Is it my TV or their broadcast?

Our local ABC affiliate WCVB started broadcasting
local news in HD a week ago. The picture looks great.
However, the syncing of voice and image is awful with
the lips trailing the words by significant fractions
of seconds.

I contacted the station by email last Tuesday and
Wednesday someone replied saying they needed to reboot
some equipment. Things got a little better but on the
local news the syncing is still pretty poor. This
problem is not significant on other HD broadcasts on
ABC or on other stations.

I receive the broadcasts OTA.
--
Rick Evans
---------------------------------------------------------------
Lon -71° 04' 35.3"
Lat +42° 11' 06.7"

Rick Evans ) wrote:
: Our local ABC affiliate WCVB started broadcasting
: local news in HD a week ago. The picture looks great.
: However, the syncing of voice and image is awful with
: the lips trailing the words by significant fractions
: of seconds.

: I contacted the station by email last Tuesday and
: Wednesday someone replied saying they needed to reboot
: some equipment. Things got a little better but on the
: local news the syncing is still pretty poor. This
: problem is not significant on other HD broadcasts on
: ABC or on other stations.

: I receive the broadcasts OTA.
: --
: Rick Evans
: ---------------------------------------------------------------
: Lon -71° 04' 35.3"
: Lat +42° 11' 06.7"


Poor synching is a common problem. My eyesight is not very good so I don;t
notice it but my wife does. I expect that the next generation HDTVs will
hava a variable delay built in to compensate.

Cass

Rick Evans wrote:
Our local ABC affiliate WCVB started broadcasting
local news in HD a week ago. The picture looks great.
However, the syncing of voice and image is awful with
the lips trailing the words by significant fractions
of seconds.

I contacted the station by email last Tuesday and
Wednesday someone replied saying they needed to reboot
some equipment. Things got a little better but on the
local news the syncing is still pretty poor. This
problem is not significant on other HD broadcasts on
ABC or on other stations.

I receive the broadcasts OTA.

If you are not seeing this on other HD programs from the same station
or other broadcast stations, the problem is with WCVB-DT. They need to
adjust or fix their audio equipment. Audio sync has been a recurring
problem with digital TV.

The TNT-HD cable channel was frequently having serious audio sync
problems for months. It was like watching a badly dubbed Asian martial
movie where the dialog was way off from the mouths moving. It showed on
more on some programs than others. But it was so distracting when I was
trying to watch a movie on TNT-HD that I gave up and changed the
channel. I have not been watching TNT-HD much lately, but I think they
have mostly fixed it.

Alan F

In article [email protected],
says...
Our local ABC affiliate WCVB started broadcasting
local news in HD a week ago. The picture looks great.
However, the syncing of voice and image is awful with
the lips trailing the words by significant fractions
of seconds.

I contacted the station by email last Tuesday and
Wednesday someone replied saying they needed to reboot
some equipment. Things got a little better but on the
local news the syncing is still pretty poor. This
problem is not significant on other HD broadcasts on
ABC or on other stations.

I receive the broadcasts OTA.


The local CBS station here was horrible a year ago when I bought my TV
and suddenly about three months later, they fixed it and it's been
perfect since then.

BDK

"Rick Evans" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
Our local ABC affiliate WCVB started broadcasting
local news in HD a week ago. The picture looks great.
However, the syncing of voice and image is awful with
the lips trailing the words by significant fractions
of seconds.

Thanks to all those who responded. It looks like
the problem is mainly on WCVB's end and that they
need to tweak their equipment.

--
Rick Evans
---------------------------------------------------------------
Lon -71° 04' 35.3"
Lat +42° 11' 06.7"

"Rick Evans" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
"Rick Evans" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
Our local ABC affiliate WCVB started broadcasting
local news in HD a week ago. The picture looks great.
However, the syncing of voice and image is awful with
the lips trailing the words by significant fractions
of seconds.

Thanks to all those who responded. It looks like
the problem is mainly on WCVB's end and that they
need to tweak their equipment.

--
Rick Evans
---------------------------------------------------------------

Our CBS affiliate went to 16:9 about a month ago. Had really bad sync issues
with remotes. Just grin and bare it till they get it sorted out. Sometimes
the stations don't monitor their own output very well, so letting them know
about it is a good idea. Avsforum.com has threads by broadcast area. Great
resource for finding out when local broadcasters have problems.

(Cass Lewart) wrote:

Poor synching is a common problem. My eyesight is not very good so I don;t
notice it but my wife does. I expect that the next generation HDTVs will
hava a variable delay built in to compensate.

I've seen lip synch problems with every digital TV system I've used,
which includes DirecTV, DigiCipher II, DVB-S and now ATSC. Sometimes
the problem is at the transmission end, sometimes the receiver. You'd
think they would have this figured out by now, and have it corrected
automatically. Variable delay in the receiver is fine, but if it's
manual nobody is going to use it.

The only time I've seen it in analog TV was years ago when I worked at
a TV station in Albany NY that got its network feed from NYC via AT&T
(this was before satellite). One night they gave us video direct from
NYC but audio looped around Buffalo. Oh, and once they gave us CBS
audio and ABC video for the nightly news. The lip synch was REALLY
off on that!

Del Mibbler

In article , Del Mibbler
[email protected] wrote:

(Cass Lewart) wrote:

Poor synching is a common problem. My eyesight is not very good so I don;t
notice it but my wife does. I expect that the next generation HDTVs will
hava a variable delay built in to compensate.

I've seen lip synch problems with every digital TV system I've used,
which includes DirecTV, DigiCipher II, DVB-S and now ATSC. Sometimes
the problem is at the transmission end, sometimes the receiver. You'd
think they would have this figured out by now, and have it corrected
automatically. Variable delay in the receiver is fine, but if it's
manual nobody is going to use it.

I would think it pretty much has to be at the transmitter end, doesn't
it? How could it leave the transmitter in sync and not arrive at the
TV in sync? Maybe a TV could be designed to have adjustments to
compensate for errors at the transmission end, but I don't see how it
could take a properly synced signal and mess it up.

In article , Captain Midnight
wrote:

Just grin and bare it till they get it sorted out.

They was NEKKID!

And they was grinnin' lack a mess a jay birds!

On Mon, 21 May 2007 17:37:54 -0500, Steve Cutchen
wrote:

In article , Del Mibbler
[email protected] wrote:

(Cass Lewart) wrote:

Poor synching is a common problem. My eyesight is not very good so I don;t
notice it but my wife does. I expect that the next generation HDTVs will
hava a variable delay built in to compensate.

I've seen lip synch problems with every digital TV system I've used,
which includes DirecTV, DigiCipher II, DVB-S and now ATSC. Sometimes
the problem is at the transmission end, sometimes the receiver. You'd
think they would have this figured out by now, and have it corrected
automatically. Variable delay in the receiver is fine, but if it's
manual nobody is going to use it.

I would think it pretty much has to be at the transmitter end, doesn't
it? How could it leave the transmitter in sync and not arrive at the
TV in sync? Maybe a TV could be designed to have adjustments to
compensate for errors at the transmission end, but I don't see how it
could take a properly synced signal and mess it up.

With digital I think you will find that both the audio and video are
buffered at the receiver. That means if something interrrupts the
signal momentarily you will never see the interuption with digital
where you would with analog. I see this happen with satellite during
storms on a regular basis. The picture might pause/freeze but the
sound goes on.