Audio sync issue on tvOS 26.2, possible solution

[Jutsch80 9]

TLDR: use bluetooth

I only recently got an AppleTV and I'm updated it to tvOS 26.2 beta, so I don't know if that issue is present on other versions too, but I immediately noticed an audio delay (about 250ms) on Emby, also had it on Infuse, Disney, Netflix... The Only apps not having the issue were live TV apps like the one from my local TV provider. My setup is fairly simple, I have the AppleTV connected to my LGTV and that TV is connected to a soundbar, also from LG. 

I almost started the process to return the AppleTV when I decided to try to use it with Airpods and to my surprise the audio issue was gone. So my next step was to connect my soundbar to the AppleTV via bluetooth too instead of using HDMI audio and all of a sudden the worst audio connection possible turns out to be the only one tvOS can audio sync with. 

For now that is an acceptable solution for me but of course I will try to swich back to HDMI audio to test with every tvOS version to come. 

[Deihmos 169]

Never install Apple TV betas, and here is why. There is no way to revert to the previous stable release until the next stable release. Your soundbar should have an option to adjust audio delay. 

[Jutsch80 9]

Sure, trying a beta is risky but who would have thought that Apple is so incapable of anything right now that they can screw up something as standardized as HDMI audio. A setting on the soundbar wouldn't be much help since as I described the issue does not occur on any live TV signal or Youtube.

[yocker 1247]

One would think that Bluetooth would actually introduce latency problems as it's actually a pretty latency heavy protocol.
That plus manufactures usually cheap out on the Bluetooth part (*cough* Onkyo) usually just makes it worse. 
 

[Jutsch80 9]

I think bluetooth has a bad reputation mostly because of the bad implementation by some lazy manufacturers and not because it actually sucks. 

Take the PC, where having bluetooth peripherals is very common, I'm even using my Airpods as my main headset on my gaming PC. 

[yocker 1247]

1 hour ago, Jutsch80 said:

I think bluetooth has a bad reputation mostly because of the bad implementation by some lazy manufacturers and not because it actually sucks. 

Take the PC, where having bluetooth peripherals is very common, I'm even using my Airpods as my main headset on my gaming PC. 

Bluetooth does absolutely not suck, it just has a high latency. Ofc. this can be mitigated somewhat by other technologies like lip syncing.
It will just never get to the latency like a normal HDMI connection or wifi.

You are right that manufactures are lazy or cheap out with it. Onkyo is the worst, instead of making their Bluetooth able to keep a stable connection they built most of their devices with a huge buffer that they need to fill before any audio gets started.
Result is that Onkyo amplifiers i have had took about 2-3 seconds from pressing play to any sound actually happening.
That's among the reasons why Onkyo is on my "do not buy" list along side Apple, Sony and specially Samsung.

[Jutsch80 9]

18 minutes ago, yocker said:

Bluetooth does absolutely not suck, it just has a high latency. Ofc. this can be mitigated somewhat by other technologies like lip syncing.
It will just never get to the latency like a normal HDMI connection or wifi.

As I said, I'm using my Airpods as my PC headset for gaming and it works perfectly fine. And in that case there's no time for trickery, every ms of delay is obvious immediately 

[yocker 1247]

I believe the latency of AirPods is around 100-200ms depending on various stuff

[Jutsch80 9]

Just a little update.

I'm now testing audio extractor boxes and they seem to work so far. Unfortunately I ordered the Amazon Basic one first which can't handle 4k60 HDR so that is going back as soon as I have a proper audio extractor box. 

[Jutsch80 9]

To probably no one's surprise, the release candidate version of 26.2 fixed the audio issue.