I did some work last year at a lake home and when they declined to install an outdoor TV, I only ran speaker wiring in the conduit. Fast forward to Wednesday, when he asked about installing an outdoor TV. If I have to feed coax, it's either going to require me to dig to gain access to the T in the conduit so I can remove one speaker cable and then pull a coax, but that doesn't help with getting audio to the speakers that are under and over the raised deck or at the adjacent fire pit. Assuming I can get cable to the TV (there's a storage space behind the proposed TV location and I may be able to pull coax from the far side of the adjacent room, which has a cable box in an upper cabinet- the upper cabinet is under a drop in the ceiling, where a duct runs from one side of the room to the other and the end that reaches the storage space is insulated, but not covered by drywall or sheet goods like plywood, OSB, etc.

Since the audio to the outdoor speakers comes from Sonos Connects, I thought it would be easy enough to add another Connect at the TV end, regardless of whether I use a cable box or smart TV since the adjacent room has an EERO and the distance is about 15'. The issue seems to be in how the Sonos is connected to the source- if it's HDMI, more options may be available (if I was using a PlayBar or Beam, which I'm not).

The question- if someone else has done this, did they have lip synch problems that were impossible to eliminate? The Sonos site shows that it can be addressed if the audio is ahead of the video, but if the video is ahead of the audio, they suggest rebooting the source device or contacting its manufacturer to see if they have any other settings that could help.

[Link: support.sonos.com]

Their Community shows more problems with LG.

[Link: en.community.sonos.com]

The system:

Sonos Connect- one for each of three outdoor speaker pairs, to allow streaming sources separate from the others, separate volume control and to avoid installing volume controls for every pair. Each Connect feeds inputs on a multi-channel amplifier and the equipment is in the basement of the house. The area where he asked about the TV is at the far end and the conduit is full. The Connect closest to the router is hard wired, the others are daisy chained. WiFi is great throughout the house and out to at least 30' from the house, around the whole perimiter where it's needed.

This is a problem with the connects. Because they digitize the signal and time align it so it will play at the same tie in every zone it does add a delay. it is not an LG problem but every model TV.

I think the AMP would wok using the HDMI ARC connection for what you want.

There are settings to reduce the lag, however. I have had times where it was not noticeable and have had times when it was too bad to be usable. All depends on your exact products.

Also, doesn't the adjustment only go one way? I forgot which way it was...but it wasn't the way I needed it to go!

Sonos will also tell you they dont support TV or cable boxes as an aux source...I laughed when they said this...

I always tell customers, if its a music stream and its joined on other rooms you will be fine, and the aux source locally will play fine.

But play your local aux source (i.e. cable box) through to other zones and you will have delays... (due to sending it over the network to other players).

Explain that before the sale to avoid call backs.

If you need a stand alone audio delay piece, Zektor has a device that can provide up to 340ms of delay if you can't solve the lip sync issue in the cable box settings.

I’m not sure an audio delay device would help. Isn’t the audio already lagging the video?

All SONOS Line-In's add a delay/latency of about 75ms except PORT, which is 100ms. While this results in very robust networking, it is frustrating for applications like this. This latency is not adjustable. The soundbars (and probably AMP) add a shorter latency of about 35ms, however, you can tinker with their lip sync setting to align their latency to the other players -- possibly at the expense of injuring the TV's lip sync.

A counter intuitive approach would be to use video distribution that adds some latency.

I think that PORT should have variable latency. Perhaps if enough of us lobby for this, it will be added.

Delaying the audio isn't difficult and most TVs/cable boxes/AVRs can do that but if it's already delayed, synch is more difficult.

Do you have MSRP?

Opinions on using a Sonos Beam and connect TV or cable box via HDMI, leaving the Beam in the storage room so it can't be heard?

The two Sonos 'Support' agents I spoke with were terrible. I hope this isn't the way they'll be operating in the future.

Just sent you PM

Terrible, as in "Why would you ever do that?"

I don't want to hear it, I just want to be able to use the HDMI connection, to minimize lip synch issues and to be able to adjust for it, which I can't do with a Connect.