Audio sync on MPEG4 channels

1948GG said:

Nowhere in your post is HOW you have the receiver (audio and video) connected to the display/tv; so all the idle comments are moot. Provide this information and you'll get more accurate (maybe) answers/opinions.

The reason I ask is because of all the problems (ongoing throughout the industry) with HDMI. Those problems are separate and distinct from any audio/video synchronization in the DirecTV transmission itself, which is what the people here jumped on.

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Short answer, it's not 'just' HDMI (I had issues when using component). Audio sync issues have been a hot topic on this forum since at least January, if not before. And as qwsxz pointed out, its an overall industry issue. You'll see complaints about Dish equipment, TiVo equipment, even lots of complaints from OTA users (there was a big flurry in the Phoenix area I think) in addition to complaints from DirecTV users.

The short answer is, you can't do anything about it. People have tried various 'fixes' including pausing/restarting the program(if you have a DVR), rebooting, flipping in and out of the guide, etc. Also people swear by switching connections (HDMI to component, or vice versa), etc. Nothing has been shown to be 'the fix.'

The recent software releases rolling out now for the DVRs do list a 'fix' for audio sync so that may help. I must admit I haven't seen to have had a problem since the June update...

I'm another member living in the Chicago area that has experienced the audio sync problems. It's been going on for quite some time. I've tried every trick in the book, but at times, the audio gets out of sync with the HD locals. I don't think I've ever seen a problem with the MPEG4 nationals from DirecTV. I've written to WMAQ and WBBM (2) about the problems. WMAQ (5) seems better lately, but WBBM was really bad last night. I suspect it has more to do with how the signals are getting sent to DirecTV than anything else, but that's just my theory given I'm pretty sure I've never had this problem with HD channels other than the Chicago locals. WLS (7) seems to have the least problems compared to the others. Maybe we all need to send email to the various stations here in Chicago and they might pay more attention to the issue.

mcaldero said:

It's happening on all 3 of my TVs/receivers, all of which are connected via HDMI

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Bingo. I have a pile of engineering articles, many written by the actual developers of HDMI, all basically saying the roll-out of this 'technology' has been buggered by virtually every manufacturer in existence.

You need to run the S/PDIF toslink out of the DirecTV receiver/DVR out to your audio receiver/decoder. You'll never see (well, hear) any nonsense ever again. If you don't have a dolby decoder available at some locations (like a bedroom), run rca cables between the receiver/dvr and the display set, bypassing the HDMI for sound. You'll still have occasional sync/resync problems with the video, but it probably won't drive you nuts.

A couple years ago, I spent an entire week on the telephone with engineers from Samsung helping to narrow down HDMI problems on several models of their sets. Folks with a long history of HDMI with DirecTV products will know that Samsung displays in particular, had extreme problems when first released to consumers.

The upshot was mistakes (major ones) were made in the design of the HDMI chipsets by Samsungs fab plant in Korea. DirecTV, as well as other major HDMI consumer electronics 'sources' (like DVD player makers like Sony and Pioneer), basically played the dogs to the wagging tail of the HDMI chip makers. Luckily, DirecTV was able to figure some fairly fancy programming downloads into their receivers/DVR's, and make changes that eliminated most of the major problems.

But you don't mention WHICH SETS you have (i.e., which models). The 'original' models like the HR20-700, the H20-600/100's, and the like, have been mostly 'fixed' for quite a while. The newer stuff, like the HR21's and the like, I don't know, because I recommend to all the folks on the MDU companies I do engineering for to avoid them like the plague.

But try the analog audio hookups, and for the home theater, run toslink. See if you get 'off-sync' then. Then again, for some reason (say, as a licensed broadcast engineer for over 35 years) their's still problems (Chicago in particular keeps coming up in these forums), one can lay it at the feet of the stations not being required to have any engineers on staff since around 1984. Sad but true, and why I spent most of my career in the telecom industry, not broadcast (poof, there went 8 years of school almost down the drain).

Personally, I haven't seen any (ANY) sync problems for at least a year; but the broadcasters in my area tightened things up in a major way when several transmission problems hit them all about two years ago. Maybe that's what it takes, but for about 2-3 weeks every digital set around here with OTA went bonkers. And the HD feeds through DirecTV went a bit nuts too. But like lots of things today, nobody is really responsible for the problems, they only get fixed when it gets REALLY bad.

Scott in FL said:

Agreed, agreed, agreed!!! And nice to hear another old dog still learning new tricks!

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:lol: :lol: :lol: Barely! I'm fighting Vista for the last 2 weeks (had to build a new machine because the tail/software I need to run is wagging me/enduser in that it's Vista32 ONLY); actually, it's the graphics display card manufacturers who (here it comes!) don't seem to understand HDMI either! NVidia has it almost right, but at the end of the day, no cigar; at least they are partially honest in that they admit (at page 26 of a 100 page document!) that they don't support the mode I want to use (it of course is available in XP!) and don't ever expect to support it in Vista32 OR 64.

ATI 'thinks' it has it, but I have their top programmers trying to figure it out right now, as my problem with their card has been escalated literally past the top of their 'tier'.

Blech. The problems in their court now. Nothing I can do about it, don't lose sleep over it. I can live with the NVidia for maybe 6 months if I have to.

But to get back 'on topic', yep, when they got rid of the FCC 1st Class Ticket requirement for broadcast television, one could see the train wreak coming from 25 years away. When congress passed the Digital TV Act in 1992, putting in stone everything that is happening (with the almost final shoe to drop next February), all most folks can do is bury their head in the sand until it's all over.

I run into people almost every day that, in taking to them, I happen to 'casually' mention I'm a broadcast engineer (originally), and virtually everyone is extremely confused (still, despite all the 'updates' I see on both local and national stations!) on what's going on, why, and where we are going to end up.

I've run several 'seminars' at my mother's retirement 'village', so those folks are 'up to speed' (probably more than their boomer kids!!). But it's a drop in the bucket. BTW, folks there have the SAME problems with HDMI that everybody else has! Why would it be any different...?!

Oh well, maybe it will be fixed eventually. The manufacturers will get better, the pockets of badly designed stuff will end up in landfills. The way things are going, we'll have all the real engineers/technologists from Communist China here fixing our electronic infrastructure 20 years from now (hmm, it's already lapping at our shores) just like lots of our physical infrastructure is maintained by folks from the southern America's regions.

We are going through the same economic/cultural 'shift' that the British Empire went through in the 19th century. But where it took them 150 years to lose that Empire completely (WW2 was the final nail in the coffin), the 'American Century' (the 20th) can be literally watched dripping away in real time on CNBC.

Now, back to baseball! (that's what keeps me partially sane..)

Redlinetire said:

I'm just trying to point out this one symptom (lip sync issues) has many, many layers as a possible cause. Many people report issues with locals (as the OP did) but many of us experience issues with national channels (I used to see it a lot on ESPN) as well - so it's not 'market specific' in that sense.

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I for one have NEVER seen if on ESPN, which is MPEG2 (both SD and HD), but there was quite a bit of it going on during the very early days of the MPEG4 roll-out, on, I believe, the Tandberg encoders. As DirecTV has gone virtually completely to the Harmonics, I never see it, even on my system that's HDMI connected (and where I watch the market melt down on CNBC-HD every morning for 2-3 hours straight). The 'effect' most folks still get a lot of is the 'smearing' stuttering of the audio and sometimes even video. Since I watch a lot of HD baseball, I think it's actually coming from Fox Sports Net routing facility in Houston (The Woodlands suburb actually in north Houston), simply because it's extremely rare if not totally absent on the YES and NESN HD feeds, as for as 'national' feeds are concerned.

But a lot of this we're all sitting here at the end of the transmission chain, and where it's happening is pretty much conjecture. But like the YES/NESN example vrs. FSN, it's preety much certifiable. where the problem is. And since like me, many markets simply have very little if any problem, certainly not to the point originally described. Perhaps the Chicago DMA is 'stuck' with those Tandberg's!