarding lots of these things, but I'm not an audio engineer of any type. Just a guy making some informed guesses.

I’ve just come across this thread. I bought a new LG OLED 55” TV last week and noticed the delayed audio straight away.

Very disappointed. Looking forward to seeing a fix on this thread soon.

Another Sony user chiming in, it’s the same on mine with a PS4 Pro and a 65Xe9305

But ok with your TV?

I returned my Playbase yesterday.

I’d never really noticed it before with the TV, but watching bbc 1 breakfast via the sat input (internal) it might be a tiny bit out, but hardly noticeable.

It’s defibately way out with the PS4 pro though

I was looking at my current TV settings samsung ks8000 55 and noticed audio is already delayed 40 msec by default I guess, I don't remember I touched it.

Audio seems in sync with video (without Sonos).

So this could be helpful, is the TV video decoder already adding some delay?

Do you have the same settings?

Camillo

Thanks Camillo. Sony and (I think) LG televisions do not give users the option to turn off this audio delay, which seems to be the reason that this problem only affects people with TVs from those manufacturers. The HDMI switch solution seems to work well for some but I can’t find an HDMI switch with an optical cable output that supports HDCP2.2, so I can’t watch anything in UHD if using the switch I bought (which I’ve also now sent back).

you can try this one, that should work …

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B071WVXZKY/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_pZLqBbD44CV46

it's from the german store, but maybe you can get it at your place as well.

here is a video of the problem with sync settings -5,-4,-3,-2, and -1. Not only does this range not totally fix the audio delay, but -5 is just as bad as zero! the strangest thing was that -4 was the closest to being in sync, but it still 1/30s delayed.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/j9ynjxUPc6beVSCBA

My setup is LG B7A with Optical Out (Auto format and On link settings)

I bought an ARC HDMI audio extractor from Amazon and it actually did not perform any better:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012ORQIT8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

not sure what to try next, besides contacting LG support!

Any update on this? Is this something likely to be fixed or would I have to use one of the workarounds detailed above?

I'm about to pull the trigger on purchasing an LG OLED but seeing these issues makes me question if that's the right decision...

I'm in the same boat. I'm about to purchase an LG OLED B7 + Sonos Beam, Plays: 1s and Sub. Any LG owners received their Beam yet?

I've seen a few Beam reviews using an LG OLED (e.g. https://www.androidcentral.com/sonos-beam-review) and no one has mentioned sync issues so am hopeful (although none mention whether they tested external hdmi sources e.g. sky q, apple tv as part of the review).

Sorry, I was responding to the statement "I just hope the beam doesn't suffer from audio delay,", but you do have a point, assuming that you're connecting with the HDMI cable rather than the optical cable. I would expect that if it was connected with the optical cable, it would have the same delay.

I'd be fascinated to hear from someone who can test this.

I will be testing this tomorrow on my 2016 E6P when my Beam arrives.

All.

I solved the delay issue by running optical cables from my LG tv, x box and sky q to an optical switcher and then optical from there to the play bar. The only issue was remembering to select the right channel on the optical switcher.

Tonight I set up my new beat through hdmi arc and the issue still exists if you try and use DD. If you set the sky q output to normal. No issue but that obviously does not give me the sound I am looking for. My TV is the LG C7 65.

This is a bit rubbish to say the least!

Update. I have retained the set up through optical I describe above and used the hdmi optical adapter that comes with the beam to go from the switcher to the beam.

So in summary Dolby digital with no sync issues on a LG TV acheived by

Running optical from sky Q to optical switcher

Running optical from x box to optical switcher

Running optical from the LG TV to optical switcher

Running optical to hdmi optical adapter that came with the beam and then connected to the beam.

It all works except Alexa will now not control the tv.

Hope this is useful. Regards

Josh

So the beam itself (hdmi arc) did nothing to improve the sync issues? I’m assuming you tried that entire setup without the optical switcher before connecting all that up.

Update. I have retained the set up through optical I describe above and used the hdmi optical adapter that comes with the beam to go from the switcher to the beam.

So in summary Dolby digital with no sync issues on a LG TV acheived by

Running optical from sky Q to optical switcher

Running optical from x box to optical switcher

Running optical from the LG TV to optical switcher

Running optical to hdmi optical adapter that came with the beam and then connected to the beam.

It all works except Alexa will now not control the tv.

Hope this is useful. Regards

Josh

So the beam itself (hdmi arc) did nothing to improve the sync issues? I’m assuming you tried that entire setup without the optical switcher before connecting all that up.

Hi

Yes tried arc first but prudently left all the optical cables in place but not connected. Like i said the moment i switched to DD from normal on the Q the sync issue appeared. Very disappointing that this still happens. The beam was no better than the playbar re this. Re sound, the beam is excellent, got it setup with a sub and 2 play threes as surrounds.

Josh

Update. I have retained the set up through optical I describe above and used the hdmi optical adapter that comes with the beam to go from the switcher to the beam.

So in summary Dolby digital with no sync issues on a LG TV acheived by

Running optical from sky Q to optical switcher

Running optical from x box to optical switcher

Running optical from the LG TV to optical switcher

Running optical to hdmi optical adapter that came with the beam and then connected to the beam.

It all works except Alexa will now not control the tv.

Hope this is useful. Regards

Josh

So, what is the switcher doing to the signal that fixes the audio sync issue?

I’m afraid you are asking the wrong person 😃. No idea but it works. Maybe the fact that all the audio is going through optical and not being processed someway by the tv as it bypasses the Tv. One way to check that would be to go back to hdmi from tv to beam and only use the tv Netflix app ie the sound doesn’t come from an external box. That would then show it is some sort of issue caused by how the LG processes sound from external sources. Complete guess as this is not my area of expertise !

You are correct. It is down to the TV.

For anyone who joins this thread please have a read and you will see most if not all troubleshooting has been done. It will save you some time trying to work it out. I welcome any new ideas but I think we can safely say this is a TV processing issue. There is a lot of doubt as to whether LG will fix this issue and the optical splitter work around is the only solution. Any device that doesn’t have an optical port will unfortunately not be fixed unless it has its own delay correction, e.g. Kodi or Nvidia Shield.

It would be great if a Sonos rep could chime in here with an update. I feel that only Sonos can provide the pressure on LG to fix this issue.

Hi

Just one thing the ATV 4K does not have optical out but I connect it to the TV via hdmi and then the tv is optical to the sonos as described above. There is no lip sync issue with the ATV. Just letting you know in case people wanted to know if the ATV 4K could be used.

Interesting so technically the optical switcher isn't being used for the ATV 4K and yet no delay?

Hi

Just one thing the ATV 4K does not have optical out but I connect it to the TV via hdmi and then the tv is optical to the sonos as described above. There is no lip sync issue with the ATV. Just letting you know in case people wanted to know if the ATV 4K could be used. Correct. There is something about the Apple TV 4K when you have it set to force Dolby 5.1 that does not have the issue. You do not need an optical converter for the Apple TV 4K, it simply does not have an issue over HDMI.

Just another plus for what a fantastic device the Apple TV 4K is.

Update. I have retained the set up through optical I describe above and used the hdmi optical adapter that comes with the beam to go from the switcher to the beam.

So in summary Dolby digital with no sync issues on a LG TV acheived by

Running optical from sky Q to optical switcher

Running optical from x box to optical switcher

Running optical from the LG TV to optical switcher

Running optical to hdmi optical adapter that came with the beam and then connected to the beam.

It all works except Alexa will now not control the tv.

Hope this is useful. Regards

Josh

so I have an LG B7A and my beam is arriving today so in anticipation I switched my Xbox to bitstream and dolby digital a few days ago and even with the internal TV speakers I noticed a delay when playing games on my Xbox as soon as I go back to stereo delay gone so I knew that obviously the beam would have the issue as well since its just passing the audio and I just kind of figured I would need a switch but I kept digging and found another site and a fixed that worked at least for my TV speakers and im pretty sure it will be the same with the beam as again its just passing the audio, if you go into your LG menu make sure you have the latest firmware and then go to sound then go to AV sync adjustment and turn it on and then turn on bypass on that same menu and it immediately cleared up my issue at least so needless to say Im pretty happy as I want to be able to play games in 5.1 if at all possible and my main media consumption device is ATV 4K so its nice to hear that has no issues... Now just waiting for my delivery.

Update. I have retained the set up through optical I describe above and used the hdmi optical adapter that comes with the beam to go from the switcher to the beam.

So in summary Dolby digital with no sync issues on a LG TV acheived by

Running optical from sky Q to optical switcher

Running optical from x box to optical switcher

Running optical from the LG TV to optical switcher

Running optical to hdmi optical adapter that came with the beam and then connected to the beam.

It all works except Alexa will now not control the tv.

Hope this is useful. Regards

Josh

so I have an LG B7A and my beam is arriving today so in anticipation I switched my Xbox to bitstream and dolby digital a few days ago and even with the internal TV speakers I noticed a delay when playing games on my Xbox as soon as I go back to stereo delay gone so I knew that obviously the beam would have the issue as well since its just passing the audio and I just kind of figured I would need a switch but I kept digging and found another site and a fixed that worked at least for my TV speakers and im pretty sure it will be the same with the beam as again its just passing the audio, if you go into your LG menu make sure you have the latest firmware and then go to sound then go to AV sync adjustment and turn it on and then turn on bypass on that same menu and it immediately cleared up my issue at least so needless to say Im pretty happy as I want to be able to play games in 5.1 if at all possible and my main media consumption device is ATV 4K so its nice to hear that has no issues... Now just waiting for my delivery.

Yeah that fix seems to work for Xbox from what I've read. It does not work for most cable tv boxes and many other devices.

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