Manufacturers try to fix this audio delay problem on their own, but there’s only so much they can do. Couple that with any other processing you’re doing-like motion smoothing on your TV, or “virtual surround”-type features on the soundbar-and you’re basically guaranteed out-of-sync dialogue. If the TV doesn’t know exactly how long your soundbar will take, it may send the video before the soundbar has finished, leading to a disastrous mismatch of the mouths on screen. But when you introduce another product-like a soundbar-your TV might decode the video while your soundbar decodes the audio. If you’re playing that audio on your TV’s speakers, your TV is doing all the unpacking, so it can hold off on sending both the video and audio until the process has finished. We’re talking milliseconds, usually, but time nonetheless-and higher bitrate formats (like multi-channel Dolby Atmos) might take longer than a low-bitrate stereo track, leading to a more noticeable delay. When that signal is sent to your TV or soundbar, the device has to decode the audio in order to play it over your speakers, and that process takes time.

Specifically, when you watch a Blu-ray or stream a movie on Netflix, that audio is encoded in a certain format-like DTS or Dolby Digital. “You’ve got all these different formats for audio, so there’s a large amount of number-crunching the TV has to do to unpack it all.” “It is a complicated problem,” explains Allan Devantier, vice president of audio research and development at Samsung. Frequently, this delay is inherent to how TVs and soundbars decode audio. Many people jump to blame a certain brand or model of soundbar, but it’s not always that simple. I’ve tried and reviewed countless TVs and the best soundbars, and audio delay is an extremely common issue.

We’ll walk you through how to fix the audio delay in your soundbar. But while most soundbars are space-efficient and easy to hook up, they still have an occasional quirk or two-most notably an audio delay that causes audio and video to be out of sync with the mouths moving on screen. If you’re unsatisfied with the quiet, tinny sound coming from your TV’s speakers, a soundbar can seriously improve your movie-watching experience. No amount of angrily button-mashing the remote is going to fix the audio delay between your TV and soundbar.

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