Lip Sync issues - Sky Stream

[MR17]

Sky

I brought your equipment in good faith and you need to sort this lip Sync issue out. I keep changing setting all the time on my Sky glass tv and streaming box. As soon as TV is paid off its going in the bin as its not worth the money, poor picture quality, sound.

I also don't like the fact that I can only have apps on TV that you want. But my biggest problem is the lip sync problem.

• I will be cancelling all Sky as soon as TV paid off.

[MR17]

Not good enough should be sorted before pushing the product on unsuspecting public.

[red_snow]

Likewise!! I ditched Virgin Media for the convenience of Sky stream pucks, and it has been a constant battle since day1!!! Unhappy does not come close!

Observations:

- This happens on ALL pucks > 2 x Samsung TVs plus 1 x LG TV

- The audio is behind the broadcast.

- Random bouts of pixellation
- Rewinding and fast-forwarding to live re-syncs it, changing channel away and back again doesn't always work in general
- Does not happen on every channel, or not at least immediately. The longer a live stream is watched, the more likely audio will lag behind. Noticed it on TNT Sport when watching the cricket ..... batter would strike the ball and you wouldn't hear the "ball on willow" sound until a second later!
- Certain channels are clearly worse than others. Main offenders so far, but certainly not limited to: ITV, TNT Sports, GB News. Oddly enough, IIRC, BBC channels all good!
- Ethernet connected to Deco mesh with WiFi speed of the mesh measured from the disc at a minimum of 200Mbps down
- BB is Virgin Cable (500/50) - no issues with any other streaming services (apps)
- Issue may occur immediately or later in the live stream viewing. When it happens immediately, upon selecting a channel, it plays very briefly, followed by a very very brief pause, and continues the live stream > sync is out straight away

Settings I have tried to resolve:
- Multiple reboots/resets

- All software versions report as up-2-date
- Set the puck to ALL different sound modes, but have stuck with PCM
- Set the puck to 1080p only > TV will display UHD, but image is darker/less saturated. Not an old TV, but obviously doesn't cope with a particular UHD codec or whatever.
- Changed HDMI cables to 2.1 certified 10K 8K 4K 1440P@240/165/120Hz eARC HDR Dolby Vision Atmos HDCP 2.3 48Gbps Ultra High Speed
- Set TV (Samsung smart) to Auto, Pass-Through and PCM audio > no difference
- Set TV ratio to Auto/16:9 with auto/no "fit image"
- Changed between ethernet/WiFi, disabled WiFi when using ethernet
- Connected to a solid 250Mbps Powerline Adapter that I use for Ring Cams (that have no issue)
- Set static IP for the puck on the mesh's DHCP scope
- Set gateway IP as DNS, also tried to set individual DNS IPs on the DHCP scope

- Used ISP, Google and Cloudfare DNS IPs > no difference

Sky .... you need to sort this now. It is of no use L1/L2 tech support blaming people's AV equipment. There may be a handful of cases where individual setups need tweaking, but it is VERY CLEAR that Sky Stream/Glass has major issues with sync issues.

[Zoltron]

Being 100% honest here.....

Sky do not care, they say that they do, but they don't.

As long as folk keep paying them for a dismal service then Sky will keep taking good money from honest people.

The only way this will get resolved is to make formal complaints to Sky en masse and if Sky still continue to ignore their customers then it's time to complain to Sky's regulator, because that is the only way Sky will be forced to listen.

I've already written an email to Sky's chief executive and my complaint it with escalations, so they have just under 7 weeks now for Sky to deal with my complaint.

[55552555]

Hi, I followed the advice here and all seemed fine,   but the last two episodes of Strike have been unwatchable on Sky  I had to switch to the Built-in iPlayer on the TV  it was perfect on there.  All other programs seem fine.  at the moment (Strange) 

[Chris4Stream]

Lip Sync issues are complex, and I really do feel for those experiencing them, they do affect many platforms not just Sky Stream.

But I feel Sky needs to do far more around manging customer satisfaction around this issue.

Why? Because for many, including myself, SKY UK is seen as a premium TV service, if you can afford it, you have SKY, but SKY also sports and SKY cinema, but in return you expect the best.

This is where I feel SKY are starting to fall down, there is clearly a problem, and from a technical perspective its well know.

I expect when the signal leaves the SKY Stream box the Picture and Sound will be in sync, the problem people (and SKY) are facing is what happens next...

For example, people that use soundbars and ARC or eARC  , (I'm NOT excusing the issue, but trying to explain the complexity), the image and sound go the TV, the TV processes the image and sound based on the settings, which could mean anything, so a TV with a high amount of picture processing could delay the image by a few milliseconds, yet send the sound out to the sound bar without delay, this will cause a problem...

But it's only the start....

The soundbar itself could cause further delays while processing the sound, so causing the sound the fall even move behind the image.

HDMI right now does not send any feedback to the SKY Stream Box from the TV or the Soundbar so the SKY Box doesn't know how much time each device needs to process the image or sound.

This to be honest in a inherent problem with the current HDMI standard.

However I think we all agree SKY Stream is a premium product so it needs a solution.

I think right now there is not one, that is the problem....

However, what may help some people, but NOT all is f SKY could do is publish rsome ecommend settings for equipment that is problematic, that is all I can suggest.

I'm sure many people will criticise this post, and poop on that I have said, that's fine, I'm not an expert so cut me some slack, all I'm trying to do is explain why, it my be hard for SKY to fix, but they do NEED to fix...

[Chris4Stream]

My post has typos, but I cant edit??????

[Skull+Treaty]

---

@Chris4Stream wrote:

My post has typos, but I cant edit??????

---

@Chris4Stream 

Yeah, need to be level 4 (I think) before being able to edit posts. 

[Chris4Stream]

Thx for explaing, please read around the typos 😁

[Chris4Stream]

I have mid dislexia so I can read and re-read stuff I write but I still don't see all the errors 🙄

[TechMaster]

I hate to say this but I am the annoying smug user who has seen zero lip sync issues with his Stream box, however perhaps I just havent come across the content with the issues. I may just be lucky so far.

But I am happy to do some tests and share my setup if that helps anyone, for those with the issue doses it happen on anything, Live TV, catch up, itvx, iplayer etc, is there a certain scene or episode that always has the issue or does it go away if you rewatch the same scene. 

[Littletaffia]

@Chris4Stream I'm sorry but you are excusing Sky for the lip sync problems for those using soundbars. There is a reason why it's happening and it's nothing to do with using a soundbar of, like myself, an AVR, it's a poor product from Sky with abysmal customer support. You can get products with lip sync alteration like the old SkyQ had and lip sync was pretty stable. I have it on my AVR and on a Pioneer 4K blu ray player, but's only if the audio is running before the video and you can adjust the delay. The problem with Sky is that the video is running ahead of the audio. That is a problem for the digital domain of Sky's software. It's not a problem brought about by using a soundbar or AVR.

The Apple TV+ has no such adjustments, same as the Sky Stream yet lip sync is absolutely perfect. I have no lip sync adjustment on my TV which is six years old yet all the built in apps are spot on even using digital optical to my AVR as it doesn't have eARC and using the old ARC standard brings it's own problems with CEC. Apart from using the TV apps for UHD content on BBC iPlayer all my streaming services are through the Apple TV. The other thing about ATV is that the picture quality is far better than Sky Stream and more stable.

People using soundbars and AVRs are probably in the minority. I see very few replies from those just using their TV's speakers and so Sky is more than happy to ignore the replies in this forum, if ever they do read them.

[Chris4Stream]

@Littletaffia 

I'm not excusing SKY, I have clearer said in my post that is NEEDS to be fixed.

What I was trying to explain was why it might be hard to fix.

[Chris4Stream]

I use to be with Virgin Media, and trust me, if you go to their forum, there is just as many people complaining about lip synic.

Here is what I think is happening and the ONLY way to fix it, which will probably never happen....

The image and sound leaves the SKY or Virgin Media Box in sync, they have gone their job.....

For some users it then goes to a AV receiver (in my case) or a soundbar via the TV....

This is when the problem starts.... each TV display mode or each soundbar surround mode takes different milliseconds to process, so a Stereo sound signal wil maybe process with 1ms delay, no one will notice, but a dolby surround signal my take different times depending on the chip used in the soundbar, so 4, 6, or even 8 ms, who knows, it depends on the Soundbars chip and software.

So what can SKY and Virgin Media do??????

in HDMI 2.1 there is actually a feature that is meant to fix this, but it will never be used.

The problem is not simple to fix, for example allowing  the user to pick a ms delay time in the SKY Menu does not work, because the processing time differs with each Soundbar and each audio format, as I have said, the same soundbar may take 2ms to decode stereo but 6ms to decode Dolby surround.

The only way I can see this being fixed is to have an advanced menu settings where you enter the model of your TV and Sound system.

Then SKY could look at a database of how each TV and Sound system delayed the image and sound signal and adapt the signal from their box to counter the issues, however, different TV picture modes like Sport, or Sounds modes like enhanced surround will all change the timings, and could cause the same problem.

It is sooooooo..... hard to fix, and is a known problem with HDMI

[Jonny16]

@Chris4Stream that would make sense, but why do people seem to only see the issues with Sky? A friend had this same problem with Sky sports, they moved to now tv and the problem went.

Also seen lots of people saying that when they use better devices like Apple TV, fire sticks etc, then they don't have the issues when watching sky.

The problem has to be with the crappy sky pucks and their hardware.