I've been researching using AirPlay speakers for MacOS system output and from my internet searches the situation seems to be that the latency will kill the gaming experience but when it comes to watching videos there aren't any lip-sync issues but the consequences of that are that there tends to be 1 to 2 seconds of buffering before a video stats playing and if you pause a video then the image pauses immediately but the audio continues for 1 to 2 seconds after the pause, presumably as the speaker plays out the rest of its buffered audio. This is what I'm referring to as "audio run-on".
I don't actually have any HomePods yet, I'm waiting (and waiting, and waiting, and waiting!) for the rumoured HomePod Mini hardware refresh before buying my first ever HomePod but I have just connected my stereo pair of Sonos One to my new MacBook Pro via AirPlay and confirmed the behaviour I described above. I don't game, I don't really mind the brief delay before a video starts, and I'm pretty surprised and delighted to see that I am getting no lip-sync issues whatsoever so the only issue that is a bit annoying is that audio run-on.
My research (internet searches) also suggested that quite a few people do use HomePods as the main speakers for their Apple TVs and report "no issues" so - purely out of curiosity for now - I'm wondering whether there is code in tvOS that fixes the audio run-on issue that I and others see in MacOS (I'm using 26.4.1). Can anyone using HomePods with their Apple TV confirm whether there is audio run-on when pausing playback or if both the audio and the video do stop immediately/simultaneously when you hit pause on the remote?
If pausing a video does work without audio run-on in tvOS I'm quite surprised that the software developers responsible for the MacOS audio code haven't spoken to the tvOS audio folks to see if they can adopt whatever tvOS has done to avoid audio run-on in MacOS. Maybe they have & there's some other complexities involved, or maybe this audio run-on is only a feature for non-Apple AirPlay devices such as Sonos and if I had HomePods connected to my MacBook I wouldn't see any audio run-on. I'm just trying to work out how much hope I should hold out for this one little niggle getting resolved at some point in the future because I'd really like to get rid of the hard-wired speakers I currently use for system output - less desk clutter, one less thing to plug in and fewer other wires would be nice simplifications for my home office setup given that I already have at least somewhat decent speakers on my desk anyway for music output so using those for system output would be nice.
I don't actually have any HomePods yet, I'm waiting (and waiting, and waiting, and waiting!) for the rumoured HomePod Mini hardware refresh before buying my first ever HomePod but I have just connected my stereo pair of Sonos One to my new MacBook Pro via AirPlay and confirmed the behaviour I described above. I don't game, I don't really mind the brief delay before a video starts, and I'm pretty surprised and delighted to see that I am getting no lip-sync issues whatsoever so the only issue that is a bit annoying is that audio run-on.
My research (internet searches) also suggested that quite a few people do use HomePods as the main speakers for their Apple TVs and report "no issues" so - purely out of curiosity for now - I'm wondering whether there is code in tvOS that fixes the audio run-on issue that I and others see in MacOS (I'm using 26.4.1). Can anyone using HomePods with their Apple TV confirm whether there is audio run-on when pausing playback or if both the audio and the video do stop immediately/simultaneously when you hit pause on the remote?
If pausing a video does work without audio run-on in tvOS I'm quite surprised that the software developers responsible for the MacOS audio code haven't spoken to the tvOS audio folks to see if they can adopt whatever tvOS has done to avoid audio run-on in MacOS. Maybe they have & there's some other complexities involved, or maybe this audio run-on is only a feature for non-Apple AirPlay devices such as Sonos and if I had HomePods connected to my MacBook I wouldn't see any audio run-on. I'm just trying to work out how much hope I should hold out for this one little niggle getting resolved at some point in the future because I'd really like to get rid of the hard-wired speakers I currently use for system output - less desk clutter, one less thing to plug in and fewer other wires would be nice simplifications for my home office setup given that I already have at least somewhat decent speakers on my desk anyway for music output so using those for system output would be nice.