HD Fury is working on an eARC solution for Sonos Arc - Full Audio & Atmos from any HDMI sources

I am leaning that direction as well.  Not sure how complex the device is or what the sweet spot in the market is, but I think HDFury is going to view this as  device this gets people interested in their other products, and general name recognition.  Which it will.

I have gotten used to using smart apps, mostly because they display an app along with HDMI inputs, which is how I think of these sources (if that makes sense).  But if I start using and HDMI switch, that will be broken a bit.  I can go either way I guess.

You would need a splitter in addition to that switch, or a matrix.  You have one HDMI output, but you need two...one to send to the video to the TV and one to send to the dongle and Arc.

Well said.  In the AV world, there always seems to be a struggle between the flexibility of separate components and the convenience and elegance of all-in-one type products. 

I have to do more research, but I thought the purpose of the video modding with the Vertex was so that in the case where you have multiple displays of different capabilities, you get the best video quality on both.  For example, if you have a 4k TV and 1080p TV, you can play content at 4k and the device will send 4k to the the 4k TV, and 1080p to the 1080p TV...downscaled.  Without the scaling, you would have to play 1080p at the source, and both TVs would get 1080p video.  Essentially, your video is limited by lowest denominator.  

For our typical case, just one TV display, there won’t be any need to do any scaling?  Kind of offtopic I guess.

Hrm - you have given me something new to think about here and making me realize I may be completely misunderstanding the connectivity here. 

Let’s say that you’ve got three HDMI sources (an Apple TV, a Blu-ray player, and a Nintendo Switch since those are exactly what I’d want to hook up). You’re saying that I would need a “matrix” (like this: https://www.amazon.com/EZCOOTECH-HDMI-2-0-Matrix-4X2/dp/B083K39RHF?th=1) that has two HDMI outputs - one that goes to the TV for video and one that goes to the Magic Dongle for audio. 

The Magic Dongle itself would have two INPUTS, one that would connect to the matrix, and the other for the Sonos Arc (since it technically has an OUTPUT). That way, the Magic Dongle is ONLY handling audio (basically acting as an eARC television as far as the upstream HDMI devices are concerned) and not having to do any video passthrough at all. 

Is that how you're understanding how it would work? 

If so, and if that’s correct, I was fundamentally misunderstanding the role of the “switch" and, to a lesser degree, the Magic Dongle. I was thinking that the Audio AND Video would come from the switch into the Magic Dongle which would then send Audio one direction (to the Sonos Arc) and Video another (to the TV).

But, given what HDFury said earlier about there being no “splitting” in the Magic Dongle, I guess that can’t be the case.

Damn, why’s this all got to be so freaking complicated? ;-)

Damn, these guys are NOT screwing around. They just posted a rendering of the dongle PCB on their support site: 

Simplicity itself - two HDMI ports, a USB port (they say for firmware flashing if necessary), and a freaking giant microprocessor in the middle. 

Honestly flabbergasted that they’re moving this quickly. At this rate, they’ll have this in production before my return period is up. ;-) 

Yep.  Technically you could use a switch + splitter instead of the matrix, but the idea is the same.  The matrix gives you features you don’t need for this case, but certainly should do what you need.

Exactly correct.

I suppose they could change their mind and add the splitter built in,  but I doublt it.  If you use there vertex2 or other devices, it’s not needed at all.  If you use a matrix, it’s not needed. They would also need to provide power to the dongle (it’s needed for any HDMI splitter) and they may have do something extra to ensure video quality to the TV/projector.  

money and politics.  :-)

I would think they’d need power to run the processor?  Don’t know, but wouldn’t be surprised if the USB is also for power. I do like that they want to move on this.  I guess they want to be the only one that does it, for a while anyway.  And I do think a lot of people are going to buy their other stuff, or remember the name next time they have a need.

I hope this comes out soon and is not too pricey! 

I am presuming that with a switch/splitter/matrix + this dongle CEC command would still get passed across the connections/devices. I ask as I like the convenience of their ATV controlling volume, power etc. 

1st world problem I know. 

If sonos can fix some of the issues with Arc’s sound, having this as an option in the near future would push me to keeping the Arc. 

As it is, it’s boxed in the corner waiting for news before I wall mount it and replace my beam. 

I have a sub and play:1 surrounds, Bass fix and a dongle like this to allow me the joy of Atmos … well it will finally sound epic as I expected! 

Maybe?  CEC commands require a connection between the TV and your ATV.  If you’re using a switch or a matrix, that connection is only going to be there if the switch/matrix is currently set with the ATV as the current input.  So if you’re currently watching cable tv, for example, then your ATV isn’t connected to the TV and thus CEC commands won’t work….unless the switch/matrix has some sort of way passing on the CEC commands regardless of what the current HDMI input is.

IR commands of course, should work without issue.

@melvimbe - thank you. That makes sense and I kind of figured that you’d need to on the relevant input for CEC to work, and that would be fine, in fact probably desired. 

Thanks!

I agree that that would likely be desirable.  I have CEC commands between my TV and xbox, where the xbox will shut down after X time of inactivity.  There’s been a few times where I start using xbox, then switch to another source.  After a time, the xbox shuts down and turns the TV off with it via CEC command, even though I’m on a different input. I’m guessing the same would happen with your ATV.

Yes, oddly enough our ATV is our primary source of entertainment so I have not noticed it shutting down the TV on another input. But I have noticed the other way, we’ll play some Xbox and then watch TV only for everything to turn off some time later when the Xbox shuts down. So I think it would be desirable!