PLAYBAR HDMI Pass through

Hello,

We have no information regarding a new PLAYBAR or indeed any Sonos device with an HDMI connection.

The PLAYBAR features true 5.1 sound, it merely depends on the TV passing through an HDMI signal to the Toslink Digital Optical Out.

Kind regards,

Björn L.

"it merely depends on the TV passing through an HDMI signal to the Toslink Digital Optical Out"......

and then failing to decode it !

This is unfortunate because there are very few TV's(if any) that pass multichannel audio from HDMI connected sources via Toslink.  Having to use a separate switcher as a break out to send multichannel audio isn't a desirable compromise.  Hopefully this can be considered for future builds for what is otherwise a perfect system.

Any news on that?

I am in the same boat with questions. The Sonos system is fine, but I am researching the new systems out at CES2017 this week to the see what is going on. I am sure Sonos is there too and is seeing so many new systems with HDMI inputs/pass throughs and ultimate decoding. I notice that Sonos's major advertising for the playbar, shows it right below an HDTV. So my assumption is that they understand that the majority of purchases are to implement better sound from very thin screens.:?

OK, I'll try to respond in only one of the multiple threads you've posted in on this subject.

Sonos, for better or worse, has decided that the majority of their development is not pre-announced, with very few notable exceptions (Apple Music, Spotify, and Echo integration come to mind). So we won't know what hardware they're working on until they're actually ready to release it.

It wouldn't surprise me much if there were some members of this board who might be tapped as Alpha or Beta testers of such tech, but they would all be bound by substantial Non Disclosure Agreements to not discuss it. Would that I were one of those people :)

I certainly agree that it would make some sense, from a consumer perspective, to implement this. I do have to wonder if there are licensing issues (do I have to pay some consortium for each HDMI port I put in? I've never researched this to find out), but I can easily see the moment that such a Playbar is released a number of posts here in these boards complaining vociferously about the number of ports not being enough. Is the correct number 3? 4? 6? 12?

So I'll be pleased if they announce such a thing. I'd buy two replacement Playbars if it does come out, and if it were to support 7.1 I'd buy extra Play:1s as well. But I'm not going to be overly expectant of it happening this week or next. If it were, I'd have expected to hear something about it out of CES. And my suspicion at this moment in time is that they're focused on integration with Amazon's Echo devices. Granted, that's software, and we're talking hardware, but my experiences in software development has led me to believe they tend to consume the entire organization.

@Bruce, I very much agree with you epically in the last paragraph. If they do announce new Playbar's like Playbar2 and it has at least 1 HDMI input and passthrough. 2 or three would be amazing so it would have to act like a HDMI router. I finally got bitstream to the on eI have in the living room now and the difference and improvement in sound is truly amazing. 🙂