Audio questions. (1 Viewer)

[Corneileous]

The soundbar only has one hdmi connection, so the ONLY way to use it is with ARC and components connected to the TV.

I don't get what you mean... I can hook it to the TV with a HDMI cable or a fiber optic optical cable. But what is the HDMI input on the soundbar for?

Bill, this simply tends to cause problems. If you only use the TV and internal apps, you're fine, but add anything else and it gets prickly. Add that the TV and soundbar are the same brand and it might even be worse, since they will try to "automate" everything.

I'm finding that out...lol. Actually I shouldn't say that because I think I might be getting things figured out. Instead of just leaving settings alone, I'm finding that sometimes I'll have to do some fine-tuning depending on what I'm watching because as I said, my sound was actually pretty good on dolby digital .

 

[Corneileous]

I guess I missed the detail that there is a splitter. That can add to problems.

Why do you have an hdmi splitter?

Yeah, I didn't include that information until just a little bit ago but yes, I have a 4k splitter and the reason why is because my TV doesn't have enough ports to connect everything I have being that the soundbar is using one of the ports. As I have it currently, my playstation, my soundbar, my Amazon Firestick 4K and the splitter is using the 4 ports I have for the TV and I have the Apple TV and the Blu-ray player connected to the splitter and so far, I can't tell the difference with it from without it. Id rather not use it but I have no choice unless I can use that HDMI input on the soundbar to connect something to.

 

[Corneileous]

Leaving it on Bitstream unprocessed should allow the original sound format to be decoded. IIRC, Fox used to do a lotmof titles where the default sound format was DTS.

OK.

I was curious how you had the stuff connected, because the manual for the soundbar shows an external device being connected to the soundtrack HDMI port.

What do you mean?

 

[JohnRice]

That’s not an hdmi splitter. The way you’re using it, it needs to be a selector with input selection. That could be part of the problem.

 

[JohnRice]

And you have something like six sources? Time to be a big boy and get a receiver based system.

 

[Corneileous]

That’s not an hdmi splitter. The way you’re using it, it needs to be a selector with input selection. That could be part of the problem.

Yeah, you're right, there's a difference between a splitter and a input selector but I guess you'd just have to see it to see that its working the same with or without it.

 

[Corneileous]

And you have something like six sources? Time to be a big boy and get a receiver based system.

I guess I probably could delete my Amazon fire stick being that one, since I have a Hulu Live subscription, I really don't need it anymore and no one uses it and two, the only reason I have it in the first place was to watch other stuff but tat proved to be more of a pain than what is was worth and not to mention, it only has 5 gigs of storage room so I can't even put a lot of apps on it which is why I have the Apple TV device. Lots more space for all my apps and much better userability. I had most of my apps on the TV but a lot of them had too any issues and plus, a lot of them weren't available for my TV so that was partially where the fire stick came into play.

And I wish I could get to a receiver-based system but I don't have the room for something like that. I don't even have room for stand-alone speakers.

 

[Corneileous]

Well I moved the Amazon fire stick to the bedroom and got rid of the input expander thing so at least switching between inputs is easier once again.

 

[Corneileous]

I have another issue/questions to add to this discussion. After doing a little bit of research, it turns out that the HDMI inputs on this TV are just 2.0 and I’m pretty sure that the monster brand 21GBPS cables that I bought from Amazon are HDMI 2.1 or 2.2 so does this make any difference? Also, after checking out the E manual for this TV, it says I can use High-Speed HDMI Cabls or High-Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet but it also says that this TV does not support HDMI Ethernet Channel. Ethernet is a Local Area Network (LAN) built with coaxial cables standardized by the IEEE. What does that mean? The cables I have that I use to connect everything was the Monster HDMI Cable 4k Ultra HD with Ethernet Cord - 60/120 Hz Refresh Speed - 21Gbps High Definition 1080p Video - Corrosion-Resistant 24k Rose Gold Contacts and V-Grip Connection. Are these sufficient enough cables to use with my TV? Everything seems to work fine so I have no reason to believe they wouldn’t be unless there’s something that I don’t know. And also after doing some research, I found where somebody had said that input number one on my TV supports that 4.4.4 chroma, whatever that is and that it was suggested that I should use that input for my 4K Blu-ray player. Does that sound about right?

 

[Corneileous]

Well, I figured it out for myself. Guess my soundbar is strangely too old of technology that it's HDMI input doesn't support the newer HDMI technology like my TV's HDMI inputs do even though they were manufactured the same year. I can however actually use the HDMI input on the soundbar to connect another A/V device to and get picture and sound but all that capability's good for is something that's not 4K Ultra or HDR. Oh well. I guess maybe whenever I decide to dig my old dinosaur Nintendo 64 outta storage, I'll have a place to connect it being that I have a small device that converts RCA and S-video to HDMI.

 

[Corneileous]

Hey guys, being that I had forgotten I created this thread, I think I recently got my situations taken care of.

After doing a little bit more research on the issue and with help from others, it turns out that if I leave the output audio format on my Blu-ray player set to auto and if I leave the HDMI audio input format on the TV set to Bitstream, depending on what disc I’m playing that was presented in either DTS or Dolby Digital, the Blu-ray player will set it’s output audio format accordingly and then my TV, being that it’s feeding the audio to the sound bar via ARC, if you go to the TV sound settings and then go to the part where it shows the output audio format to the soundbar, a lot of times it will automatically change that output format to DTS or Dolby digital, depending on what the audio track is coming from the Blu-ray player.

But yeah, being that I bought another, updated Amazon fire stick, I re-introduced that back to my living room system so I am once again using my HDMI 4-input switch… sorry for calling it a splitter…lol.