Audio lags video, air play 2 speakers (HomePods)

After some more testing I am finding that I still have the audio sync problem. My work around is to restart the AppleTV and then Channels and audio sync is fine.

I will try the following tonight:

  1. Restart AppleTV choose home pods for audio and start netflix or hulu.
  2. Close Netflix or hulu and try starting channels to see if audio still in sync.
  3. Close channels and choose different app like Hulu or netflix to see if audio in sync.
  4. Restart AppleTV choose home pods for Audio and start Channels.
  5. Sleep AppleTV for a few hours and see if Homepods are still connected and start Channels and check audio sync.
  6. Close Channels and choose hulu or netflix to see if audio still in sync.

Here are my test results:

  1. Restart AppleTV choose home pods for audio and start netflix or hulu. - Passed
  2. Close Netflix or hulu and try starting channels to see if audio still in sync. - Passed
  3. Close channels and choose different app like Hulu or netflix to see if audio in sync. - Passed
  4. Sleep AppleTV start Channels. - Failed - Audio out of sync.
  5. Choose Netflix or Hulu - Passed.
  6. Unselect Homepods from Home screen by holding play/pause button. Select Homepods.
  7. Open Channels and Play Live TV - Passed.

Conclusion - It appears that Channels has a problem when the AppleTV comes out of sleep mode to active the HomePods for Audio. Other apps like Hulu or Netflix donā€™t exhibit this behavior.

Two workarounds - Restart AppleTV or Unselect and Reselect the HomePods after AppleTV comes out of sleep mode.

Tested the new ā€œChannels ATV Beta 2018 (7.21.246)" today

Both Homepod and Apple TV sound in sync :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

To adjust volume on Homepod only works via voice command to Siri Homepod e.g. ā€œhey Siri, volume to 50%ā€

Apple TV volume adjusted via Apple TV or Tv remote control.

What version of tvOS are you using? We havenā€™t changed anything on our sideā€¦

TvOS 11.4.1

Looks like this build, 2018.09.03.1701, has fixed this problem for me.

Just checking back in here. Many ATV4 apps have added an ā€œaudioā€ menu item at the top of the application to allow Airplay2 audio destination selection. I use it to select my stereo HomePods. Is Channels planning to add this function. I can still select the ATV4 audio destination on my iPhone, but it would be more convenient if the menu was within the Channels app. Otherwise the HomePods work fine with Channels if you pause the stream to sync the audio.

For months, I had the audio lag issue with the Apple TV 4 and a single HomePod. However, it did go away and all was well for a long time. I suspect one of the Channels Beta versions fixed it. I have been using all the Beta versions of both Apple TV and Channels TV app.
Recently, I updated HomePod from 11.4 to 12 and the audio lag issue returned. Just curious if itā€™s me or if others have seen this as well using HomePod 12? I am also on TVOS 12.

I started using 2x HomePod Speakers in Stereo with tvOS 12 and HomePod 12. I have never seen an issue with voice sync. My only problem is the thread I started related to they stop working after SLEEP. When trying to figure out my problem I did turn off the Channels Setting to use Stereo which did not help my problem. Now I wonder if should be turned back on?

We have released a beta build (2.2.135) with a new audio driver which should resolve some of these issues. Please try it on getchannels.com/beta

Im having issues with the app always choosing HDMI over my Homepod Stereo setup.

Can i try the beta version.

Thanks

-Mike

New Apple TV update maybe a fix? https://9to5mac.com/2019/04/10/apple-tvos-12-2-1/

I'm STILL having this audio lag issue with my homepods. The only way I can fix it (as others have mentioned) is to reboot the AppleTV 4K. Then, it syncs fine for a day (maybe two), then it's back to being off again. So annoying to have to reboot the ATV over and over again every day. This has been a bug with the Channels app since I got it a year ago. Also, to reiterate what others have said, no other apps on ATV have this audio syncing issue when listening thru the homepods. Only the Channels app. All app and device software versions are up to date btw.

It has been explained that this is a bug in tvOS that we've been working with Apple on for months. Apple is notoriously unresponsive for months at a time on things like this.

This doesn't happen with other apps because they all use the system video player. Channels does not use the system video player. It uses a custom video player in order to play back the video format that comes from the HDHomeRun.

We discovered a bug in tvOS while using the APIs that they provide for implementing custom video players.

We aren't happy about this either. When the issue is resolved we'll be very public about it and maybe even throw a party.

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Hey all,

I'm bringing this thread back from the grave. I recently took advantage of the price drop on HomePods and bought two for $199 each (Best Buy) and paired them for stereo playback. They sounded wonderful. Music playback is so good in my living room. Movie and TV show playback in my Plex setup is great. Netflix, HBO, et. al. are the same.

Then I get to Channels. Not so great. Changing channels was a nightmare. Picture would freeze for around 20-30 seconds, sound out of sync, picture freezing while the sound continues and then the picture goes to hyper speed and eventually syncs with sound. After fiddling with a few settings it got a little better, but there's still issues as were mentioned above. I eventually unpaired the HPs, restarted them and re-paired them--also, I did try the experimental audio driver and things seemed to improve, but still not as good as ALL of my other apps.

Now I understand that this appears to be an Apple tvOS issue, but since the last post from devs here was May of last year (2019)--I would hope that SOME progress could have been made from Apple, or perhaps tweaks to the experimental audio driver to help sort this out.

Any updates to this? I really don't want to return the HomePods as they are really great speakers, but since I use Channels for all of my live TV viewing--it's making me rethink my purchase.

Can the dev team share any updates on this? Thanks.

What kind of issues are you having with the experimental driver enabled?

Pretty much the same issues as I mentioned, but less of them. The biggest complaint I have with the EXP driver is that when you either shake to mute or change a channel using the previous channel feature (jumping back and forth between two channels), the sound will be out of sync for a time or the video will freeze and the sound continues (as mentioned above).

UPDATE: Ok, so I tried something. I found a sound bar at Costco that had HDMI inputs and outputs. My original sound bar only had optical connectivity as the highest quality choice. I connected it to my TV and it actually sounds better than the old one (yay!). I was going to return it after the test, but itā€™s a nice upgrade for $150!

So anyway...in testing with the app didnā€™t start well. HD stations displayed and sounded good. SD stationsā€™ audio stuttered horribly. I turned off the experimental audio driver and the SD channels returned to normal. HDMI connectivity does work better than the optical connection and after pausing itā€™s instantly on instead of a second or so delay with optical.

Iā€™m still seeing some weird delays at times when changing channels and using the previous channel jump. Also with shake to mute, sometimes I have to rewind once or twice to get sound back. Sometimes thereā€™s a bit of a lag and sometimes can be corrected with rewinding or fast forwarding.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, let me know how I can help.

I'm having a similar issue and thought I might mention it hear to see if anyone is having a similar issue or might have seen this before.

Setup: New ATV4K with 2 new paired HomePods Channels server setup hasn't changed.

Issue: when we are watching from Channels DVR and pause a recording, the video will pause instantly, but audio will continue to play for 2-3 seconds and then pause. It never stays out of sync, just a delay during the pausing process. Same thing when we un-pause, the audio is delayed before starting up again. This only occurs with Channels and not with any other apps like Netflix, Hulu, Prime etc.

The audio stays in sync once it is playing again after the delay, so it is maybe a minor issue, but still difficult to live with.

Any suggestions or settings that might help? Thanks

I just recently moved to a setup very much like yours. I had a Sonos setup connected optically to the TV and the ATV4K connected via HDMI to the TV. Worked very well that way with no sync or delay issues.

Recently, I replaced the Sonos with HomePods set up as a pair and set the ATV4K to use them as the default audio out. I do not see any issues with sync and they sound very good - not the same as the Sonos, but still very good.

I do, though, see the delay in audio starting up coming off of a pause and also audio continuing to play when pausing or exiting a program for a couple of seconds. At this point I have not done extensive testing but I also would say that this only seems to happen in Channels. I do know that it does not happen with the AppleTV app.

I suspect that this is related to the custom video player used by Channels as opposed to the native TVOS player used by the AppleTV app. It appears to be buffering on the start of play and emptying the buffering on pause or exit.

I hadn't had a chance to report the issue yet and am hoping it's something the devs can look at and improve upon in time as I suspect this setup will become more commonplace with the recent feature enhancements to the HomePods and TVOS.