Ive bought a philips soundbar to go with my philips tv.

I have connected it via hdmi arc.

My tv has minus audio offset settings and my soundbar has plus audio offset settings.

No matter how much i try to play with the settings i cannot get the sound to sync with the picture. The tv speakers are fine, and when i try to sync while both sets of speakers are on i just cannot get them to match at all

Set both the TV and soundbar to zero offset. Listen carefully to speech while watching the speakers mouth. Do you hear the words before or after you see the persons mouth move?

Normally you would expect to hear the words before seeing the mouth move. In which case you need to add a delay into the sound. Most soundbars will have a delay setting as fairly obviously they cannot play a sound they haven't received yet.

If the sound arrives after you see the mouth move then that implies there is too much delay somewhere. Probably in the TV.

The thing to do is only adjust ONE setting, either the TV or the soundbar at a time never both together. So try the TV setting alone and if that does nothing reset it to zero and then try the soundbar. Also listen very carefully to see what effect the setting has on the audio/video delay. Usually the setting should delay the audio so the gap between hearing the words and seeing the mouth move reduces. Normally zero should mean no delay and as you advance the setting it should add more delay.

There is of course the possibility that neither setting affects the ARC connection, though that would be a bit odd if so. Or that the range of delay is unable to cope.

The sound is after the picture, ive messed with settings and cant get it to match, why would there be a sound delay?

That doesn't seem right.

What normally happens is that the sound leads the pictures as the picture processing takes more time than the audio processing. So the TV introduces a short delay into the audio to compensate and re-synch the audio and video.

Soundbars and AV amplifiers have a variable delay for much the same purpose. With a full on AV system you plug all the sources into the amp which extracts the audio and sends the pictures to the TV. As it can't know what picture processing delay the TV has you are given a variable delay to play with to synch audio and video manually.

What happens to the audio when you alter the settings on the TV and soundbar? In theory the soundbar should increase the delay so the audio lags behind the picture even more. The TV could be different. It could have a + and - setting. Where 0 represents the normal delay it introduces to synch audio and video and you can adjust it up and down so maximum -ve is actually zero delay.

But if all that happens using either TV or soundbar is that the audio lags the video even more there is not much that you can do.

Right, with 0 delay, the soundbar is perfect on normal tv, but when i use netflix on the chromecast it is out no matter how much editing, netflix is fine on the tv speakers but the soundbar seems to get the audio later?

Could changing from hdmi arc to optical cable help this or not?

Struggling to work out what the TV is doing with the audio. The ARC output will either be a digital version of what gets sent to the speakers or the source audio before the in-built delay that synchs the speakers to the pictures. So it will either match what you hear on the speakers or have the audio lead the video.

There is obviously no point changing the settings on the soundbar other than to make sure it is set to zero all the time. So try the TV settings. It could be that it sets different delays for different sources.

The ARC and optical most likely are fed from the same place so might make no difference which you use. No harm trying it though.

Ive tried from the tv, the tv is in minus ms delay, but even changing that makes the sound get further behind the picture so i dont think it is a minus delay

If you think about it a minus delay is a bit of a contradiction. As it implies the sound will come out of the speakers before it arrives at the TV, which obviously cannot happen! So it's just an ordinary delay then.

Is there anything in the Chromecast settings to tweak? Though if that were introducing a delay you'd expect the TV speakers to be out as well.

Doesn't really make much sense.

Sometimes the audio sync is wrong in the content and no matter what setting you try, you can't find a value to put the audio in sync.

I recently watched a film on Netflix via the app on my smart TV (it was View from the Top if anyone's interested) and had to put up with a very noticeable delay (audio delayed with respect to the video) throughout the film which I could not eliminate. Other content from Netflix is fine. I even went back a few days later to try again to trim it out, but without success. I can only assume it's just this particular film.

Probably not the cause in this case though.

My TV has a small negative delay adjustment, but it wasn't sufficient to fix this problem. I assume LG must have built-in some delay (even when the display shows the user "zero" delay) to allow for the fact the TV will always introduce some delay to the video.

Is the TV sound OK with neftlix on Chromecast? (i.e.. using the TVs own speakers rather than the soundbar?)

If you find it isn't then the problem lies in the Netflix / Chromecast mix - and from a quick Google, it seems you may not be alone. https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl...lix+chromecast

I had this exact same issue when I got a Philips soundbar for my Philips tv - you'd think they'd be compatible or something, huh? Nope... I thought a single HDMI ARC connection from the TV to the bar would mean everything would work perfectly but no chance. Freeview TV straight from the TV worked fine but everything else was borked.

Basically, had to set it up so that my Freesat/Sky box plugged directly into the bar via optical (video to TV via HDMI) and my games consoles plug straight into the bar via HDMI and the video pumps back into the tv via ARC - anything going via the TV ends up with a delay that can't be synched because it's the opposite of what the fine tuning tools does. I even went to Philips support forum and they're next to useless over there.

So, if possible, try plugging your Chromecast into the soundbar - similar to how I have my consoles set-up - and see what happens.

Given what a Chromecast does, I'm not sure how that will work......

How frustrating, i wouldent be able to plug my chromecast into the bar.


The tv speakers are fine with chromecast/netflix.

Why not? If the soundbar is similar to mine, it would zap the video feed from the Chromecast back to the TV via an HDMI ARC link - that's how mine is set up to work with my game consoles. Audio is covered by the soundbar. Bingo.


Which soundbar have you got? Does it not have a spare hdmi socket?

This is what is confusing about this. If the TV speakers are in synch then so should the ARC output. Especially as it is OK when using the TV's tuner. You would think that if the TV was feeding the ARC output from the same source as the speakers it would be in synch.

If the Chromecast was causing the delay then you would expect the TV speakers to be delayed as well.

The ARC being delayed just doesn't seem to make any sense. I could understand if it was ahead of the pictures, that would be more normal. Plus of course you could correct it using the delay in the soundbar.

It's exactly the same with my setup (also Philips to Philips) and still annoys me that a single connection between the TV and soundbar via ARC isn't perfect and doesn't solve everything but luckily my soundbar has enough connections that I can workaround the issue.

Does optical cable stop the sound sync issues?? If so i will just buy a optical cable as the soundbar has a optical input

Optical cable fixes it in my case - my Freesat box is connected to the soundbar via optical and tv via hdmi and has no audio sync issues. Optical cable from my TV to the soundbar, however, didn't fix the sync issues.

The other thing that works is going straight into the soundbar via hdmi before going to the TV from the soundbar via hdmi ARC for video - that's how my games consoles are connected and there are no audio sync issues that way, either.

So, basically, anything I want audio from has to go straight to the soundbar and not via the TV.

Shouldn't have to do that but luckily I can do as my soundbar has enough connections. If the sound quality wasn't so good for the money, i would've sent it back.

I dont understand this at all.

Kodi casts fine with no sync problem to my tv and soundbar

Netflix/youtube casts fine to my tv but for some reason the soundbar is delayed? I dont understand it??

Is that still via HDMI ARC to the soundbar with the Chromecast plugged straight into your TV?

What is the actual model of your soundbar?

Yep

Tried running netflix through the ps4, this doesent have any sound sync issues.

So ive narrowed it down to anything casted to the chromecast has a sound delay when put through the soundbar but no sound delay when put through the tv speakers.

Strange.