quick question about TCL TV: should I return it? or the audio delays can be fixed via software update?
If you can I would say Hell yeah. A new anything should not have problems period.
These guys might shoot me down for this but I dont think these "Smart TV's" are the answer.
Get yourself a good simpler TV and get a real Roku to plug in on the side.
Geezz, was about to buy a 65R625 as it gets great PQ reviews. And use ARC over HDMI to a Yamaha AVR. I guess I won't now.
@California123 Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.
Our team is still working on investigating the reports and working toward further solutions. As I've mentioned before, please feel free to send me a private message with more information, including your Roku TV serial number, the specific make/model of A/V receiver you're using, and the specific content examples that you experience an issue with. I'll pass these along to our team as they continue looking into this.
Thanks,
Tanner
Yeah, maybe as others suggest, quite possibly this will never get fixed and updated. I work in a similar industry and here's my layman's guess as to what's going on:
1) The hardware vendors like TCL, Hisense, Sharp and whoever else, provide the Roku Dev teams with a SDK / emulator and very little if any actual hardware.
2) Devs adapt & test the Roku platform (strictly through software) to be compatible with the vendor specific APIs and are focused on functional compatibility, not performance.
3) As Roku Devs provide new releases (i.e. 9.2) they probably have an automated test suite but again, regression testing against the emulator for functional compatibility of the vendor specific APIs only.
4) @RokuTannerD 's job here is simply to moderate the forums, try to collect complete technical details of problems, and open internal JIRA tickets (or some equivalent).
5) Somebody else probably grooms the JIRA backlog but due to the wide variety of permutations of connected devices, no single label or tag on the tickets are bubbling up to a critical mass to make them be concerned that there is an actual problem.
6) Consequently, nothing is legitimately tested with a physical test bed (and not just in the SDK/emulation software), @RokuTannerD has little knowledge of the backlog grooming, testing, and dev sprints, and consequently there isn't anything for anyone at Roku to report back here.
End result: yeah, nothing will be done by Roku and reporting the issue here might be essentially futile. It would be ideal if Roku could reply on these forums with details on:
This would be similar to what Consumer Reports does in their labs for example. Sadly, based on what I'm reading here, I'm doubtful that Roku is doing the same.
The only way it will ever get addressed then is from TCL. If they feel that the Roku platform is compromising their sales, RMA rate, or number of simple returns then eventually they would put the pressure back on Roku and the situation would get fixed. Unfortunately though, probably too many TCL customers either drive everything through an AVR and don't rely on the TV based apps, or use the onboard speakers, or don't complain via the right channels. I don't know which - but I'm guessing that dissatisfaction from TCL is the only way to truly motivate Roku to address these issues.
@RokuTannerD : now that I've been presumptuous, please tell me how wrong I am. Please correct me and tell me the situation is different. I hope I am wrong and look forward to be corrected. I'm looking for an optimistic and encouraging update.
I've been a Roku customer since a Black Friday deal in 2010 or 2011, have two Roku accounts and about 8 players between them, and as posted really have my eye on a TCL 6-series but based on what I'm reading here I'm sadly backing away.
Thanks for your thoughts. We are definitely taking customer reports to heart and working on identifying solutions for the issues raised.
Our team is actively investigating reports, and is continuing to strive to resolve these. Unfortunately, I don't have any further updates to share other than to re-affirm that you are being heard, and that we are working to take further action and improve each step of the way.
Please feel free to follow up with me directly if you have any additional questions or want to check in. I will continue to keep the Community updated when I have any further news to share.
Thanks,
Tanner
Fair enough and thanks for the reply @RokuTannerD .
I guess I'll wait a bit a monitor here. I'm waiting for the R625 anyway and to purchase in Canada where it's not even released yet so I have a little bit of time on my side. And the ability to purchase and return but I'd hate to do that.
Same issue - given the large volume of complaints about this on this forum and others I really don't buy that this is a configuration problem and certainly not something that will be solved with a PM.
I appreciate that Tanner is here attempting to provide some semblance of support, but it is simply not sufficient. I understand how collecting lists of affected devices can be useful, but this problem seems to span ALL devices. Can Roku really not replicate this in their testing? Are their engineers incapable of detecting audio delay? Either fix the issue in your software or give us the option of rolling back firmware.