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Dolby Digital Pass Through on Old Samsung TV

  • 18 August 2021
  • 2 replies
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Hi everybody

i currently have a Sonos Beam hooked up to the optical out of my (old) Samsung TV (UE37C6530) as it doesn’t have an ARC HDMI socket..

The TV supports Dolby Digital and outputs correctly in this format for programmes showing on the TV itself.

The problem is for the other set top boxes that are connected to the TV via HDMI, in that the boxes are sending a Dolby signal but this does not pass through the TV so outputs via the optical cable are Stereo PCM in all cases (tinny to say the least). The only way to get ‘pure’ Dolby from the set top box to the Beam is by connecting it directly to the Beam using the digital optical output, which then means that my other stb’s aren’t connected to the Beam any more. 
I’ve  seen some old threads where people have used HDMI splitters etc which didn’t seem ideal. 
It seems like this is a known issue mainly affecting older Samsung TV’s, so I wondered if any forum members can recommend a working solution to get all of my HDMI devices to feed Dolby into the Beam?

Reluctant to splash out on a new TV with eARC because of this one problem as otherwise the TV is good with a great picture despite being about 15 years old!

Thanks everybody 

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Best answer by Ken_Griffiths 18 August 2021, 12:20

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2 replies

You will need an extractor/splitter of some sort to bypass the TV with multiple HDMI inputs.

Something similar to this perhaps:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PORTTA-Splitter-Coaxial-Extractor-HDMI2-0b/dp/B08CMZDVZP
 

I haven’t tested the above device by the way, nor researched it in detail, to pass comment about it, but something like this device is the only solution I can see that will likely resolve your issue without going out to buy a new TV. 

You will need an extractor/splitter of some sort to bypass the TV with multiple HDMI inputs.

Something similar to this perhaps:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PORTTA-Splitter-Coaxial-Extractor-HDMI2-0b/dp/B08CMZDVZP
 

I haven’t tested the above device by the way, nor researched it in detail, to pass comment about it, but something like this device is the only solution I can see that will likely resolve your issue without going out to buy a new TV. 

Thank you for this. I had briefly looked into something similar which takes the hdmi inputs and splits the output between HDMI and optical output but would leave the TV itself unable to output through the Beam I will have a look at the Portta splitter this evening to see if it will resolve. Otherwise a new TV might be the only option  Thanks again