[Pancho Urbano]

I watch Digital television for free over the air here in San Diego, and find myself regularly amazed by the beautiful picture on my Samsung 30" Slimfit HDTV. Just amazing. Playing DVDs, however, leaves me with the lip sync problem!!


I have the Samsung DVD player/recorder (R135) connected to the TV by HDMI. The picture is slightly ahead of the sound on most DVDs. I don't quite understand this problem (I've been reading around), but find it so annoying that I"m ready to ditch the HDMI for composite and optical audio.


Any thoughts or ideas?


thanks.

pu

 

[7558037]

I've read about other people with this problem, which they traced to outputting 720p. Any other output seems to work OK.

 

[Pancho Urbano]

Thanks. I assume you mean on the DVD player side. Perhaps the other resolutions might work. THe TV itself is set to 720 through hdmi.

pu

 

[7558037]

Yes, I believe the other people were talking about DVDR output, but there is a chance they were talking about "using" 720P. Several did confirm that "using" a diff. output (480i, 480p, 1080i) worked OK.


No one except an Oppo article seems to have a definitive reason for this; in that article, they said a "buffer" or memory function could cause an audio delay, and Wikipedia has an interesting tidbit along the same lines in its comparison of 720p vs. 1080i...the article has this:


"Some United States broadcasters use 720p60 as their primary high-definition format; others use the 1080i standard. While 720p presents a complete 720 line frame to the viewer between 24 to 60 times each second (depending on the format), 1080i presents the picture as 50 or 60 partial 540 line "fields" (24 complete 1080-line fields, or "24p" is included in the ATSC standard though) which the human eye or a deinterlacer built into the display device must visually and temporally combine to build a 1080 line picture - in CRT type display. To get all 1080 interlaced lines to appear on the screen at the same time on a progressive high-definition display, the processor within the HD set has to weave together both 540-line segments to form the full-resolution frame. It does so by holding the first field in its memory, receiving the next field, then electronically knitting the two fields together. The combined fields are displayed at once as a complete 1080p frame."


Others in this forum have disagreed with these possibilities for an audio delay, so maybe they'll add their thoughts here.


It seems that, if your display is upconverting what it receives, it might be worth a try to feed it 480p, which will retain the progressive (no-need-to-deinterlace) scan and prevent any memory "buffering"???

 

[7558037]

 Here's an "Audioholics" article on audio delay I think may be related to your problem.

 

[Pancho Urbano]

Thanks for the link. I'm really ready to move back to composite video/toslink connections - this should eradicate the problem, from what I've read (?).


But I loose picture quality on composite, yes? Its an analogue technology. The Samsung CRT is small for the resolution (30"), so maybe the picture will still look good?


One thing for sure, I'll never pay for cable or satellite again. Over-the-air free digital content is just awesome, and I could care less for most of the offerings from the cable networks (except HBO, which I can record from my office).


Any more info would help. Thanks.

pu

 

[7558037]

Component video RCA cables (Red,Green,Blue)...not Composite (Yellow)...should give you very good PQ from 480i up to 1080p, and that might eliminate the audio delay if you run your audio directly to your display.

 

[Pancho Urbano]

Sorry for the error. I'm almost ready to abandon HDMI - then last night wth Good Night, and Good Luck in the player, I noticed that when I shuffle around menues and switch the TV around various inputs, when I return to the DVD playback the lip sync is off. However, if I turn the TV off, then on again, the lip sync problem is no more.


So, if I am doing different things with the TV, DVD begins to lag, but if I start with the DVD and don't switch around, it seems to work fine. What gives?

 

[7558037]

I don't have a direct link, but another thing I've read is that HDMI requires a "handshake" between the TV and the device attached via HDMI. Not sure if that's with ALL DVDRs or other devices.


My guess is that turning the TV off then on activated the required handshake.


I think the other posts stated the DVDR had to be on BEFORE turning the TV on.


Try both ways and you should know the proper sequence for your setup?

 

[Pancho Urbano]

seems to work - but that kind of sucks to have to worry about that every time. I guess HDMI has a long way to go. And upgrades (e.g. 1.3) seem to be hardware-based as I've read, which means we're stuck with this.

 

[Mike99]

From what I can tell, lip sync issues are not limited to HD or DVD. My wife can read lips a bit & she is sensitive to this. Even on our old 27" CRT standard def TV she would notice sync problems which I never noticed. Was completely random as far as source was concerned.


With our current 42" TV the out of sync drives her nuts. I think because the lips are now displayed larger, the sync is more noticable. Bigger lips, bigger movement. I fed both sets the same OTA SD signal & sure enuf, she said the out of sync was the same. Again, it is isolated to any particular source. Sometimes the program is OK but a commercial is not.


So I was "forced" to buy a new receiver with an adjustable audio delay. A few manufacturers now have this feature. Makes me believe sync issues are wide spread. It may be more common with HD, but certainly not limited to it. For the most part I do not have to fiddle with the delay too much. In fact I keep it at 40 ms, which happens to be the setting the receiver came with. But when needed it is there to adjust.


Also, my TV has an adjustable audio delay. Can be set for low/med/high when using the optical DD5.1 output. So far I have not used this and have relied on the receiver because it can adjust any input.