Possible Apple TV audio-sync fix for BRAVIA 7/8/9 (It's Working Now, So Far)
Maybe someone else can confirm or disprove this based on my settings. I noticed that the audio drift seemed to affect only Netflix, Paramount+, Hulu and HBO Max, all of which I have ordinary, non-premium subscriptions to. Fine for the first few minutes, then suddenly the syncing was off. Sometimes by a fraction, sometimes it was WTF.
However, whenever I played newer content with actual Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos (like a lot of Apple TV's new shows/movies), I never experienced a sync problem (as in never, either before or after the June firmware update).
>My setup (United States): Sony BRAVIA 8 running the latest U.S. firmware, BRAVIA Theatre System 6, and the latest Apple TV 4K running the latest tvOS update. Everything says "Up to date" as of today.
Initially, I thought it was Apple TV+ versus “everyone else.” Then I rented a movie from 2017 last night through the Apple TV Store thinking that anything from the store was "stable," (I was wrong), and for the first time, it also developed the same sync issue. I checked and discovered that it was just an ordinary HD/SDR title. So my suspicion now was with the Apple TV output settings. Anything without the "Dolby Vision" or "Dolby Atmos" icon in the title, produced a syncing issue (eventually).
My Apple TV had been set to 4K Dolby Vision 60 Hz because I assumed that was the “best” setting overall. This meant Apple TV was converting ordinary SDR content into a Dolby Vision output signal. I’m wondering whether that conversion triggered a vulnerability introduced by Sony’s recent firmware update. I don't remember when that setting was changed, it might have been at the same time this all went down in June.
Anyway.
I went ahead and changed the settings (Apple TV) to:
- Format: 4K SDR 59.94 Hz
- Match Dynamic Range: On
- Match Frame Rate: On
- Audio Format: Auto
- Change Format: Off
- Continuous Audio Connection: Off
So far, I haven’t been able to trigger the sync error again, even after repeatedly pausing, rewinding and scrubbing through titles that reliably caused it before. Everything seems to be working perfectly, the Apple TV feels noticeably snappier, and the BRAVIA 8 automatically switches into Dolby Vision when I play genuine Dolby Vision content. Atmos also activates automatically when the title provides it.
I can’t say whether this is strictly an Apple TV issue, a Sony firmware issue, or an interaction between the two, but this appears to have fixed it for my BRAVIA 8 + Theatre 6 setup. I've been testing it all morning, and by now, I'm usually able to trigger a sync issue usually within minutes, and it hasn't triggered one yet on these new settings.
For the Playstation: I’m currently testing a possible PS5-side fix as well. Under Settings → Sound → Audio Output, I set HDMI Device Type to AV Amplifier/5.1 and changed Audio Format Priority from Dolby Atmos to Linear PCM. Linear PCM is uncompressed and requires less processing, so if the PS5 stays synchronized this way, it may point to an issue with how Sony’s current firmware is handling Atmos over eARC.