That’s really handy thanks.
I found This which seems to fit the bill
I can confirm that the splitter and beam work well together - when Chrome kicks in it automatically takes over the Beam so it doesn’t require any selecting within the Sonos App.
The power-in line on my splitter was a bit dodgy so meant the chrome kept loosing connection, but since I’ve stabilised it everything runs fine.
Extra tip… the Beam will learn the remote control for your tv/projector and you can use it to control the volume - on my Optoma it wasn’t possible to deselect the built-in speakers - so what I did was plug a 3.5mm headphone jack into the output socket and this cancelled them out without effecting the audio to the Sonos.
ok - so the source need to be optical out or HDMI+ARC - thank you for following up
I use an Apple TV 4K with a 4K HDR 10 Monitor and a Sonos Beam. No TV.
I use a $20 audio extractor ( AV access 4KCVH2H) with an SPDIF output and then the optional Sonos optical to HDMI adapter.
The whole thing works fine including the volume control on the 6 button Apple TV remote.
In Apple TV settings set remote to TV via IR and them in the Sonos app configure using the apple remote volume buttons.
That’s really handy thanks.
I found This which seems to fit the bill.
any idea if this will automatically takeover the beam audio, or whether I will need to select it each time I want to watch my projector (like the line-in on the Play5)
thanks
You need to get a splitter that HDMI in, HDMI out, and optical out. That needs to be between your source and the projector (HDMI) and the source and your beam (optical).
You also need to make sure that the source is transmitting audio in a format the Beam supports, which is either PCM stereo or dolby digita.
diagram attached.
thanks for any help.
Thanks Bruce, let’s see if other users suggest which devices would work.
It’s annoying to have a 5.1 sound system at home for a projector based home cinema and so far I just have the option of Stereo Sound.
I don’t mind spending some more €€€ in any device in between the Apple TV and the Sonos to have proper sound. So far, the sound for films is bad.
Also, if you’re using that splitter to send an optical signal to your Sonos, you must be sure that the signal is Dolby Digital. In that case, there’s no signal being sent back to the source to tell it what to send, so you need to define that in the audio settings of your source.
I think your running in to the difference between HDMI and HDMI-ARC. Source devices generate HDMI, but not HDMI-ARC. Most frequently, the function that switches from one to the other is in the display device. So your cable box sends the HDMI signal to the TV, and the TV reflects it back out using HDMI-ARC. This is why it’s called ARC, Audio Return Channel.
I think there are other external devices out there that can do that transfer, but I’ve never looked in to it specifically, as I don’t happen to use ARC myself. Call me a Luddite, but the whole HDMI-CEC spec is poorly defined and there’s too much variation in the implementation, IMHO.
Same thing here:
I have APPLE TV 4k, Sonos 5.1 with Beam and an Optoma Projector. Using Airplay 2 you only get Stereo sound on Sonos for movies and it sounds bad. You can’t understand well the dialogues due to the channels distribution.
I bought a splitter which has 1 HDMI in and 1 HDMI out and a 1 Audio Optical out. I’ve put the Sonos adapter from Optical to HDMI into the Beam and… It didn’t work. I had the audio coming out again from the projector instead of the Sonos.
So, Does anyone knows which HDMI splitter hardware would work? I’ve seen on which has 1 HDMI in and 2 HDMI out to replicate simultaneously the signal. https://www.amazon.es/gp/product/B07DW2445X/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza
Would this work maybe?
Any thoughts?
cheers
Apart from this it would be helpful to add a simpler option to see the type of audio input that arrives at the beam sonos from any source than the one currently available via "About"
Preaching to the choir on this one. Thats why my Sonos apps show the exact type of music source right in the Now Playing area. No idea why Sonos bury it in About, same reason they bury Alarms I guess.
It depends on the TV. The Shield could be wanting to send DD 5.1, but if the TV says it can’t accept it then the Shield will down convert to stereo. Check if your TV supports DD 5.1 pass through over optical on rtings.com.
There are often ways of forcing broken TVs to accept DD 5.1 over optical even if their engineers misread the HDCP spec and blocked it, but first you need to make sure the Shield is capable of sending it.
Thanks but as per previous post I’m using a projector not TV. HDMI into matrix with audio extracted out through optical to Sonos.
I have the same problem with my sonos beam, xiaomi mi laser projector and nvidia shield. I don’t know if the problem is that the projector only accepts stereo from nvidia shield and the projector send it this stereo signal to the beam…
Apart from this it would be helpful to add a simpler option to see the type of audio input that arrives at the beam sonos from any source than the one currently available via "About"
It depends on the TV. The Shield could be wanting to send DD 5.1, but if the TV says it can’t accept it then the Shield will down convert to stereo. Check if your TV supports DD 5.1 pass through over optical on rtings.com.
There are often ways of forcing broken TVs to accept DD 5.1 over optical even if their engineers misread the HDCP spec and blocked it, but first you need to make sure the Shield is capable of sending it.
Thanks but as per previous post I’m using a projector not TV. HDMI into matrix with audio extracted out through optical to Sonos.
It depends on the TV. The Shield could be wanting to send DD 5.1, but if the TV says it can’t accept it then the Shield will down convert to stereo. Check if your TV supports DD 5.1 pass through over optical on rtings.com.
There are often ways of forcing broken TVs to accept DD 5.1 over optical even if their engineers misread the HDCP spec and blocked it, but first you need to make sure the Shield is capable of sending it.
I restricted the Nvidia Shield to use AC3 (DD) only.
Good news is Netflix has sound on the Beam without having to select the audio stream on each piece of content (before it clearly thought that the Beam supported DD+ and defaulted to it, so I’d have to select a stereo stream to get any sound).
Bad news it is stereo. Looks like there is no way to get DD 5.1 from an Nvidia Shield TV on Sonos (without something in the middle).
Any other ideas anyone?
It depends if the Shield "knows" what devices it should be catering to. According to the DD+ spec, a DD+ capable device should downconvert DD+ to DD5.1 if the downstream device cannot handle DD+.
You might need to force the Shield to output DD5.1 through its settings.
As you may know HDMI-ARC and optical TOSLINK both use the S/PDIF protocol, only over a different physical interface. Not sure if there are separate devices that can do what an HDMI-ARC TV does, but you are in the right direction with optical.
I have a projector and a Playbar myself and use an HDMI splitter with an optical audio out.
There is no need to consider that S/PDIF doesn't support DD+, as Sonos doesn't either - anything you send to it should be stereo or DD5.1, which is fine over S/PDIF. Making sure that the signal is DD5.1 and not something that Sonos or the cable cannot handle, should be done before the signal is sent on its way, at the source.
Thank you. That makes sense. The problem seems to be then that the Nvidia Shield TV isn’t scaling the Netflix DD+ signal down to DD5.1 so that Sonos can handle it. The PS4 does this.
The Nvidia Shield TV doesn’t have an optical out so I’m running the HDMI source through a 4x2 matrix which is then extracting video over HDMI and audio over optical. Presumably at some point the DD+ signal has to be converted to DD but if the NVIDIA Shield isn’t doing it, what can.
I’m probably getting myself confused and making little sense but appreciate any help!
As you may know HDMI-ARC and optical TOSLINK both use the S/PDIF protocol, only over a different physical interface. Not sure if there are separate devices that can do what an HDMI-ARC TV does, but you are in the right direction with optical.
I have a projector and a Playbar myself and use an HDMI splitter with an optical audio out.
There is no need to consider that S/PDIF doesn't support DD+, as Sonos doesn't either - anything you send to it should be stereo or DD5.1, which is fine over S/PDIF. Making sure that the signal is DD5.1 and not something that Sonos or the cable cannot handle, should be done before the signal is sent on its way, at the source.
Is there a hardware solution to convert an HDMI signal to an HDMI-ARC signal? S/PDIF doesn’t support Dolby Digital Plus which Netflix uses for 5.1.
I’m using a projector and Beam and want to send video to projector and audio to Beam. The problem is that the audio signal isn’t HDMI-ARC. I can use optical but only for stereo in some cases.
Any ideas?
Since it's not a "problem" then I would think the answer is almost certainly "no". Although the signal is there it's on different HDMI pins. The player is designed to be fed using ARC.
Your best bet would indeed be an HDMI audio extractor box, with optical data then connected through the Sonos optical-HDMI dongle.
I have a computer in the living room that we use for playing music and sometimes some videos that we're watching. I like the fact that the Beam has great sound, a wifi connection, Alexa/Google, a compact form (22" and no external power supply, fits right under a monitor).
The lack of Bluetooth was a concern, but I thought I could run the Computer Monitor via Displayport and run the HDMI output to the Beam for sound. But it doesn't seem to work. There is no optical link on the computer.
The only other option seems to be buying some sort of converter box to change the HDMI signal to HDMI plus optical, then use the optical to HDMI-ARC adapter. But this obviously isn't a very "clean" solution.
Enter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.