Atmos/TrueHD eARC passthrough sound skipping (Q80T + HW-Q80R)

[Waltila]

I own a brand new 75 inch Q80t TV and a relativly new HW-Q80R soundbar. TV is on the brand new 1460.9 firmware and HW-Q80R is on 1012.6 firmware.

I have this problem with infrequent skipping sound when playing TrueHD/Atmos content from an external device connected to HDMI in the TV. This apply to both the PC connected to HDMI 2 and an Nvidia Shield TV Pro 2019 connected to HDMI 1. PC is set up to transmit Atmos sound for everything, so even Spotify skips when I play music from the PC, while the Nvidia Shield TV Pro skips when I play Atmos content from the apps on there.

I baught brand new high quality HDMI 2.1 cables to see if it fixed the problem, which it did not.

The audio skips happen roughly every 10-15 minutes. When it happens the sound skips for about 1-2 seconds, and the display on the soundbar shows the "Atmos by Dolby" scrolling text then "eARC" as the signal reactivates.

The skipping only happen with Atmos sound. Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital Plus works flawlessly.

Lip sync is perfectly aligned with all audio.  

[Janitorus]

I am bumping this if you don't mind. I have a slightly different setup, but my issue seems related to your issue: https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/audio-video/hw-q80r-shield-pro-2019-truehd-random-audio-pop/m-p/...

Something is going on with TrueHD/Atmos with the HW-Q80/90R, standalone or in combination with Nvidia Shield. My issue is 100% isolated to TrueHD/Atmos as well. Everything else plays fine.

[CaptainCruesly]

Yep, this bug is also heard on my side since day one of buying.

It p****s me off.

Come on Samsung, patch this!

I think we'll get help from @AndrewL @DannyT @CarlH @ChrisM @AntS @CarloL 

[Jan Ivar]

I don't suppose you ever found a fix for this? I'm having the exact same issue with Q80T + HW-Q935C.

[Janitorus]

I didn't, unfortunately. I swapped it for an LG soundbar and no longer have the issue. FYI: even the mainboard/motherboard was swapped on my soundbar (done by the webshop), issue still present.

Samsung support also took a look/listen on their side with a testing sample, found nothing. It is 100% a bug/corruption of the audio stream with this soundbar. I have zero tolerance to deal with this sort of thing when they just ignore it or don't put the effort it, so I swapped it. Not worth the aggravation my friend.

Other things I have endless patience for. Not this.

[Jan Ivar]

Oh well, thank you for the quick reply!

[Janitorus]

Different TV + soundbar but same issue for you it seems. Best of luck man, but this tells me they don't care and/or it's a big issue not solved quickly anyway. It's been 4-5 years already and now they're releasing new hardware with the same thing happening.

I have observed it in TrueHD Atmos the clearest, but also via Netflix at the time. The higher the audio bitrate, the more prominent. Or so it seems.

[Jan Ivar]

Luckily I'm not experiencing the pops/ticks that you described in your post. For me the audio cuts out completely for 1-2 seconds like OP of the post above is describing, and only when playing Atmos content from external devices like game consoles. I saw another post that said turning Atmos compatibility on and off would temporarily fix it, so I think I'll try that the next time it happens.

But no, I'm not hopeful that it's going to get properly fixed, especially since Samsung just released a new firmware for my soundbar that had no effect on the issue.

[CaptainCruesly]

I'll also give you an update: I don't have patience neither, so I did return the soundbar (was the HW-Q70R IIRC) to the store and since they didn't have the same model on sale anymore, I did a little "upgrade" and went for the HW-Q800T and I didn't encounter the error with it.

If it had the same problem, I would went to a full refund then change to another brand.

I would advise you to change your soundbar too. We don't stay on earth long to waste time on these s****y devices.