Toslink - optical cable speeds

[Midevil Chaos]

I was online and bought this monoprice cable (see link below) which I heard was a reputable company, and I was wondering if reputable cables compared to generic cables can make a difference in terms of speed. I bought a reputable sound bar, and the generic cable seems to deliver the sound a bit out of sync with the image. So I am hoping that a reputable cable will help in that regards. I will only get the cable in a week or so, but was hoping to get insights on the transmission speeds of better toslink cables.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B001O7NZYG

[WereCatf]

2 minutes ago, Midevil Chaos said:

I bought a reputable sound bar, and the generic cable seems to deliver the sound a bit out of sync with the image

That's not how it works. Those are optical cables, it's light being transmitted in them and there's no way the cables can slow the light down; either they work, or they don't work, but there's no such thing as a cable that can make light go so slow that it'll cause an out-of-sync audio.

[Husky]

These cables are digital cables. There is no difference in quality or speed between them. Digital cables either work or don't, they aren't like older analog RCA cables where a quality cable would make a difference.

 

There are other things that would cause the out-of-sync audio, such as settings on the TV.

[mariushm]

The out of sync is not caused by the cable. The cable is just optical fiber, your audio card sends pulses of light through the cable and they basically reach the other end instantly. 

It depends on the software you use how the digital audio data is encoded (if you send it as lossless audio, or in some dolby format, or ac3 5.1 or DTS), then it may be that the sound bar needs some time to decode specific digital formats...

Start from the most basic stereo 2.0 uncompressed format and go from there..

[Midevil Chaos]

Just now, WereCatf said:

That's not how it works. Those are optical cables, it's light being transmitted in them and there's no way the cables can slow the light down; either they work, or they don't work, but there's no such thing as a cable that can make light go so slow that it'll cause an out-of-sync audio.

Gotcha, makes sense. What would make the audio go out of sync in that case? I cannot say I have much experience with sound bars, since I usually had a tv with good audio.

[Midevil Chaos]

Just now, Husky said:

These cables are digital cables. There is no difference in quality or speed between them. Digital cables either work or don't, they aren't like older analog RCA cables where a quality cable would make a difference.

 

There are other things that would cause the out-of-sync audio, such as settings on the TV.

I will verify that then

[Midevil Chaos]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

The out of sync is not caused by the cable. The cable is just optical fiber, your audio card sends pulses of light through the cable and they basically reach the other end instantly. 

It depends on the software you use how the digital audio data is encoded (if you send it as lossless audio, or in some dolby format, or ac3 5.1 or DTS), then it may be that the sound bar needs some time to decode specific digital formats...

Start from the most basic stereo 2.0 uncompressed format and go from there..

I will take a look at that then, and see what I find. Thanks :)

[Nene]

6 minutes ago, Midevil Chaos said:

Gotcha, makes sense. What would make the audio go out of sync in that case? I cannot say I have much experience with sound bars, since I usually had a tv with good audio.

This usually happens because of processing delay in the TV. Some devices let you set an audio delay to make it sync up. If the sound is occurring before the matching video, it's time to add a delay, if the sound lags behind, it's time to remove one.

[Midevil Chaos]

Just now, Nene said:

This usually happens because of processing delay in the TV. Some devices let you set an audio delay to make it sync up. If the sound is occurring before the matching video, it's time to add a delay, if the sound lags behind, it's time to remove one.

Never paid attention to that. Once I get the chance later, I will look and test out some settings.

[Midevil Chaos]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

The out of sync is not caused by the cable. The cable is just optical fiber, your audio card sends pulses of light through the cable and they basically reach the other end instantly. 

It depends on the software you use how the digital audio data is encoded (if you send it as lossless audio, or in some dolby format, or ac3 5.1 or DTS), then it may be that the sound bar needs some time to decode specific digital formats...

Start from the most basic stereo 2.0 uncompressed format and go from there..

I believe the soundbar uses DTS. I modified the setting on the tv for it to choose PCM over RAW... not that I understand what either of those mean lol. But so far, it seems to make a difference.