Lip-sync not working with LG QNED TV (2021) and Yamaha RX-V6A

[InvicTech]

As the title says, I've tried to make lip sync work to no avail. First I'll start with the components

• LG 65qned816re TV (2021)
• Yamaha RX-V6A Receiver
• NVIDIA Shield TV (2017)
• HDMI 2.1 certified Cables
• Teufel Speakers

Both TV and AVR support eARC and "4K 120Hz HDR VRR" (the high framerate and VRR is only relevant when I want to use my PC with the setup)

 

Concerning the Yamaha receiver

As I've seen in another post on this forum involving a Yamaha Receiver, I cannot change the Lip Sync setting from "Manual" to "Auto". Are there any other Yamaha users that can chime in on this one?

 

Concerning the LG TV

I've tried the following setups: (note: all configurations have the audio ahead of the video, due to the TVs processing)

• Shield -> AVR -> TV
  • The audio delay with 2160p24 has about negative 3-4 Frames of delay. 
• Shield -> TV -> AVR (ARC) | TV's Digital Audio Setting set to Auto
  • Lip-Sync is ok, but only a few audio formats work correctly, the rest either doesn't work or gets decoded to stereo PCM
• Shield -> TV -> AVR (eARC) | TV's Digital Audio Setting set to Auto
  • Lip-Sync is ok, more supported formats but notably DTS:X gets decoded to stereo PCM, also the audio has occaisonal drop-outs
• Shield -> TV -> AVR (eARC) | TV's Digital Audio Setting set to Passthrough
  • Lip-Sync is the same again as the first setup but all audio formats work (altough it takes a lot of time for the audio to start playing when it's multi-channel audio)
  • Using the TVs built-in Apps seems to work fine though :/

Conclusions thus far

No matter what I seem to try, the result is either sub-par audio format support and working lip-sync OR good audio format support and bad lip sync

 

I've used test videos at different frame rates playing through Plex on the Shield TV, also tried some through the YouTube app on the Shield TV. All tested apps on the Shield TV exhibit the same amount of delay when there is delay to be observed.

 

Question(s) to the community

• Am I just shit out of luck, or is this a common problem with Yamaha Receivers and/or LG TVs?
• What TV brands actually play nice with Yamaha Receivers?
• Do you guys think it's the TV or the AVR or the combination of the two?

 

What I can't or won't do

• Turn off all the post-processing things on the TV as it uses a MiniLED backlight with Full-array local dimming which would make the TV as bad as an edge light panel when turned off
• Try anymore fixed offsets as the delay seems to be variable depending on the Resolution, Framerate and HDR of the source. Worst being 2160p24 with HDR

 

Any feedback here is appreciated as I'm at my wits end... If I can't figure this out I'll return the TV and/or AVR.

 

 

[circeseye]

on your avr, set it to pass through video. otherwise the avr will process video and cause lag (youll be able to turn tv stuff back on)

then you should be able to do Shield -> AVR -> TV.

my denon did it similar. im comp-avr-lg tv

[InvicTech]

9 hours ago, circeseye said:

on your avr, set it to pass through video. otherwise the avr will process video and cause lag (youll be able to turn tv stuff back on)

then you should be able to do Shield -> AVR -> TV.

my denon did it similar. im comp-avr-lg tv

The only video processing the AVR is capable of is the 4K Upscaling and that is and always has been turned off...

[circeseye]

3 hours ago, InvicTech said:

The only video processing the AVR is capable of is the 4K Upscaling and that is and always has been turned off...

i did more research on your avr. on svforums and a few other sites theres a lot of audio sync issue threads with your unit. and none really have a fix.
theres some ideas to try to fix but you did those already. im thinking it doesnt have a video bypass
i cant find a fix for you

[InvicTech]

@circeseye Thanks for your efforts. I'm still hopeful that some Yamaha peeps show up to the party. Because I refuse to believe that such a highly rated receiver like the RX-V6A is so fundamentaly flawed and noone notices...

 

I've contacted Yamaha support in the meantime, curious to hear what they have to say. I'll keep this thread up-to-date as I learn new things about my miserable home theater setup xD

[ender23]

I'm using a v4a. Sync is (now) fine across all sources.

 

Is the firmware up to date on the Yamaha? I was not able to switch to auto until the latest firmware update.

 

Can you turn off motion smoothing (and the like) on the TV, leaving on the local dimming settings? Does that make a difference (it did for me)?

 

What kind of HDMI cable are you using? What is the Gbps rating of the cable? How long is the HDMI cable?

[InvicTech]

56 minutes ago, ender23 said:

I'm using a v4a. Sync is (now) fine across all sources.

 

Is the firmware up to date on the Yamaha? I was not able to switch to auto until the latest firmware update.

 

Can you turn off motion smoothing (and the like) on the TV, leaving on the local dimming settings? Does that make a difference (it did for me)?

 

What kind of HDMI cable are you using? What is the Gbps rating of the cable? How long is the HDMI cable?

I already installed two updates and I got no more notifications for new firmware. Running v1.67 currently.

 

Have it off again. Put it on in non-HDR mode to increase the video delay, to match the HDR delay more closely so the fixed delay works better as a work-around.

 

2x 2m 48 Gbps rated and certified HDMI cables.

Running Shield -> AVR -> TV

 

Still though, no dice, stuck in manual...

[InvicTech]

Update Time

I have nothing new to tell about the technical issue itself. However, LG, Yamaha and the Vendor have gotten around to calling me back and the situation is as follows:

• I asked LG whether that TV even supports automatic Lip-Sync over HDMI like the avr needs it to work. Not only did they not even manage to answer that question, but they straight up just hung up on me after I tried explaining that me getting a soundbar to test with is not the setup I have at home and also won't give me the information about the Lip-Sync compatibility I'm looking for.
  • So LG gets an A+ for shit customer support. Great. Still don't know whether the bloody TV actualy supports the standard or not...
     
• Yamaha was more helpfull, as they went through my setup(s) I've already tried and determined that the issue is related to the TV in all likelihood. They did give me another, local company's phone number to contact, to diagnose the issue further.
  • While suboptimal, at least they didn't hang up on me and reinforced what I had already suspected, the TV seems to be lacking that functionality.
     
• The Vendor understanding of my situation offered me to take my receiver to their showroom floor and hook it up to the TVs on display to maybe find one that suits my setup needs. They also seem to be willing to get a refund for the LG started.
  • I mean, it's great that they are willing to let me try different TVs and give me the option of a refund. But I fear this will also end up costing me a pretty penny if it should turn out that only the top models actually, properly support the automatic Lip-Sync needed for proper Home Theater setups.

So, all in all, I'm defeated. I'll do at least another update here with the end of the saga, but it's not looking too good at the moment. Also, I am investing way more time than I had bargained for at the start of all of this. Wish me luck

[InvicTech]

Update 2

After some more digging around, I've concluded that the TV doesn't signal the receiver the changed audio delay when the refresh rate of the source changes. So the delay disappears when turning off "Match Framerate" in Plex and SmartTube.

 

This means that the TV gets a 60Hz Signal instead of a content specific 24Hz, 30Hz, 50Hz, etc. This is probably also why it only ever worked over eARC with Digital Audio set to "Auto", where the TV decodes the proprietary audio formats and passes PCM onto the AVR, also this audio decoding on the TV caused audio hiccups every so often which is why I couldn't use it.

 

TDLR;

The LG TV has the following characteristics:

• Does not communicate video processing delay dynamically to AVR
• Lip Sync with modern AVR is only possible with an input signal of 50Hz or 60Hz
• The TV has built-in compensation for sources that play 24FPS content over a 60Hz signal
  • This means that visually it looks fine (mostly)

This leaves me with either a refund or acceptance

[InvicTech]

Final Update

Alright, I was able to get a refund and got myself a Sony Bravia XR-65A80L. While I can still not set the Lip-Sync to Auto in the OSD of my Yamaha Receiver, using eARC actually works with the Sony as intended. 

The Sony TV correctly let's me passthrough Dolby Atmos, DTS:X etc. over eARC and applies the correct amount of Delay needed. This is good enough as I can use all the audio codecs I could ever want and don't have to fiddle around with sync issues.

 

Also, apparently for some odd reason Sony decided to only allow certain Audio formats to work with the built-in apps. This is why I will still be using my Shield TV even though the Sony has Android TV built-in.

 

Also, also, "Match-Framerate" on the Shield TV doesn't break Sync in this setup. So now, I can enjoy my content with the correct framerate