Connecting through soundbar distorts picture

That's an odd one! Thanks for posting back that the issue cleared up, but please keep us posted if this pops back up so we can assist further!

I have tried that. I also tried a couple other things. I disconnected the ONE altogether to separate that from the equation. I changed hdmi input ports. I then, also tried connecting the 360 hdmi directly to the soundbar. None of this works. It seems like
a couple possibilities here. 360 is NOT able to pass audio through hdmi to this soundbar, period. It is able to pass through the optical cable, however. So, either 360 doesn't pass audio through hdmi to this particular soundbar or something is just broken
in my 360. Obviously, it passes audio through hdmi to tv as I get sound that way. So, something between the hdmi signal from 360 to this particular soundbar just doesn't work. I think for my overall setup, I really need the One to connect directly to tv because
this gives the best sound for most of what I'm doing (when one is connected directly to soundbar, then to tv, I get worse sound, so One has to be connected to tv first, then optical to soundbar which prevents me from hooking up 360 optical to soundbar as
I'm not switching out plugs every time I switch systems). So, 360 is simply going through tv speakers now. Not a huge deal, but I'm surprised I can't hook this up the way I had it.

Mine just started the crackling / distortion thing within the last week. It only happens when I watch TV -- it's very noticeable when I watch certain shows that the sound levels seem to be very compressed (a lot of mids and lows).

I tested audio through my soundbar thinking my TV speakers were blown, but the soundbar produces the same result. I tried doing a hard restart (google results suggest a fix) several times and it fixes nothing. I feel like I'm seeing more bugs lately and
wondering why I even purchased this XB1.

Can you explain the distortion or show a picture of what you're seeing and what the settings are set to?

Hi There,

Have you tried using a different HDMI cable and another HDMI port on your TV? Perhaps one of them is faulty. Do you connect your console to a soundbar or other audio device? For the out of sync, it could be your setup which you can then set so the audio
syncs up however the scratchy noises do not sound normal.

Its like a static that partially distorts the audio. Dont know what it could be. Ill try using another hdmi cable. And no, my console isnt plugged into a soundbar or anything else besides my tv.