sound lags behind HD picture

[ginny2401]

Just upgraded to HD DirecTV. Love it, but the sound through my surround sound system lags behind the HD picture, it's OK with non-HD shows. What's up? Do I need to get a new audio receiver to handle the HD or am I using the wrong cables? Any help appreciated.

[MrBoylan]

Just upgraded to HD DirecTV. Love it, but the sound through my surround sound system lags behind the HD picture, it's OK with non-HD shows. What's up? Do I need to get a new audio receiver to handle the HD or am I using the wrong cables? Any help appreciated.

Lip synch problems are fairly common and they can be caused by sending the signal through too many layers of audio decoding. If you're connecting your DirecTV box to your TV via HDMI, then out to your home theater system via analog (left/right white red) or digital (fiberoptic) connections then your TV may be decoding or converting the Dolby Digital signal to 2-channel PCM or to 2 channel analog and this could introduce a slight delay.

Try connecting your DirecTV box audio output directly to your surround sound receiver (instead of through the TV) and see if this helps. You can do this either via a fiberoptic or coax digital audio connection or via an HDMI cable directly between the DirecTV box and the receiver, if your surround sound system can handle HDMI audio decoding.

Try it out and let us know if this helps.

-CB

[ginny2401]

Thanks for your reply. There is an optical digital audio cable running from the new HD DirecTV receiver directly to my Panasonic receiver. There is an HDTV cable running from the HD DirecTV receiver directly to my TV. The new HD TV doesn't have an optical digital audio input/output, maybe outdated? Any further suggestions? Thanks for your help.

[MrBoylan]

Thanks for your reply. There is an optical digital audio cable running from the new HD DirecTV receiver directly to my Panasonic receiver. There is an HDTV cable running from the HD DirecTV receiver directly to my TV. The new HD TV doesn't have an optical digital audio input/output, maybe outdated? Any further suggestions? Thanks for your help.

Well the bad news here is that there are a *LOT* of people complaining about this lip sync issue with DirecTV receivers. I personally use an over the air antenna and DISH Network for TV reception and I haven't noticed this problem myself. But check out these Google search results for links to this discussion on DirecTV sync problems on multiple forums:

lip sync problems on directv HD channels - Google Search

I'm not sure what you mean by an "HDTV cable?" Is it an HDMI cable (single rectangular connector) or a component video cable (3 connectors, red, green and blue)? At this point, if you are using an HDMI cable from DirecTV receiver to TV, you could *try* using a component video cable instead and see if this helps. Component video is capable of supporting the full 1080i output resolution of your DirecTV box but it does not include audio so you *might* overcome any synchronization issues this way. If you try this then you will get audio only from the Panasonic surround sound system via the optical connection (no audio from the TV speakers at all). But really, I think you need to complain to DirecTV about it and see if they can send you a new satellite receiver or provide any other guidance or suggestions.

Some people who are experiencing the problem have reported that they can sometimes pause the show and resume and this locks the audio back with the video, but this doesn't always work.

By the way, if you use the TV's speakers instead of the surround sound system, do you notice the same delay in the audio?

Regards,

-Chris

[ginny2401]

Thanks for your reply. If I use the TV speakers, all is well. And some of the high def shows are fine, others are not, it appears the the stations pick and choose which shows they broadcast on HD, so I'm thinking I may be stuck. Thanks for your help.