Audio out of sync

Hi all -

OT but I want to find out if anyone is also seeing this -

For about the last month or so I have seen over 40 TV programs
that the audio is out of sync about 8 to 15 frames --

The audio has been both be advanced and late --

The programs have covered the complete range of TV broadcasts -
National and Cable - CBS-- ABC --PBS ect--

This is not satellite interviews or any thing like that-
All have been from a studio or tape -

I have changed to other channels when a show is out
of sync and the other channels are fine -

I wonder what is going on --Jay--

I've seen that too, on otherwise "very professional" productions.

Scott

Even feature films have this. We all make mistakes. There was a scene in Heat where you hear an actor talking but he's onscreen...and his lips aren't moving.


www.derekmok.com

Are you watching TV through a newer Tivo by any chance? Our TiVoHD occasionally knocks stuff out of sync or drops the audio entirely. Annoying.

I can barely stand to watch a movie scene that I know has been ADR'd, just waiting for the lips not to match up. Uggh.

JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

Yes, I am watching through a Tivo/DirecTV. Not a new one, though, not HD. I'm seeing this on network stuff, like NBC Nightly News sometimes, where you wouldn't think synch would even get an opportunity to drift at the production level. So it may well be the digital processing at my end that fouls it up.

Scott

There are so many places in the broadcast chain alone that sync can go wrong, I marvel that it's ever right. Any packaged piece will be in sync on the playback media, especially coming from a network. Film/TV drama ADR sync is another matter. Bugs me too. Live productions - news especially - are a real problem, apparently. I'm seeing sync issues on a daily basis. With everything digital now, the broadcast engineering chain is a nightmare of frame offsets, conversions & incompatibilities that need to be accommodated for and calculated. I saw an engineering chart once for a live sporting event - a football game, as I recall - and it was ridiculous. From the remote truck to satellite to the broadcaster's facility, through the facility, out to satellite and cable companies for national distribution - crazy. Every piece of audio or video gear imposes it's own latency that needs to be accounted for. Then at home there's my older Series 2 which at varying times must suffer from some buffer overload because sync is way out. Changing channels away from & back to the channel seems to clear it up. Don't know about the HD units.

Reid C

I am glad to see that others have noticed this going on--

for a short time I thought it might just be in my head --

my tv is hooker straight to cable --no tivo --no box

Audio out of sync really bugs me --- Jay --

Audio sync issues are one of the blessings that the digital revolution has brought us. I do a lot of remote sports stuff, and the engineers spend quite a bit of time working on getting lip sync to work at the receive end. The amount of digital processing between the truck and the network is amazing. Then there is the digital processing before it leaves the truck. At the other end, after it leaves the network it hits another long chain of equipment on the way to the home. And every single device that processes the signal offers the opportunity to mung the relationship between audio and video.

Another whole topic is how awful the various cascaded compression processes make the video look. The wonderful high resolution images we capture look a whole lot different by the time I see them at home. Painful actually.

-Vance

Now that Reid and Vance have chimed in, I'm surprised that I'm surprised!

It is perfect so often that even small anomalies stand out. I'm guessing we'll see more of them....

Scott

This is interesting...I see audio sync problems on a female constipation medicine ad in the UK. I would be crucified if ever audio sync issues passed my eyes and in to the broadcast TV stream.
I used to work on Discreet software and it went very red when audio slipped. There is no excuse.

I know that this topic has scrolled into histroy, but for those interested I just found an article. I was flipping through the March issue of "Television Broadcast" Magazine. They have an article "MPEG suspected in lip sync discrepancy."

Briefly is seems that the basic MPEG structure is being called into question for the problems you have noticed. Potentally that could mean that the issue exists in the set top boxes. Bet that would be an expensive fix!

[www.televisionbroadcast.com]