Hi all, I hope this is not out of bounds for this list. I have a 2nd generation Apple tv, which is the first one to have had voice over available. It is up to date. If I connect this apple tv to a tv via the hdmi cable, voice over sounds through the tv's crappy speakers as expected, and it is smooth, not choppy at all.
If, however, I do one of the following 2 scenarios, voice over is choppy, with entire words often being missed. The words are always those at the beginning of an utterance. Thus, if I focus on the word movies, I might hear nothing, or I might just here the least hint of the last vowel and the s. If I focus on a movie or song title, sometimes, I hear the whole thing. Some times I get a piece of the last word. Here are the scenarios where this occurs. Connect the A tv to a tv via hdmi. Connect that same tv to a sound bar via the supplied optical digital cable, as per the instructions for the sound bar. Program audio through the sound bar is smooth and sounds good. Voice over exhibits the symptoms described above. Connect the apple tv to a tv with the hdmi cable. Connect digital optical cable from the apple tv to the optical digital input of an a/v receiver, which is connected to speakers in the room. Program audio is fine. voice over audio has the problems described above. So it seems that whenever the optical cable is involved, whether directly from the A tv or from the tv to a sound bar, voice over is not usable. I can't believe this is a widespread problem. Surely I'm not the only v/o user who has used a digital optical cable with an A tv. But I've done it with two different cables and with two different scenarios, so I'm somewhat reluctant to go plunk down 90 or a hundred bucks, just to find out there is an inherent flaw in the system, not just with my single apple tv. I can't believe all the audio loving blind folks who use these things have been satisfied listening to the programming through universally crappy speakers that are a part of flat screen tvs. Any advice here? Mary
