Home theater with LG projector


Hi everyone, I'm planning on setting up a sonos-based 5.1 home theater on my new home, but first of all it's like to understand if the projector I want to get does properly support Dolby Atmos, TrueHD, etc.

The projector in question is the LG HU85LS (I think it's an Europe-branded version of the HU85LA).

LG's website seems unclear on whether eARC is supported or not. Could someone help me decipher this table from the manual?

Is eARC supported or not? What are the constraints? All I want to understand is if I can simply connect it to a Sonos Arc and have the best audio from streaming services and such.

Thanks a bunch guys!


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6 replies

The projector in question is the LG HU85LS (I think it's an Europe-branded version of the HU85LA).

LG's website seems unclear on whether eARC is supported or not. Could someone help me decipher this table from the manual?

Is eARC supported or not? What are the constraints? All I want to understand is if I can simply connect it to a Sonos Arc and have the best audio from streaming services and such.

Thanks a bunch guys!

If that’s a screenshot from the user manual, then the answer is obviously ‘yes’ as it shows Digital Sound Output for Dolby Digital Plus (Atmos) lossy audio and Dolby Digital TrueHD lossless audio which requires HDMI-eARC which you will enable in the sound-out settings.

The Sonos Arc will support the audio out formats mentioned, except for DTS HD.. but DTS 5.1 is fully supported. 

Hope that assists.

I’d question that, due to the line at the bottom of that screenshot, where it says “Dolby TrueHD, eARC: Some models may not be supported.”

I’d want to confirm whether it has eARC or not with LG’s customer service, since it’s not explicit in that manual snippet. 

Thanks Ken, yeah it looks obvious from the manual but I wanted to ensure I wasn't missing something. Thanks for the detailed answer!

Right, Airgetlam, I think I'll do that to make sure. Thanks!

Thanks Ken, yeah it looks obvious from the manual but I wanted to ensure I wasn't missing something. Thanks for the detailed answer!

Right, Airgetlam, I think I'll do that to make sure. Thanks!

Update: LG just came back and it seems eARC is not supported in this model after all. That leads to a follow-up question: I’m still really keen to get this projector. For its looks, positive reviews on image quality and lumens, etc. Will I notice the lossy audio quality by connecting it to a surround Sonos system (e.g. arc + couple of one’s)? Or is that more of an audiophile kind of thing and movies will still sound awesome?

@disacrol 

All the streaming services like Netflix, Prime, Disney+ etc use lossy DD+ (Atmos) and that sounds great with the Arc/Surrounds/Sub - you’re only ‘likely’ to get lossless Dolby TrueHD audio from a Blu-ray disc/player anyway and whilst it makes a difference, it’s not worth worrying about IMHO and if you do not plan to add a Blu-ray player and buy the movies, then the choice is an easy one to make.

@disacrol 

All the streaming services like Netflix, Prime, Disney+ etc use lossy DD+ (Atmos) and that sounds great with the Arc/Surrounds/Sub - you’re only ‘likely’ to get lossless Dolby TrueHD audio from a Blu-ray disc/player anyway and whilst it makes a difference, it’s not worth worrying about IMHO and if you do not plan to add a Blu-ray player and buy the movies, then the choice is an easy one to make.

Indeed I do not intend to watch movies other than from such streaming services. Thanks for the tip Ken!