Sony A95K + AppleTV 4K + HomePod Stereo Pair video out of sync with audio

[William Gates]

I have a Sony A95K (software up to date) with the latest gen (and up to date) Apple TV 4K paired to a stereo pair of HomePods (2nd gen). The HDMI cable is HDMI 2.1, 8k and HDR compatible. The processing the TV does to the video creates a slight delay. Audio plays about a quarter second before the action or speaking happens on the screen. I've done the wireless audio sync calibration on the Apple TV, but because the Apple TV can't see when the picture is displayed on the screen it doesn't actually sync the audio. When I switch the picture to the 'Game' setting the audio is synced, but any other picture setting, including and especially Dolby Vision, and the audio is ahead of the picture just enough to be noticeable and off putting. Is there any solution to this annoyance?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Yes, convert the video with a free program like Handbrake to a file format ideal of AppleTV like H.265.

Or edit it first in FCPX or iMovie and you can then render an ideal file for AppleTV from either of those.

This will flip your links in the (apparent) chain:

• from TV to AppleTV to HPs
• to AppleTV to both TV and HPs

In other words, AppleTV will be your source instead of working through the TV.

If that's already how you have it, AppleTV sharing with HPs shouldn't care what TV you have. In other words, it shouldn't be sending audio over to TV, back again and then to HPs. It should be going direct to HPs... unless perhaps you are using a different source for the video, like a stick or blu ray player or cable/satt box plugged into the TV. If:

• USB stick, see those first recommendations above about converting video from the stick source into an AppleTV file to then toss video to TV and audio to HPs FROM AppleTV.
• Blu Ray, learn to rip those into a format for direct playback on AppleTV.
• cable/satt/other streaming box, you don't have any great option if you can't tweak the audio delay settings in that TV.

Another test would be to run the same video file on a computer and see if it is also out of sync without involving AppleTV, HPs or that Sony. If it's also out of sync on the computer, the file itself needs work to get audio and video aligned. You can do this in FCPX quite easily. I don't know about iMovie.

If the file is fine (audio syncs with video) on another device, go into the menus of the TV and look for any audio delay settings. I entered "Sony A95K audio delay" in a search field and found many matches with apparently step-by-step instructions on how to adjust audio delay.

If you are trying to make sources OTHER than AppleTV work well, you might want to change your approach. Consider going the classic Receiver + "dumb" speakers route for audio and then wire in the variety of sources (including AppleTV) into Receiver, basically dumping trying to make the wireless link to HPs for sources other than AppleTV. Then perhaps repurpose the HPs for other rooms.

 

[snarkle]

I have a Sony A95K (software up to date) with the latest gen (and up to date) Apple TV 4K paired to a stereo pair of HomePods (2nd gen). The HDMI cable is HDMI 2.1, 8k and HDR compatible. The processing the TV does to the video creates a slight delay. Audio plays about a quarter second before the action or speaking happens on the screen. I've done the wireless audio sync calibration on the Apple TV, but because the Apple TV can't see when the picture is displayed on the screen it doesn't actually sync the audio. When I switch the picture to the 'Game' setting the audio is synced, but any other picture setting, including and especially Dolby Vision, and the audio is ahead of the picture just enough to be noticeable and off putting. Is there any solution to this annoyance?

I had a similar problem with my Apple TV, Panasonic OLED and soundbar setup. There were a few things that I needed to adjust in order for it to work properly that weren't so intuitive. I also thought that the audio sync would need to see the picture to work, but it knows when the signal was sent to the soundbar/homepods/speakers and also the video feed to the TV, so it is able to work out how long the audio processing takes from that.

I misunderstood the wireless audio sync feature and assumed it would only need to be done once, but it needs to be done for each resolution that the Apple TV will output. For example, in 4K SDR content, it would be fine after calibration, but watching HDR 4K from Amazon Prime would switch it and the delay would persist. To fix it, I switched the Apple TV output to each of the various common outputs and re-ran the calibration one by one. It was tedious, but it worked to minimise the issue. Apple TV will say "Calibrated" next to wireless sync when it has been done for that configuration.

I also set the Apple TV interface to 4K 60hz SDR (not HDR Dolby Vision) and turned off "Match Frame Rate", which stopped issues with the Youtube app going to black between each video change, but allows the Apple TV to go to Dolby Vision when the content supplies it.

On my TV, I basically set the picture into filmmaker mode which disables most of the image processing like motion compensation and other things which might add to the video delay. Which is likely a similar result to what you've found by going into Game mode. I usually think Filmmaker looks better too, but I usually bump up the luminance so it's not so dark.

I hope this helps you somehow!

 

[BrianHummm]

Glad to hear it’s not syncing. I was thinking (wrongly) that syncing a homepod to the tv speakers would automatically sync them both to the tv video since the tv audio and video are already natively in sync. Thanks for the heads-up👍