I just got a Samsung Q80 TV and a definitive technology soundbar/sub. I’ve been having horrible audio issues with lip synchronizing but worse is anything in Dolby is barely audible. I can change the box and TV to PCM but I don’t get the experience I should compared to Dolby. I’ve tried using digital optical and HDMI ARC with the same issue. Voices are extremely low in Dolby and the sound is just way off. If I stream a YouTube trailer from my phone the sound is phenomenal. Anyone else experience this and knowof a fix? I see people switching the box and TV to PCM but the sound quality is nowhere near as good isn’t his mode. Thanks,
This has been a long term problem with Fios that they refuse to address in a timely manner. There is SUPPOSED to be a fix in the works, who knows when. Problem is they encode everything in Dolby Digital regardless of source, and the only way out is by switching the box to PCM in the service menu. There are NO enhanced audio formats beyond basic DD5.1 being allowed right now. You could try using the optical out from the box, instead of the HDMI, but it will still be only DD5.1 regardless of source. Many complaints here, few seem to reach the right people to get the situation corrected. They also use Dolby Audio compression on ALL signals, no choice there either. Do you get correct sound with an OTA signal?
Wow.. so much better with the optical audio going from the fios box to the sound bar. Finally able to actually enjoy this system I bought instead of just having a glorified speaker. I haven’t tested too many channels yet to see if the audio level varies like it did before but so far so good. Looking forward to an actual fix for this issue though. It should be easier than this for sure!!
Not sure if it affects anything except the analog outs, but in the audio menu settings there is an option for compression. Putting that on heavy should level out the station to station levels.
Yes that setting seems to help as well. I think this is as good as it’ll get for now. Thanks again!
Actually this is still quite bad. I didnt realize my soundbar was turned up all the way to sound halfway decent. Something is very wrong with this Verizon system.. I think I’m going to just get rid of it and go back to xfinity. I spent a lot on this setup and for it to sound like this is ridiculous.
Look in the settings on the Fios One, find volume control, make sure it is on maximum, and then make sure it is set to fixed.
Yeah the volume is on fixed and all the way up. If I use HDMI, everything just sounds like one channel. Almost as good as the internal TV speaker... If I use digital optical from the box to the soundbar, bass is awesome and voices are nice and clear but you can’t hear anything in between (ie - background music, etc..).
When you hook this up, do you go direct from the Fios box to the soundbar then to the TV, or are you running from the box to the TV, then to the soundbar?
I’m currently using HDMI from the soundbar to the TV using HDMI ARC and of course the fios box is going to the tv as well via HDMI. I’ve also tried the digital audio out from the box to the soundbar. It’s the latter method where I get no lip sync issues, great bass and voice but everything in between is missing.
Try HDMI from box to soundbar, then soundbar HDMI out to TV. Unhook optical. If that doesnt work try HDMI from box to TV, optical from TV to soundbar.
Yeah unfortunately I’ve tried it every which way by now without any good result. I have a ticket open with definitive technology (soundbar manufacturer) to see if there’s anything they can do.
So I decided to just return my definitive technology sound system today and get something else in case the issue was with the system itself. Because how could the issue be with Verizon? Everyone would have this issue if it wasn’t my sound system, right?? I got a Sonos playbar with sub and the sound is exactly the same. Each setting and method of hooking up the system has its own quirks and awful audio issues. The experience is just terrible. I think I’ll have to dump Verizon in favor of someone who doesn’t have these issues. I honestly can’t believe how bad this problem is..
Like I said In my first post, ALL audio through the new boxes is compressed with Dolby audio compression, then converted to Dolby 5.1 regardless of the original source material. Sometimes it's ok, most times a bad compromise. Verizon has their reasons they say and are supposed to be working on a fix for some time in the beginning of the year. The older 7200 boxes had an audio pass through option that allowed your equipment to do the decoding, and sounded way better than the current boxes. The same applies to their video scaling which cant be turned off any more. Your TV may have better scaling than the box, but you'll never find out unless you try OTA. If you think any other provider is better, I can say from personal experience that ATT Uverse is better for Audio, but they too apply video scaling in the box that cant be defeated, and there is no way to access the service menu to make system level changes. Also your TV may or may not be able to send DD5.1 out the optical out. No current TV can send higher level audio schemes via optical than DD5.1. The only way you have a chance is if you are using eARC, and to do that both the box and the TV and the soundbar have to be capable.
The box I have is an Arris 4100 and does have a Passthrough option that seems to be working better. Very difficult to tune the lip sync, and to make things more difficult it seems to vary by channel. Looking forward to a fix in the new year..
The lipsink can be helped by looking at options in the TV menu and the soundbar. They may both have auto lip sync enabled and are fighting each other. Also if you go into the service menu on the 4100, you can manually adjust the lip sync which is likely set to auto too. Turn the box off with the power switch on top. Hit OK 2x quickly on remote. Left arrow, then choose USER. Scroll to ADDITIONAL HDMI SETTINGS, hit ok. You'll find lip sync options there. Start out at 150 and work up or down until you get it right. Hit ok then power to exit menu.
Yeah the lip sync is tough.. the box has lip sync settings, the tv has it, and so does the soundbar. I'm getting close though. Thanks again for all the tips.. the passthrough option is working extremely well and my system sounds great no matter what channel or commercial is on. A huge step from where I was before. Thanks again!
I'm suprised they finally restored the passthrough option. It was something I had been fighting for over a year now, and you can tell why. Lipsync is a huge issue since every device tries to process the video and creates delays doing so. So 99% of the time you have to delay the audio to match the video. Problem is if you set a specific delay in your sound bar, it affects all sources, not just the Fios box. Better to do it in the Service menu for the fios box and turn it off on all your other devices. It will take some time, but you can do it.
I’ll give that a try today. The issue I had was the box only has 3 settings (50, 100, 150), but I’ll try them all with the delays off on other devices. The service menu also locks up most of the time and requires me to reset the box, so I haven’t had the patience to mess with the menu much after finally being able to set the pass through option. Once I find the right settings I’ll have to write them down so I never have to deal with this again! Thanks again!!
Strange, you used to be able to input any value in the service menu. Must have changed along with the passthrough option. Since you are using optical out of your TV I'd start with 150 and work back. Sorry about it being such a pain, but that's the state of the art these days.
I just messed with this more and luckily the menu wasn't as finicky as it has been in the past. It looks like there are options beyond 150, (50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300), and Lip Sync can be set to any of those in Manual mode, or Lip sync can just be set to Auto, or Off.
The ideal options were quite comical given the TV was set to 100 by default, and Fios was set to Auto by default. My TV is a Samsung Q80R.. hopefully this helps someone with the same setup (Samsung Q80R, Sonos, Fios One):
TV: 0
Sonos: 0
Fios: Lip Sync=Off
I found a combination that worked with Auto Lip Sync on Fios and some offset on the TV, but that affected other sources (ie - streaming Netflix from my phone).. so in the end, just turn it all off despite the defaults..
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