ARC! (1 Viewer)

[apn73]

Hello All,
I recently bought a 58" Samsung 4K smart TV, and a family member gave us Disney+ as an early Christmas gift. I then decide to route the audio signal from the TV to the home theater system. The logical place, and the shortest run, was to my Oppo BDP-103, which then passes the signal along the a Harman-Kardon surround sound receiver. I decided to run an HDMI cable from the ARC port on the TV to one of the ARC available ports on the OPPO, and have tried everything I know and everything I've read in the two owners manuals to see if I can to get audio coming out of the home theater, and I've got nothing. It's almost as if the Oppo and Samsung are not shaking hands and making the transfer happen, has anybody else run into something like this?

The only other thing that may be causing an issue is that the new TV owner's manual is saying that I need to be using an HDMI 1.4 compliant cable to make this transfer happen. I'm using a Blue Jeans Cable Belden Series-FE cable, and from what I've read on the BJC website, this cable should work even though it only meets the HDMI 1.3 compliant standard. Could this really be the hang-up in the process????

I have another option, there are TSOlink optical digital ports on both the TV and the Oppo. I haven't tried it, but I do have a cheap optical cable kicking around that looks like it will be just long enough. if everything else fails, then I guess I'll try that. Thanks in advance for any assistance that you can provide.
Best,
Adam.

 

[Edwin-S]

What model of Harmon-Kardon do you have?

 

[JohnRice]

I decided to run an HDMI cable from the ARC port on the TV to one of the ARC available ports on the OPPO,

There are no ARC capable connections on the BDP-103, or any disc player that I'm aware of.

ARC and hdmi aren't the same thing.

I have another option, there are TSOlink optical digital ports on both the TV and the Oppo.

The optical connections on both the TV and the Oppo are outputs. You can't connect two outputs together.

There's a flow to data and connections. Outputs connect to inputs, always. Players and streaming devices generally only have outputs. TVs mostly only have inputs. Receivers have both, because they are the control center of the system, which means everything is intended to be routed through them. The only output on your TV is the optical audio one. Let's just skip over ARC (which means "audio return channel") for now, since that seems to be the source of your confusion.

There's a basic way systems are connected. I have a suspicion your Harman Kardon receiver doesn't have hdmi. In any case, the simplest and possibly the only way for you to accomplish what you want (since you don't indicate what model receiver your H/K is) is to connect an optical cable from the TV's optical audio output to an optical audio input on your H/K receiver. Then select the input it's assigned to when you want to watch anything streamed using the TV's apps.

 

[apn73]

What model of Harmon-Kardon do you have?

AVR 300, old school and way before HDMI was introduced. I would love to upgrade, but don't have a lot of money kicking around for that sort of thing, maybe when this one dies....

 

[JohnRice]

You can’t utilize ARC in any way with that receiver.

 

[Edwin-S]

AVR 300, old school and way before HDMI was introduced. I would love to upgrade, but don't have a lot of money kicking around for that sort of thing, maybe when this one dies....

Hmm. Okay. Your only real choice is to go from the optical output of the TV to an optical input on the receiver. ARC is not a function that you can use.

 

[apn73]

There are no ARC capable connections on the BDP-103, or any disc player that I'm aware of.

ARC and hdmi aren't the same thing.

Actually, if you go to page 29 of the BDP-103 user manual, it talks about this very subject. If you click the input button on the remote, then a menu will pop up where you can enable either HDMI 1 or HDMI 2 over to ARC. This is what prompted me to post this thread, and I was just looking to see if another forum member had run into this with their Oppo player, and what they did to overcome it.

You are absolutely correct about the optical connection on the back of the Oppo, I forgot about it being only an "out."

 

[JohnRice]

Actually, if you go to page 29 of the BDP-103 user manual, it talks about this very subject. If you click the input button on the remote, then a menu will pop up where you can enable either HDMI 1 or HDMI 2 over to ARC.

WhaDaYaKnow! It does say that. What I was having trouble figuring out was, what do you do with the returned audio? Sending ARC back to a player doesn't make much sense, and the manual doesn't explain why you would do that. Well, the BDP-103 can be used as a very basic surround preamp. So, if you were using it that way, and you wanted to get audio from your TV back to it, that would be the only way to do it. It's a very obscure feature that very few people can take advantage of, but yeah, it's there.

 

[apn73]

WhaDaYaKnow! It does say that. What I was having trouble figuring out was, what do you do with the returned audio? Sending ARC back to a player doesn't make much sense, and the manual doesn't explain why you would do that. Well, the BDP-103 can be used as a very basic surround preamp. So, if you were using it that way, and you wanted to get audio from your TV back to it, that would be the only way to do it. It's a very obscure feature that very few people can take advantage of, but yeah, it's there.

What i was thinking, and maybe this incorrect, the Oppo winds up being a pass through between the TV and AVR. Maybe that's the part that I'm missing right there, and it will never work like that.

 

[JohnRice]

I tend to doubt it. In any case, it’s much simpler and better to just connect the TV to the receiver using the optical output.

 

[apn73]

I tend to doubt it. In any case, it’s much simpler and better to just connect the TV to the receiver using the optical output.

Thanks for the help John, a longer optical cable is pretty short money on BJC's website, so I think I'll go that way.

 

[Edwin-S]

I took a look at the instructions for that player. The instructions regarding the ARC connection don't indicate it but I suspect that to use it, a person would select HDMI 1 ARC as the input and the passthrough would be ove the HDMI 2 ARC output to the receiver. In other words, to use the BDP103 ARC function still requires a receiver with HDMI inputs.

The instructions regarding BDP 103 ARC functionality seem to be incomplete and somewhat misleading.

 

[JohnRice]

What i was thinking, and maybe this incorrect, the Oppo winds up being a pass through between the TV and AVR. Maybe that's the part that I'm missing right there, and it will never work like that.

The thing is, the receiver is supposed to be the center of the system. It's kind of a fundamental design principle. If your system is capable of ARC, then there's no reason it would be designed to use the player as a pass-through by creating some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption. I realize that in your situation, you want to get audio back to the receiver, and your receiver doesn't have ARC. There's only one logical solution in that case, use an optical cable back to the receiver.

I do own the BDP-103, and it is designed so it can be used as a basic preamp. That's the only explanation for its ability to accept ARC. BUT, you would never use that feature with a receiver. You either have a receiver or preamp OR you use the Oppo as a preamp. Not both.

 

[Edwin-S]

It might be useful if the receiver did not have an ARC capable HDMI input, just the standard ones. The input from HDMI 1 set up as an ARC input would pass through to HDMI2 which would be plugged into a standard HDMI input on the receiver.

 

[apn73]

I took a look at the instructions for that player. The instructions regarding the ARC connection don't indicate it but I suspect that to use it, a person would select HDMI 1 ARC as the input and the passthrough would be ove the HDMI 2 ARC output to the receiver. In other words, to use the BDP103 ARC function still requires a receiver with HDMI inputs.

The instructions regarding BDP 103 ARC functionality seem to be incomplete and somewhat misleading.

It definitely confused me and wound up being a dead end. I could never get it to work in spite of my best efforts, and I suspect that your explanation is correct.

 

[apn73]

The thing is, the receiver is supposed to be the center of the system. It's kind of a fundamental design principle. If your system is capable of ARC, then there's no reason it would be designed to use the player as a pass-through by creating some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption. I realize that in your situation, you want to get audio back to the receiver, and your receiver doesn't have ARC. There's only one logical solution in that case, use an optical cable back to the receiver.

I do own the BDP-103, and it is designed so it can be used as a basic preamp. That's the only explanation for its ability to accept ARC. BUT, you would never use that feature with a receiver. You either have a receiver or preamp OR you use the Oppo as a preamp. Not both.

I wound up buying a long optical cable at Walmart during my last minute stocking stuffer spree, ran it between the TV and the AVR, and it worked. Problem solved, thanks for the help Gentlemen.

 

[Bartman]

I gave up on ARC but perhaps you guys can help! I have an LG B8 with all HDMI switching done at the TV. The AV receiver is a Sony STR-DH520. I purchased an Amazon Basics 12ft HDMI cable and ARC and CEC both worked but after a while noticed random and very short audio dropouts from all sources. I searched online and noted many LG ARC problems, mainly long audio dropouts and some video dropouts. I would definitely describe my problem as random short audio dropouts. I disconnected the ARC cable and returned to optical with no dropouts. I did not contact LG or Sony but it would be nice to get ARC and CEC working correctly!!

 

[Edwin-S]

Have you made sure the firmwares on the TV and receiver are up to date/

 

[Bartman]

Have you made sure the firmwares on the TV and receiver are up to date/

LG updates the TV frequently, there are no updates for the receiver because I believe the design is a total hardware implementation, please correct me if I'm wrong. The HDMI cable is recommended for ARC.

 

[JohnRice]

I gave up on ARC but perhaps you guys can help! I have an LG B8 with all HDMI switching done at the TV. The AV receiver is a Sony STR-DH520. I purchased an Amazon Basics 12ft HDMI cable and ARC and CEC both worked but after a while noticed random and very short audio dropouts from all sources. I searched online and noted many LG ARC problems, mainly long audio dropouts and some video dropouts. I would definitely describe my problem as random short audio dropouts. I disconnected the ARC cable and returned to optical with no dropouts. I did not contact LG or Sony but it would be nice to get ARC and CEC working correctly!!

My answer is a question. Why are you having the TV control the system rather than the receiver, which is designed and intended to control the system? As in, the receiver is designed to have everything connected to it and do the switching.