I bought a Beam yesterday, and took it back for a refund two hours later!
Seems neither of my Panasonic TVs pass Dolby Digital received via HDMI back to the ARC (my newer Sony TV does).
I already have two Play 1s in the bedroom and thought the Beam would be ideal for 5.0 sound, but could only hear anything when inputing non Dolby signal to the TV, hence non surround sound to Sonos.
Alternative would have been a direct optical link from the (Sky Q) set top box, but then I'm instantly limiting myself to one device and won't be able to hear anything from the TV's built in apps over Sonos.
Again optical from TV to Sonos would give the same results as ARC as the telly won't receive Dolby through HDMI at all (even playing through own speakers).
I know Panasonic are non existent in the US but are common elsewhere, and have seen lots of people moan about how they handle Dolby audio.
So it seems my options are, use the Beam without surround sound (defies the point of me setup), only have one audio source and loose HDMI CEC functionality, buy an alternative soundbar and not use my Play 1s as surround or wait for Sonos to launch Beam 2 with two HDMI ports for pass through, got a feeling I might be waiting a while!
Any other thoughts please?
Beam Dolby Issue
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I bought a playbar last week, to use with my Panasonic TV and the 5.1 passes through the optical output just fine (HDMI from an apple TV to the TV and then optical from the TV to the playbar).
I don't know if it depends on the model, mine is a recent one (the EZ950 from last year), the only thing I had to do was to set the audio output to BitStream.
I don't know if it depends on the model, mine is a recent one (the EZ950 from last year), the only thing I had to do was to set the audio output to BitStream.
Hi, mine are a little older but not much, the WT50 is about 5 years old but the DS500 is less than two years old.
So it seems my options are, use the Beam without surround sound (defies the point of me setup), only have one audio source and loose HDMI CEC functionality, buy an alternative soundbar and not use my Play 1s as surround or wait for Sonos to launch Beam 2 with two HDMI ports for pass through, got a feeling I might be waiting a while!
Any other thoughts please?
I honestly don't think Sonos will ever move in that direction. In a way, that will be moving backwards. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're wanting a Sonos soundbar to take HDMI input from multiple sources, play the audio, and pass it on to the TV. Essentially, preform the functions that AV receivers usually do. While that would help for your situation, it's something that would have bene even more useful if done on the first playbar.7 years ago. Since they decided not to do that then, I don't seem them changing that now.
A second reason is that it adds complexity to the soundbar. It has to have more inputs, process/passthrough the video, and do it in a way that aesthetically pleasing. I could be off on this, but it could also mean that your soundbar has the chance of becoming obsolete because it can't support modern video requirements...nothing to do with the audio. And of course, all that extra functionality adds costs.
And of course, the problem becomes less and less as customers get more modern TVs that don't have this issue.
That said though, you may be able to get an HDMI splitter that can take multiple hdmi inputs, send hdmi to the TV and optical to the Beam. It won't be as pretty and you'll have to switch tv inputs using the switch, but it should pass DD on to the beam if it's coming from the source.
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