Delay when using optical output on Sony KD43XE8005

[C33lll]

Hi,

I've searched far and wide and cannot find a solution to my problem. Perhaps someone here can help.

I have a KD43XE8005 Android TV and a Samsung E5530 Home Theatre connected via optical cable. 

When playing a video with stereo sound this setup works great without issues. However when I try to play 5.1 Dolby content (from USB, Amazon Prime, Netflix) there are different things happening:

- delay -> audio only starts 5-15s after the video (though it is in sync from then on)

- no audio -> only way to resolve this is to restart either the audio system or the TV or both (and even that not always helps)

This delay also happens when I pause the video being played and then restarting it although it is usually much shorter then. 

Another thing worth noting is that the delay is usually much bigger when switching from stereo to 5.1 content.

I've tried a huge number of setting combinations (including enabling PCM and so on), but have not been able to resolve this or even narrow down the root cause. I've also tried using ARC as both the audio system and the TV support it but cannot get it to work at all - no sound.

I have not tried swapping optical cables as I only have one, but this does not look like a cable problem to me.

It looks like something in the TV is not correctly switching/converting the audio

I'd be very very grateful for any suggestions/help.

Cheers 

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

Have you updated your KD43XE8005 to the latest firmware?

Best wishes,

M

[C33lll]

Hi,

yes, got the latest firmware.

Cheers

[rooobb]

The tv never switch to optical audio it is always on. The only difference is that if you didn't set the output to audio system the result is always stereo . No multichannel.

I'd rather investigate on your old ht system than the tv: do you have the possibility to connect any other audio system to optical to eliminate the tv from root cause?

[C33lll]

hi, 

thanks for the suggestion. I do not have another audio system to try. What I have just done though is connect my xbox directly to the same audio system via the same optical cable. I then tried playing the same videos from youtube and prime videos but this time from the xbox. I have observed no delays or audio problems whatsoever. Both stereo and dolby 5.1 work as expected.

This leads me to believe that it is something in the TV after all, but why would stereo work fine and multichannel 5.1 not?

[C33lll]

having played around some more I can now see that if I enable PCM output on the TV, then audio is fine through the ht and there is no delay. However it is only stereo and not multichannel 5.1 regardless of the video being played. From what I read elswehere this is expected as PCM 5.1 via optical might not be supported.

[rooobb]

PCM is stereo by definition stereo (unless you combine more PCM stream). And of course an uncompressed PCM multichannel flow cannot be transmitted over optical (nor via ARC for that matter).

Have you tried to investigate further way HDMIARC doesn't work?

[C33lll]

I tried investigating ARC some more but am not able to find the root cause. Played around with settings, switched cables, disconnected everything else, rebooted both TV and ht, but it simply does not work. Maybe it's a compatibility problem? According to the specs both TV and ht support ARC and I've connected it right, but no luck.

One thing is most of the online troubleshooting guides mention "enable HDMI control" to enable ARC, but I cannot find an option like that on my TV.

Suggestions?

[rooobb]

Hdmi control is named braviasync on your tv

[C33lll]

Ah, yes. I have it enabled. The control bit whereby switching on/off the tv
switches the ht on/off and vice versa works fine. But I cannot get the
sound to work. HT is configured ad per manual with arc enabled and correct
output/input being used. Tried two cables too, both supposedly supporting
ARC as per specs.