Dolby Digital causes lag (360)

[Deap]

I have just got Rock Band and its absolutely brilliant. the only real problem i have is that when I enable Dolby Digital, the vocals have a delay from when I sing to when the come out of the speakers. also the drum sync is off I find I have to hit the pads about half a second early for it to register?

I know I can sync my TV but this is not the issue. I have synced several times and my guitar is bang on.

Looking around this seems to be an issue with Dolby. like the machine can't process the audio fast enough.

I love having it on hearing the crowd chant from behind is amazing. I dont want to keep turning this on and off from when I'm soloing guitar to singing, drumming or multiplayer.

Is there a fix being made for this or is it simply a case of sticking with it as it is?

[Phane7]

Is there a fix being made for this or is it simply a case of sticking with it as it is?

There is no fix for this issue. It's a case of the audio having to be encoded to Dolby Digital on the fly and then having to be decoded on the fly by your receiver. When you disable dolby digital, there's no encoding/decoding, thus there is no delay.

Go to Options and Calibrate System, Manual Calibration and line up the Circle so that you hear the popping noice when the dot goes through it. Exactly where that happens will vary based on your receiver, but for mine it's about 60 ms. When you've done this, the game should be calibrated for your audio system and not just for your TV.

[Deap]

Yeah I did that several times,

It works for the guitar perfect and helps the drumming a bit. but the vocals are impossible its like hearing yourself after a slight delay. obviously because the box has to record and encode your voice on the fly instead of knowing the audio file to play at the exact time. its too off-putting.

It just seems daft that the option is in there (especially since it sounds so good enabled) if the game kinda fails when it is on...

FAIL....

[Phane7]

If it's that big a deal to you, you can get a PS3. The PS3 version of Rock Band can do uncompressed 5.1 through HDMI. Otherwise, just turn down the microphone volume or get a receiver that can take 2 channel sound and make it sound good through a 5.1 speaker configuration.

[Ravaana]

I have the 360, and I don't have problems with my surround sound.

I don't "Enable it" in the menue though. I found that just setting the reciever to surround sound it works just fine. But I am also not using the HD cables. Just standard RCA.

Try that.

[digbee]

If it's that big a deal to you, you can get a PS3. The PS3 version of Rock Band can do uncompressed 5.1 through HDMI. Otherwise, just turn down the microphone volume or get a receiver that can take 2 channel sound and make it sound good through a 5.1 speaker configuration.

umm how bout no. haven't you read these fourms with countless claims of PS3 mic lag lol


yes, i have a 360 and DD amp and I have to disable DD for rockband. You'll notice your drum fills will be on time as well as vocals. Make sure you calibrate after you turn DD off.

[Deap]

If it's that big a deal to you, you can get a PS3. The PS3 version of Rock Band can do uncompressed 5.1 through HDMI.

Why does almost every post have to have a PS3 is better argument? apparently this is not the case anyway. PS3 suffers with the same issue. I don't think this is a case of the machine being faster fixing the issue.

Why should I get this for my PS3 Does Rockband work on a Blu-Ray player?


I have the 360, and I don't have problems with my surround sound.

I don't "Enable it" in the menu though.
Try that.

You may use surround speakers but it is not Dolby unless you enable the option. If your system supports Dolby Digital, enable this option then play a solo Guitar track you are good at (in a stadium is best) the sound of the crowd chanting along with the song is soooooooooooo good.

[Phane7]

Why does almost every post have to have a PS3 is better argument? apparently this is not the case anyway. PS3 suffers with the same issue. I don't think this is a case of the machine being faster fixing the issue.

I wasn't arguing which system was better or worse. You were complaining about Dolby Digital sounding better than 2 channel uncompressed but causing latency. I was explaining to you that the PS3 version features latency free 5.1 uncompressed sound giving you the best of both worlds while the 360 does not. If you were a PS3 user saying that you wanted voice chat, I would have informed you that the 360 version has that feature.

There is no mixing involved in uncompressed audio, period. Uncompressed 5.1 actually requires less CPU time than Dolby Digital. The only reason I can think of that the 360 doesn't support uncompressed 5.1 is that the original 360's had no way to pass it on to a receiver (you'd need either 6 analog cables or HDMI). It has nothing to do with which machine has more horsepower, it has more to do with having or not having HDMI at launch.

And FYI, just because it's not Dolby doesn't mean it's not surround. Dolby Digital is just one way of encoding 6 channel audio. Additionally, many receivers can fairly accuractly simulate 6 channel surround by running 2 channel audio through several different available filters and splitting the sound through the 6 channels.

[cheezeit]

I've seen this on my friend's 360 and on my ps3. I hate it. The game plays fine, but drum fills are all about a half second off.

I don't want to turn off the digital feature because i want to play my game in 5.1, not stereo with simulated 5.1.

There is no delay with the rest of the song I can see, only when the fill is active. BTW, I also saw it in free style (which I don't use yet), But it's there.

[Phane7]

As stated in posts above, Dolby Digital adds audio lag because it takes time to encode/decode. On your PS3, you can minimilise this if you have HDMI to your receiver as you can do uncompressed surround. However, a lot of audio systems have audio latency regardless and that latency will be noticeable regardless of how well you calibrate your system for the audio lag when doing drum fills or freestyle.