Bluetooth audio and video out of sync

I have an updated procedure that might be faster and easier. It's worked for me consistantly since I discovered it while playing around.

1) Make sure your bluetooth device is connected.
2) Start the video.
3) Pause the video after is starts.
4) Touch the bluetooth symbol in the lower right of the player control box.
4a) this will bring up an "Audio Device" selection box. Choose "Speaker".
4b) This will direct output to the built in speaker and offer up a volume control slider
5) Touch the bluetooth symbol again to bring up the "Audio Device" selection box.
5a) Reslect your bluetooth device from the device listing.
5b) The volume slider should fade and be replaced with your BT device name.
6) Unpause the video. Vidoe/Audio should be in sych.

Again, I personally have found this a very consistant way to synch the channels and takes a heck of lot less time than cycleing my BT device on and off.

Hope it helps.

Has Apple officially recognised this problem? If not, how would one go about reporting it?
It's not just video that has the problem, I also experience audio lag with my Motorola S305 when playing games, and even with general sounds such as locking the phone.

I listen to heaps of music vids on my phone, and unfortunately the workaround is not an effective solution for me. Can you imagine having to use these workarounds every 3-4 mins between video clips whilst traveling to/from work for an hour each morning?!?! ;(

This method didnt work for me with my bluetooth Motorola S305 headset.
I started an episode of South Park, paused it, changed from bluetooth to speaker, then back to bluetooth again, unpaused it, and the audio still starts 2 secs late and is out of sync. I tried it 4 times but still no luck.

The other method of turning off the headset and back on again works for me, but not that effective when watching many 3-4min video clips.

sorry it didn't work for you. At least the first method helps some though I do agree that it's a hassle with shorter clips which is why I've been constantly fiddling with ways to minimize the hassle of getting things synched up.

I'm fairly convinced it's strictly a software issue at this point. I've done the feedback thing a couple of times to Apple. So far as I know there's been no hint they are aware or care.

I just got home with my Jabra Halo stereo bluetooth headset and im very disappointed with the lag issue. My 3GS is only a week old and (stupidly) i didnt think to do research before purchasing, i guess i thought some ridiculous glaring bug like 1-2 second lag times in audio would have been worked out by now.

My phone is running the 3.1 OS, everything else with it works flawlessly. I've tried all the solutions i've been able to find on the net: disabling push notifications, toggling airplane mode, re-pairing the device (a dozen times), even the power cycling the headset during a video track solution doesn't seem to make a difference, as of now there's NO way to get it to work right.

Needless to say im very annoyed, if i cant figure something out in the next couple of days im taking my $130 headset back.

After scouring the net all night to no avail I've found that doing the speaker switch and airplane mode works, or more importantly, WHY it works. I'm a programmer by trade so problem solving is my bread and butter. It seems to me (and i can hear it when the headset is on) the problem is the headset's lag to turn on when it goes into "sleep" mode or whatever. Apparently my Jabra HALO goes off after about 15 seconds of inactivity (no audio broadcast from the iphone), and it's during its "wake up" that the lag is incurred. If you can get it to sync up by either using the airplane mode or the switch output mode you can "fix" the problem as long as you don't let the phone be silent for more then 15 seconds (Speed reference anyone?).

The act of switching outputs kid of re-sync's the broadcast, this is a stupid problem to have and was solved in wireless audio many years ago. The Jabra manual hints to "stereo blue tooth another way" but doesn't give any details except that the standby time would be reduced, i followed the instructions to use this mysterious other way and it doesn't seem to make a difference. One good thing (if you can call it that) I've found is this is apparently not an isolated event to one brand of a2dp headsets but more a small selection of them. I suspect any headset that has this aggressive power saving behavior will suffer the same issue.

I plan on calling Jabra tomorrow with my findings and see what they have to say, according to other HALO owners on the net, Jabra has a tendency to tell you to exchange it for another one but i wont be doing that, the headset works "fine" and they all appear to be "defective" in the same way.

Anyway, thats my two cents, my apologies for the over-use of quotes and parenthesis. I'll make another post tomorrow after my call. I really don't want to have to abandon the idea of a stereo blue tooth so I'm not giving up that easily.

P.S If anyone is watching this, can you send me a message or reply, for some reason i haven't seen many people complaining about this problem since the 3.1 update, either it's gone away for them (somehow) or people have just got tired of complaining about it. Either way I'm curious to know what everyone else has done to attempt to remedy this.

I thought this was a common problem using bluetooth for the audio in an av system.

Yamaha, for this very reason, has not used bluetooth in its latest wireless dock

"I thought this was a common problem using bluetooth for the audio in an av system."

Depends. When used with external A2DP transmitters, it may be with several A2DP heapdhones (e.g., the Plantronics 590). But, in general, NOT with built-in BT module + multimedia player combos.

OK, good to know, thanks

I got Motorola S9-HD a couple months before Apple announced A2DP support and bluetooth in the next gen of the iTouch lineup. I got the 64gb one a couple weeks ago. Just today Apple updated the OS to 3.1.2.

I workout with my itouch on a elliptical trainer and watch a ton of tv shows for that 45 minutes. I was quite eager to be wireless, but I too have the 1-2 second delay when watching video.

I have tried the pause, switch to speaker, switch back to bluetooth to no avail. Can't switch off Airplane mode since its not a phone, but have turned off the other wireless stuff just in case.

They work awesome for music. Volume control works, pause/play works, but track Forward or Back don't work. I believe before the last update to 3.1.2 the pause play wasnt working.

Anyway, for what it is worth, I am putting it out there this seems to still be a problem. Anyone with any other work arounds, your suggestions would be appreciated.

I do have an old pair of Logitch bluetooth with a dongle. It of course plays the video fine, but I have to also keep the dongle charged as well I really like the noise cancelling and in-the-ear fit of the S9-HD.