TV: sound and picture not aligned

[COGENT]

I just bought a sound bar for my tv and I noticed that the picture and sound aren't aligned... obviously incredibly annoying.

I have a Philips LCD tv, a Shaw Motorola DCT3416 HDPVR and a LG speaker sound bar.

I have the tv connected to the PVR with an HDMI cable. I connected the sound bar to the PVR with an optical cable (that's the only inputs the sound bar has). I can't connect the sound bar directly to the tv because the tv only has coaxe as audio out and no sound bar uses coaxe.

I adjusted the PVR's audio to stereo and it helped, but it's still off a bit.

Anyone have and suggestions on how to fix this?

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by COGENT

I just bought a sound bar for my tv and I noticed that the picture and sound aren't aligned... obviously incredibly annoying.

I have a Philips LCD tv, a Shaw Motorola DCT3416 HDPVR and a LG speaker sound bar.

I have the tv connected to the PVR with an HDMI cable. I connected the sound bar to the PVR with an optical cable (that's the only inputs the sound bar has). I can't connect the sound bar directly to the tv because the tv only has coaxe as audio out and no sound bar uses coaxe.

I adjusted the PVR's audio to stereo and it helped, but it's still off a bit.

Anyone have and suggestions on how to fix this?

Did you have the problem when connected to the TV? If so probably your PVR is the problem although my guess the only way to correct this would be to take sound bar back and buy a receiver or home theatre in a box, with A/V sync.

[MickMcGeough]

Which is lagging, the picture or audio?

How much is it lagging?

I'm assuming your soundbar doesn't have HDMI?

Is your LCD 120/240Hz? If it is, try turning that off. On some sets that will lag the picture ever so slightly.

You can probably get a coax->optical converter for about $50 online somewhere. That would solve your problem.

[COGENT]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

Which is lagging, the picture or audio?

How much is it lagging?

I'm assuming your soundbar doesn't have HDMI?

Is your LCD 120/240Hz? If it is, try turning that off. On some sets that will lag the picture ever so slightly.

You can probably get a coax->optical converter for about $50 online somewhere. That would solve your problem.

The picture is lagging by about .5 seconds... maybe a bit less.

The sound bar doesn't have HDMI unfortunately.

Yes my tv is 240hz, I'll give that a try tonight.

I assume the problem is that the optical cable is a bit faster then the HDMI and because the the PVR is feeding 2 different sources, it just adds to the problem. I think if I can feed the sound bar directly from the tv (as you said), I would have it solved.

[Kipper is King]

My Yamaha soundbar has a calibration menu I had to tweak to stop the audio delay.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by COGENT

The picture is lagging by about .5 seconds... maybe a bit less.

The sound bar doesn't have HDMI unfortunately.

Yes my tv is 240hz, I'll give that a try tonight.

I assume the problem is that the optical cable is a bit faster then the HDMI and because the the PVR is feeding 2 different sources, it just adds to the problem. I think if I can feed the sound bar directly from the tv (as you said), I would have it solved.

Actually, it is usually because recent TVs process the picture in many ways (stretching, noise reduction, de-judder, etc.) and that is usually the source of the delay.

This is why most TVs offer a "Game" mode - it turns off the picture processing. I was playing a video game a few weeks ago and could not get past one spot until I went into this mode. Then it was no problem.

[Pinner]

This happened to me once when I was on mushrooms, you'll be OK

[COGENT]

Originally Posted by Kipper is King

My Yamaha soundbar has a calibration menu I had to tweak to stop the audio delay.

This turned out to be the solution. I'm glad it was something so simple but feel like an idiot that I didn't notice this feature in the user manual... in my defence it was poorly marked.