Sound Doesn't Match Video on TV

[TromboneAl]

Have any of you noticed that frequently the sound and the video don't match that well on TV?

For example, watching the Barbara Walters special recently, for some segments the sound came significantly earlier than the picture, with a result that felt like a poorly-dubbed Japanese movie.

Much of our local news is like this.

Is it really that hard to make things match up? TV's been around for 82 years. I'll bet it has to do with video compression.

[d]

i noticed it but found the fix: shut it off. serious on both counts.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Who provides your tv service Al?

I note once in a while that the audio is blipped a very small amount off the video, but not significantly. I do get a lot of audio problems specifically on the news, where they're dubbing in clips and live feeds from various areas.

But directv for example has a few bugs in some of their products firmware that causes some audio drops and delays, particularly with local channels and its worse in HD. Could be its not the station but your provider.

Or maybe its your tv. Have you tried pedaling faster?

[Buckeye]

Seems like it only happens on HD broadcasts with the TV in HD mode.

I'm with Time Warner.

[Midpack]

Originally Posted by Buckeye

Seems like it only happens on HD broadcasts with the TV in HD mode.

I've noticed that too with HD. Mostly everything is in sync, but on occasion some HD broadcasts are like old 'poorly dubbed Japanese movies' (I'm with DirecTV)...

[HFWR]

That acid should have worn off by now, Al...

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Cant help you Buckeye, but for Midpack...if you have an HR series DVR the problem will be fixed in the next national release of firmware...probably in 2-3 weeks.

[Ronstar]

Same thing here with Directv on HD broadcasts.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Theres a beta software package out, just being released last night and tonight from 11-2pmET (right now!) for the HR2x series.

Reboot your receiver, and when the blue lights first come on, press "02468" on your remote and you should shortly see a "downloading new software" screen.

It IS beta, so you may find other glitches. But the audio mismatch is cured. Should go national as a regular release by the end of the month.

For non HR series directv receivers, seems their changes from mpeg2 to mpeg4, new sats and a lot of channel # switching is making a small problem into a bigger one...if you call and whine a little the front line CS people can give you $10 off/mo for a year...

[Puzzley]

This is a frequent issue with HD broadcasts, and isn't in your set, not something you can fix. A year ago, almost all of our local stations had this problem on HD broadcasts, but it's not a problem anymore, as they finally got it right. It's characteristic of digital broadcasts, as they are apparently more difficult to sync. Eventually, the particular broadcaster having the problem will get it sorted out. (or should) Time seems to be the only fix.....

[chinaco]

I have had problems with Time Warner's HD/DVR box. Ours is Scientific Atlanta HDC 8300.

I called the phone center a while back and the service rep said ... "you guys are the guinea pigs"... I am thinking WTF!

The box finally stabilized. It ticked me off. I was wondering if they were using unwitting customers as their beta test group?

I have considered switching to satellite.

[cantlogin]

Thanks for pointing out another reason I'm glad I don't have TV.

[Walt34]

I've noticed it sometimes too. Provider is Comcast.

Three or four glasses of wine helps.

[TromboneAl]

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny

Who provides your tv service Al?

I note once in a while that the audio is blipped a very small amount off the video, but not significantly. I do get a lot of audio problems specifically on the news, where they're dubbing in clips and live feeds from various areas.

But directv for example has a few bugs in some of their products firmware that causes some audio drops and delays, particularly with local channels and its worse in HD. Could be its not the station but your provider.

Or maybe its your tv. Have you tried pedaling faster?

I considered those things too, but that's not it, because parts of a broadcast will have the problem, and others not. For example, when our news anchor says "Think the subprime mortgage mess doesn't affect you? Barbara Bimbo explains why this crisis will kick you in your bottom line," the synchronization is fine, but when Barbara Bimbo gives her report, it's not.

Here's some more info I found:

Audio to video synchronization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[poboy]

Is it similar to this?

Clicky above

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quit watching barbara bimbo!

Having done a lot of video format conversions, I can tell ya its really rocket science. Dozens of different video and audio codecs, some of which mate well and some dont.

I suspect a big problem in the HD arena is that the mpeg4 video compression they're using is a variable rate codec and changes with the content as it goes along. I'm honestly not sure what audio codec they're using but most of those are variable rate as well.

I know we also had some problems with our local channel feeds to directv here in sacramento. Most of the cable company feeds in most major cities are fiber from the stations to the cable co head end, and thats also the case with the SD connections to satellite. But a lot of the satellite HD feeds are done with copper and sometimes actual antennas. The 80-100mph wind storms we had two months ago apparently took down some of the towers the copper was run on and that combined with a bunch of other equipment issues in the local stations are still causing a plague of problems two months later. Its interesting reading the blog of the guy who has to make all this work. He gets the same tech support we do...everyone tells him to reboot stuff, reload stuff, unplug it and plug it back in, and its taking him months to get obviously broken equipment replaced.

[Nords]

I've noticed that the closed captioning is always behind the video.

And that's kind of a nice feature. If something catches my eye while spouse is watching TV, I can usually figure it out from the subsequent text scroll. It saves me from asking touchy questions like "What's her name again?"

[Payin-the-Toll]

My rant is about TV / Radio match up. Watching the NCAA basketball championship games, I like to play the local radio because they do play-by-play (telling you who's got the ball, etc.), then watch the TV with the sound off. But the TV is always ahead of the radio. So the tube will show a guy shooting a foul-shot, and 10 seconds later the radio guy will say--"He made it". I always figured it would be the other way around, and that TV would have the longer delay, in case some cheerleader stripped down and ran around the court naked. Still suspect that TV does something to offset from the radio timing, so that you have to listen to the TV and their commercials.

[Ronstar]

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny

Theres a beta software package out, just being released last night and tonight from 11-2pmET (right now!) for the HR2x series.

Reboot your receiver, and when the blue lights first come on, press "02468" on your remote and you should shortly see a "downloading new software" screen.

It IS beta, so you may find other glitches. But the audio mismatch is cured. Should go national as a regular release by the end of the month.

For non HR series directv receivers, seems their changes from mpeg2 to mpeg4, new sats and a lot of channel # switching is making a small problem into a bigger one...if you call and whine a little the front line CS people can give you $10 off/mo for a year...

thanks for the tip! I'll give it a try. i also have several 5 second or so segments where I get no sound in HD, but I can turn to the SD version of the same channel and everything is ok.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

The beta was only available from 11-2 friday and saturday night.

You can check for upcoming beta windows for directv products (both dvr and regular receiver firmware) by going to DBSTalk.Com and looking up the directv "cutting edge" forums. They have an announcement thread you can subscribe to in order to receive new beta announcements...then you just have to stay up a little late (if you're on the east coast) and force a download once they open up the window.