Educate me on hooking up ARC from smart TV to A/V receiver (1 Viewer)

[Alf S]

Ok, for most A/V things I'm pretty savvy and can get things up and running fairly easily. But this whole "ARC" set up stuff is tripping me up.

My Pioneer VSX-1022 has ARC and my new TCL 4K Roku TV (TCL 55US57) has ARC but I'm having issues with how to get all sound to feed correctly into the A/V receiver.

I have the ARC system turned on with the Pioneer and Roku TV, I have my Blu Ray player, Tivo, and Chromecast plugged into the "In" of my receiver. I have the HDMI out from the Pioneer going into the TV. I'm trying to get all the apps (Netflix etc) from the TV to play thru the Pioneer but I can't seem to get it to work correctly, it seems every time I switch to Roku TV or Blu-Ray (using Harmony) the Pioneer keeps trying to switch inputs to "TV" automatically. It's hard to describe.

Basically I want to hit my "ROKU" activity on the Harmony and have the sound pumped from TV to Pioneer without using the current method I have which is Optical out. For some odd reason when I do it this way, Netflix won't playback DD 5.1, I get no sound until I switch the app to "English Stereo".

Now if I switch to Chromecast, Tivo, or my Blu player using the Harmony, the receiver goes to the correct input as does the Roku TV and we can watch those devices just fine.

Hope what I'm asking for makes sense. If anyone can point out the best way to connect my HDMI connections and get the best/easiest set up, I appreciate it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

ARC generally restricts audio output to 2 channel stereo - there's usually no workaround, it's just what it's designed to do. It may not be possible to send 5.1 audio from an app built into the TV back to the receiver.

 

[Alf S]

Thing is when I turn on Netflix movie/show, I have the option to chose DD 5.1 or just plain stereo. So that leads me to believe it is possible to pump 5.1 out of that app at least.

 

[TonyD]

5.1 does come from the arc input.

I've been using it for years on my Denon

 

[TonyD]

Alf, is there no directions in the manual for the receiver?

 

[Scott Merryfield]

My Denon X3300 has a setting called "TV Audio Switching" which, when enabled (it's default setting) selects the “TV Audio” input automatically when receiving a command from the TV. There is probably a similar setting for your Pioneer AVR. Another thing to look at is if you have CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) enabled along with ARC. CEC can cause some unwanted behavior. Since you have a Harmony remote, there is no reason to enable CEC, and hopefully your Pioneer allows that to be disabled and ARC enabled via separate options.

Why don't you want to use the digital optical cable you already have installed? I understand that it's another cable, but since you are using a Harmony remote it is just as simple to switch inputs with or without ARC. I tried ARC with my Denon, but ended up using a digital optical cable instead, since I was getting audio dropouts from the Vudu app via ARC and it wasn't worth my time to troubleshoot the issue.

 

[Dave Upton]

Alf,

See this manual: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/S...me/VSX-1022-K_OperatingInstructions062612.pdf

Pages 17, 25 and 52 are relevant. Basically you have to go into HDMI Setup, turn CONTROL and ARC to ON, and make sure you have HDMI selected as your audio input (see right side of Page 25 below), Press RECEIVER, then SIGNAL SEL to cycle audio inputs when you are on the program you want to adjust (ie: your Roku input):

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Pages 17, 25 and 52 are relevant. Basically you have to go into HDMI Setup, turn CONTROL and ARC to ON, and make sure you have HDMI selected as your audio input (see right side of Page 25 below), Press RECEIVER, then SIGNAL SEL to cycle audio inputs when you are on the program you want to adjust (ie: your Roku input):

I would suggest setting control OFF and ARC ON, which according to the manual Dave linked to should be allowed. You should not need CEC turned on if you are using a Harmony remote -- in fact, it will mess up the functioning of your activities. If the two options cannot be set independent of each other, then I would recommend leaving everything off and just using the digital optical cable. CEC and Harmony remotes do not play well together.

 

[Alf S]

Thanks for the input folks.

One other thing that glitches is if I leave CEC on and utilize ARC, when I power down the entertainment center (via Harmony "all off", the ARC apparently for some reason triggers the Pioneer to come back on to the TV input mode 2 seconds after the whole set up shuts down.

I guess it's all in how I get all the settings turned off/on. The TV has several "CEC" settings to check on/off and then of course I have to make sure Pioneer ARC/Control is set to match the TV ARC/CEC. I think that's what's getting the whole set up messed up. Seems ARC has a mind of it's own and it triggers the receiver to switch to "TV" input whenever it senses something. It's almost a random thing.

I got a Harmony HUB this week and trying it out so we can use our Google Home to turn things on off and change channels etc so that will add to my weekend fin.

 

[Dave Upton]

I would suggest setting control OFF and ARC ON, which according to the manual Dave linked to should be allowed. You should not need CEC turned on if you are using a Harmony remote -- in fact, it will mess up the functioning of your activities. If the two options cannot be set independent of each other, then I would recommend leaving everything off and just using the digital optical cable. CEC and Harmony remotes do not play well together.

They explicitly state that Control is required for ARC, it's strange, but that's just the way it is.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

They explicitly state that Control is required for ARC, it's strange, but that's just the way it is.

I see that now -- thanks Dave. That's rather restrictive by Pioneer. My Denon allows ARC to be turned on independently of CEC.

In that case, I would recommend leaving everything off and using the digital optical cable. CEC will not play well with your Harmony activities.

 

[TDCourier]

@Alf S Did you ever get this to work? I know this is an old forum, but I also have a Pioneer VSX-1022. I just upgraded to a new Smart TV with Amazon Fire TV built in. I've tried for a bit but nothing seems to work. I already ordered a digital optical cable as a backup, but was hoping to get ARC working since I've never used it before.

 

[JohnRice]

@Alf S Did you ever get this to work? I know this is an old forum, but I also have a Pioneer VSX-1022. I just upgraded to a new Smart TV with Amazon Fire TV built in. I've tried for a bit but nothing seems to work. I already ordered a digital optical cable as a backup, but was hoping to get ARC working since I've never used it before.

Since Alf was banned from the forum, it's unlikely he'll let us know if he ever found a solution.