Arc compatibility with Samsung Q8FN

Samsung probably does. Does your TV have HDMI ARC, or eARC? Can it pass through either Dolby Digital Plus, or TrueHD?

I do have HDMI arc but I do not have HDMI Earc

And what does the manual for your TV say about passthrough?

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/q8fn-q8-q8f-qled-2018 doesn’t list any DD+ in the audio passthrough section which is relevant if you plan on sourcing the audio signal from a device plugged into your TV.

I have a Q950R and it has an option for DD+ and Dolby Atmos, I only have an HDMI ARC connection. If you go to expert settings from the sound menu you might see an option for it. At the moment DD+ and Dolby Atmos is greyed out but expecting this to be an option once I attach the Arc. DD+ is accessible from the Digital Output Audio Format dropdown menu.

I have the same options on my tv. Is dolby digital + the same as dolby atmos?

From my research and from the many posts on here about it, if your tv can pass through DD+, it will be able to send Atmos through the Arc although it won’t be true Atmos. That is good enough for me until Samsung decide to update to eARC in the next firmware update. People who has already received their Arc are getting Atmos through DD+, there is a good thread on this on A/V forums:-

https://www.avforums.com/threads/sonos-arc-the-new-playbar.2288668

I am no expert on this but have taken the plunge and bought the Arc on what I’ve read. Maybe before you purchase see what other people have written about your tv model and Atmos. I’m sure in the days and weeks to come once people have used the Arc you will have a better idea on what it can do with your tv.

Just an update for you. I received the Arc today and have set it up. Couldn’t get Atmos to start with as the DD+ option was greyed out but the Atmos option was lit. I found an Atmos movie on Sky Q and when playing it I went back to the audio menu and I could now select DD+ and this is when I received Atmos through DD+. It sounded great and I only listened for a couple of minutes to test. I replaced the Playbar With the Arc and together with the Sub and Ones the difference is really noticeable and I thought my previous set up sounded great!

No, they’re not the same. Atmos is a 3D object based surround format that allows sound to be precisely placed in space around the listener. Dolby Digital Plus is an audio codec that can be used to deliver Atmos.
 

if your tv can pass through DD+, it will be able to send Atmos through the Arc although it won’t be true Atmos.

While the first part of that is broadly true, differences in TVs and, especially, sources (like Apple TV 4K) means there’s a lot of potential disclaimers and gotchas there  

As for “true Atmos” - there’s no such thing. Atmos is Atmos regardless of how it’s delivered. Here’s a good primer:

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/dolby-atmos-sound/

As we said, Dolby Atmos isn’t sound, it’s information about sound. That information piggybacks on top of existing surround sound signals. At the moment, Dolby Atmos can only do this with two types of surround sound signals:

• Dolby TrueHD
• Dolby Digital Plus

Dolby TrueHD is a lossless, very high-bandwidth format that is currently only available on Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray discs. It’s transmitted over an HDMI cable, from a Blu-ray player to an AV receiver, TV, or a soundbar that can pass through the video. Atmos via TrueHD is also supported by some media player apps, like Plex, that run on the Nvidia Shield TV family of streaming devices.

The combination of Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD is the best possible surround sound you can get at home.

 

Dolby Digital Plus is a lossy, lower-bandwidth format that has been optimized for use with streaming services and features like B-D Live. It’s currently supported by a wide range of devices, including laptops, tablets, smartphones, and streaming boxes like Apple TV and Roku. Dolby Atmos over Dolby Digital Plus will be the way most people experience Atmos.

Not only is it the format used by Netflix and Amazon, but it’s also the only version of Atmos that is compatible with HDMI ARC (more on this later).

I have the samsung Q900R which has same specs. I have my arc already, the atmos will work with the native netflix app and nothing else. Samsungs other native apps currently don’t support atmos (prime and disney, another thing they need to sort). Streaming devices won’t work unless they pass DD+ for example the apple TV provides Dolby Mat and Samsung cannot change this to DD+ but LG can. Also if you have a games console or UHD player these will not pass dolby atmos as EARC is required which Samsung do not yet have unless you have a 2020 model.