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FordUniver

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 25, 2012
2
0
Hey everyone,

I have noticed a hugely different lag when using AirPlay between the ATV with an external DAC and the Airport Express with analog output. The ATV is (almost) instantaneous and the AE has 1-2 seconds delay. Does anyone know the reason for this? Is it just the device or could it be related to the DAC?
 
Last edited:

Jackintosh

macrumors 6502a
Mar 21, 2009
573
4
Hey everyone,

I have noticed a hugely different lag when using AirPlay between the ATV with an external DAC and the Airport Express with analog output. The ATV is (almost) instantaneous and the AE has 1-2 seconds delay. Does anyone know the reason for this? Is it just the device or could it be related to the DAC?

I'm not sure what lag you mean... from the time you press play on your remote until sound is heard from the speakers?

The AE has to do it's own digital to audio conversion vs. ATV sending the signal immediately to the amp to do that (when using an optical interconnect). It could be that the AE internal DAC is slower in processing than your amp. Also ATV has an internal memory buffer, which might make it faster.
 
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waw74

macrumors 601
May 27, 2008
4,664
938
a DAC will not have any noticeable delay.

how and what are you airplaying?
are you sending video to the aTV?

video/audio airplay and audio airplay are handled in 2 different ways.

audio only has about a 2 second delay due to buffering.
 

AtomicGrog

macrumors regular
Jul 25, 2011
189
56
Have same issue when playing iTunes or vlc sourced Audio on my MBP to an old Airport Express.

Lag is in the order of 4-5 seconds (most noticable when you switch on multiple audio output in iTunes).

Suspect there's a standards issue here isn't one using Airplay (The ATv) and the other Airtunes (The AE). Airtunes wouldn't be worrying so much about audio/video sync and my well have different caching/sync buffers on the AE.
 

rneglia

macrumors 6502
Apr 18, 2006
413
131
I have an ATV and an AE using AirPlay in two adjacent rooms. There's only about a tenth of a second difference between them, but the effect is infuriating.
 
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