Question about Atmos/DTS X and ARC/eARC (1 Viewer)

[Lucrin]

I am in the process of adding 5.1.4 surround speakers to my home theater to enjoy better sound immersion with Dolby Atmos and DTS X but I have seen some conflicting information on whether my current setup will work. Specifically I have seen that you have to have eARC support on your TV to enjoy uncompressed object based sound like DTS X. Unfortunately my current TV is a few years old and has ARC support but not eARC.

My question though is does this even matter because I have a 4k Blu Ray player hooked up as in input to my Denon x3700h AV receiver. So if I were playing a 4K Blu Ray movie that has DTS X audio wouldn't it go uncompressed to the speakers because the AV Receiver has support for it? Not seeing how the TV needs to have eARC support when I don't want the audio to go to the TV in the first place. If I were using any sort of streaming app like Netflix/Hulu etc... I would do it through an Applt TV 4k which I also have connected to the receiver and so again I wouldn't think matters if the TV has eARC or not. Am I missing something here?

 

[JohnRice]

You are correct. Your TV does NOT need to have eARC for exactly the reason you specified. It would only be needed if the source was an app in the TV. External streaming devices, especially an AppleTV 4K work much better.

 

[Lucrin]

Great, I was really hoping that would be the case because I would like to upgrade my TV, but that's not going to be in the cards for at least another year or two so I am glad that I can still enjoy high quality audio without needing to buy a new TV.

 

[JohnRice]

I also wanted to clarify that even if the source was an app in the TV, it would still work in up to 5.1, you just wouldn't be able to get Atmos.

 

[Lucrin]

I don't think that is entirely true. You could still get Atmos over ARC via the Dolby Digital Plus codec (assuming your TV supports that format) because that codec can be streamed via an ARC connection and supports Atmos. What I couldn't do is play uncompressed Atmos or DTS X codecs because of the bandwidth constraints of HDMI ARC. At least that is my understanding but correct me if I am wrong.

 

[JohnRice]

I don't think so. But I also have never used ARC and don't plan to.

 

[JimJasper]

....meant to reply...not sure how to delete this comment...sorry.

 

[JimJasper]

I am in the process of adding 5.1.4 surround speakers to my home theater to enjoy....

My question though is does this even matter because I have a 4k Blu Ray player hooked up as in input to my Denon x3700h AV receiver. ....

Lucrin, I'm looking at possibly getting a Denon X3700H are you enjoying yours overall? Are you using any external amps with its pre-outs?