Several Windows users have observed an issue while watching any movies or series on their system. The issue is that the audio and video are out of sync when playing. This means there is some amount of delay between the audio and video that is been played.
This is causing some distress among the people since it is destroying the experience of watching any movie. They are not sure why and how this can be resolved on their system.
There are certain factors causing this problem and we have listed them down.
- Fluctuating Internet connection.
- Outdated audio or video driver.
- Settings of the playback devices are changed.
- Corrupted browser cache.
- Hardware acceleration must have been enabled.
- A problem from the Streaming services end.
After analyzing these points which are responsible for this issue, we have compiled a bunch of fixes in this article, which will definitely assist the user in fixing the issue.
Workarounds to try –
- Check your internet connection. A weak and unstable internet connection can cause such issues. Disconnect the internet connection and restart the Wi-Fi router and reconnect it back after some time. If you are using an ethernet connection, just unplug the cable wire and plug it back after a few minutes.
- Sometimes, the problem might be with the media player you are using for playing the videos. So try restarting the application or try a different media player.
- If there are too many applications running in the background along with the media player, it might take up more CPU and causes a delay between audio and video. So close all the background applications running currently using the Task Manager. Also, restart the system once.
Fix 1 – Change the Speaker properties
Step 1: Open the Run command box by pressing the Windows and R keys simultaneously.
Step 2: Type mmsys.cpl in it and press the Enter key.
Step 3: Now this opens the Sound properties window.
Step 4: Under the Playback tab, select the Playback device from the list and click the Properties button at the bottom.
Step 5: In the Playback device’s properties window, click the Advanced tab and uncheck the Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device and the Give exclusive mode applications priority checkboxes.
Step 6: Then click Apply and OK.
Step 7: Close all other windows as well and reboot the system.
Fix 2 – Run the Playing Audio troubleshooter
Step 1: Press the Windows and R keys together to open the Run command box.
Step 2: Type control.exe /name Microsoft.Troubleshooting in the run textbox and press Enter key.
Step 3: This opens the Troubleshoot page on your system.
Step 4: Click the Other troubleshooters option on the page
Step 5: Now run the playing audio troubleshooter by clicking the Run button of the Playing Audio option under the Most frequent section as shown in the below screenshot.
Step 6: This will start the troubleshooter window which then starts to detect any issues related to playing audio on the system.
Step 7: Follow any onscreen instructions then onwards and fix the issue detected by the troubleshooter.
Step 8: Restart the system once.
Fix 3 – Update the Audio driver on the system
Step 1: Press the Windows and X keys together and then press the M key once to open the Device Manager window on the system.
Step 2: Expand the Sound, video, and game controllers option by double-clicking on it.
Step 3: Now right-click on the Audio device and select the Update driver option from the list.
Step 4: Then, select the Search automatically for drivers option by clicking on it in the Update window.
Step 5: This will then start to search for any audio drivers available on the internet and gets them updated.
Step 6: When you are done updating the driver, close the device manager window.
Fix 4 – Clear the browser cache
Step 1: Open the google chrome app on your system.
Step 2: Next, in a new tab, type the below line in the address bar and then press Enter key.
chrome://settings/clearBrowserData
Step 3: This will open the clear browsing data pop-up window on the Chrome app.
Step 4: Now under the Basic tab, choose All time from the Time range dropdown menu and then select the Browsing history, Cookies and other site data, and Cached images and files checkboxes by clicking on it.
Step 5: Then click Clear data at the bottom of the window.
Step 6: This will clear all the browsing history and other site data from the chrome browser.
Step 7: You can do the same process with the major browsers.
Fix 5 – Contact the Streaming service support team
If you are watching any movie or videos on any streaming services like PrimeVideo, Netflix, etc. There can be chances that the issue may be from their end and they need to rectify it on their server or development side.
So we request our users try contacting the support team of the streaming service you are using like Amazon Prime Video, etc. and elaborate on the problem you are facing while watching the videos.
Fix 6 – Disable the Hardware Acceleration
Step 1: Open the Chrome browser.
Step 2: In a new tab, type chrome://settings/system in the address bar and press the Enter key.
Step 3: Now disable the hardware acceleration feature by toggling the Use hardware acceleration when available option to turn it Off.
Step 4: Once you do that, there appears a relaunch button and you need to click on the Relaunch button.