Sonos Beam & Sky Q - Dolby Digital sound impossible to sync

[ShaneQPR]

I set up my new Sonos Beam yesterday. My set up is a 4 year old Sky Q 2tb box, a 1 year old Samsung UE43RU7100 4K TV and 2 x Play 1 speakers for Surround Sound.

The Beam is connected to the HDMI ARC port on the TV.

My Issue is this. If I watch Netfix or Amazon Prime directly from the inbuilt Apps on the TV, the sound is syncing. The surround sound is great. No issues really at all

However, watching anything from the Sky Box is impossible. The sound/ sync is miles out.    I’ve tried adjusting the audio delay on the Sky Q box. Its makes no difference, whatever the delay I try. I have also tried adjusting the delay on the TV setting. Again no improvement. Nor if I adjust the TV Dialog under Home Thatre in the Sonos App. Nothing enables me to get anywhere near close to being able to get the syncing right. It makes watching any “TV” via the Sky box impossible.

Now this is the case when I have the audio setting in my SKYQ box set as follows: Digital Output HDMI is set to Dolby Digital

If I put this setting back to “normal” the sound syncs OK!

But the Sky setting tell you that the Dolby Digital setting is the one to use with sound equipment that allows surround sound!

There must be loads of people out there with SKY Q boxes, a Smart TV and a Sonos Beam.

My system works great - except for anything coming from the Sky box.

Has anyone found a way get Dolby Digital/Surround Sound to work, not only for Netflix/Amazon etc but with Sky too and without any sound sync issues?

I would very much appreciate some help

[Rhonny]

@ShaneQPR

(Edited as you have a Beam not an Arc.) 

Presumably you've connected the Sonos Beam to the ARC HDMI input of the TV rather than any of the other inputs?

Also, make sure your TV's audio format is set to Bitstream. 

You could try connecting the Sky Q box to the TV by HDMI, then optical out to the Beam, and see if that's any better.

I have a Sonos Playbar and the sync is only slightly out on Sky, whereas it's in sync for everything else. It is a common issue with Sky Q, with many people, like me, needing a negative delay (to delay the picture rather than the audio) but that's never going to happen.... 

[ShaneQPR]

Yes the beam is connected to the HDMI ARC

As for the TVs audio format , the Samsung gives me 3 options.  PCM. or Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital +.  There is no 'bitstream' option.

If the Sky Q box audio settings are set to "normal' then on the TV the only option I can select is PCM. (at these settings there is no sync issue with SKY programmes)  If I change the audio settings on my SKY Q box under Digital Output HDMI and set it to Dolby Digital, then the TV allows me to selecte andy of the  3 options PCM, Dolby Digital or DD+

Also if I connect the TV to the Beam using an Optical cable, can the TV or Sky remote still adjust the Sonos volume?

[Rhonny]

@ShaneQPR

Ah, okay, a different Samsung menu to mine. Go with Dolby Digital then. 

And yes, your remote can control the Sonos when connected by optical, but you need to set this up via the Sonos app, in the settings (System / [Room] / Remote Control Setup). 

[ShaneQPR]

Right then.  I've ordered an optical from Amazon and on thursday i will give your suggestion a go

Thanks for the replies

[NickNewark]

I have a Sonos Beam, and also found sync issues when connecting via ARC. I connect my Sky Q directly to the Sonos using optical out. It works absolutely fine with no sync issues.

[ShaneQPR]

Great Nick.

What about when you want to watch Netflix or Prime via your Smart TV.  Do they both play  OK too?

Cheers

[NickNewark]

Fair point, I don't personally use the TV apps, so can't say. But I'd think it would only play the SkyQ output, as it's a direct connection.  As you will know Sonos beam only has one connection via HDMI /optical. Somehow there must be a fix using ARC so that your TV Apps will work as well. 

[Chrisee]

@ShaneQPR it probably is not an issue with either the Q box or the Sonos unit but actually it is the TV. It is only relatively recently that TVs could pass Dolby Digital signals from a HDMI input to the ARC output and when they could it often introduced delays which made them unusable recent TVs have over come the issue. If your Samsung TV is more than 3 years old it is highly likely to be the cause.. 

An optical cable from the Q book to the Sonos should work though.

[ShaneQPR]

@Chrisee @NickNewark @NickNewark @Rhonny 

Thanks guys

The TV is a 2019 model Samsung 4K Smart so I would have hoped that it was able to cope with the HDMI ARC issue.  After all it has the HDMI ARC port at the back

Also as I understand it from other posts on this thread and others, I should try this.  Keep the SKY Q box connected to its existing HDMI port.  But instead of connecting the Sonos Beam to the TV via the HDMI ARC port, use the Sonos HDMI to Optical  adapter and connect the Beam to the TV by way of this adapter and a Toslink cable between the adapter and the TVs Optical Out port.   Is that correct?

[Rhonny]

@ShaneQPR

Yes, correct. It can't hurt to try via Optical, especially when the Beam can't handle Atmos anyway and so Dolby Digital is the best you'll get, regardless of connection. 

[chrisnavigator]

Hi @ShaneQPR 

While I do not have a Sonos Beam I have a Playbar and a Samsung QE55Q85 TV.  When I first set things up the Sound sync was dreadful but I solved it the following way.  

I connected the TV to the Sky Q box via the TVs HDMI ARC connection and the Playbar via the Optical output.from the TV not the Sky Q box.  Then I reset my TV so that it found all the peripherals itself. and the TV controlled them.

Dolby Digital Plus and Atmos are enabled on both the TV and Sky Q and all sound synch correction settings on the  are set to zero but of course  an Optical connection does not allow Doby Atmos anyway although neither does the Beam 

There is a long standing thread here

Re: Sky Q audio out of sync and other issues - Sky Community

The sound synching between Samsung and SkyQ  seems to be an issue that has not really been resolved and on some live BBC News items it still is slightly out so I don't know if this process will help. 

Hope it does, best of luck

[Canaryphil]

Hi Shane,

I have the same setup as you.  The answers earlier about sending from the optical out of sky into Beam will absolutely fix it ... set the sound ouput to DD, no need for any delays.  What I learnt that was useful is that sometimes, you just want to watch output that comes from the TV itself such as a DVD player or some of the apps.  I got from ebay a cheap (£10 ish) optical switch with a remote control that I fed the sky optical into one port, the TV optical into the second port ... then you connect the output of that box into the Beam.  Then on the samsung, you set the sound output as Optical.  This has the added benefit that you dont accidently operate the television sound speaker at same time as Sonos creating a weird echo effect if you dont realise you have done it.  This works a treat, you keep the simplicity of the Sky/Samsung/Sonos set up .... it is just one button on the optical switch remote control when you switch ... no other settings to fiddle with on TV or moving cables around ... my family hate all that and they are are absolutely fine with using it this way .... and the sound is fantastic for both the Samsung TV and Sky ... and zero lip sync issues.

[ShaneQPR]

Thanks Canary Phil

[bnewson73]

My way around this was to go to my Samsung picture settings and turn motion blur setting ,5 plus,as the extra processing gives a video delay and isn't noticeable in picture quality. I found live broadcasts or uhd football being the worst and the delay has now gone. 

So no delay on sound TV settings or sky q,use your custom picture settings and hopefully this works for you.