Question

Playbar newbie needs a little HDMI help!

  • 5 December 2017
  • 8 replies
  • 1123 views

Userlevel 1
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My Denon receiver currently controls all of my inputs. I have an AppleTV, Amazon Fire TV, Bluray player, PS3, and a wii all hooked in. From the receiver to the TV I have an HDMI cable that goes into the ARC HDMI connection on the TV. The TV has an optical audio out, so I hooked that into my playbar. No sound.. Still goes through my Denon receiver. I couldn't find any settings or info about passing the audio through to the TV instead of the stereo speakers, so what are my options here? My TV only has 4 HDMI inputs, and 2 analog. I could probably consolidate and get rid of Apple TV and then just run everything through the TV, but ideally I'd like to keep the Denon for now, I just don't see a way to pass all those inputs to the Playbar. :)

Also, does anyone know of a good stand for the playbar to go under the TV? I don't want to wall mount it. I would have gotten the playbase, but I got this for half off from Best Buy open box deal, so I couldn't pass it up. 🙂

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8 replies

Userlevel 7
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Hi there, djrobsd. Thanks for posting and welcome to the Community. In order to help the best we can, we will need a couple more bits of information. Specifically, we will need to make and model numbers of both your TV and your Denon Receiver. Once we have that we can see all the I/O (input/outputs) available to us on the receiver. The model of the TV will also provide helpful information regarding how audio signals would pass through to the PLAYBAR.

Thanks in advance.
Userlevel 1
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Hi Keith, thank you for your help. The Denon is DN-AVR1913, the TV is a Samsung UN46D6900WFXZA
Userlevel 1
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I ended up hooking everything up to the TV>
Userlevel 1
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Hi Keith. Hooking up directly to the tv does not make me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth here. When I watch the Apple TV Netflix is showing “stereo” when I go to about. If I use Netflix on the TV directly in the smart hub I see Dolby digital 2.0. Is that just because I only have the playbar and not tears and a sub?

I don’t like the “stereo” part when using Apple TV though.

Does that mean my TV will not pass Dolby digital signals through the optical out from the HDMI?

Am I sacrificing a lot of sound quality or does the Sonos already do a good job of virtually creating The surround sound?
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Btw I hope you and your family are safe. I heard about the fires and that is pretty terrifying.
Userlevel 3
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Given the messages you're seeing in the Sonos app, it doesn't appear your TV is passing through a 5.1 signal (seems common among Samsung TVs). However you don't have a 5.1 setup as it is, which is why you're seeing DD 2.0 via the TV's Netflix app.

You'll need an audio extractor when using the Apple TV in order to get DD. I'm using the Monoprice MD-415ARC which allows for 4 HDMI inputs to extract the DD signal and you then connect an optical cable from that to your Playbar.
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I'm using the Monoprice MD-415ARC which allows for 4 HDMI inputs to extract the DD signal and you then connect an optical cable from that to your Playbar.
Do you have a link for the MD-415ARC? I can't seem to find it on their site. Thanks
Userlevel 3
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It may be discontinued. I got mine from Amazon but can't find it anymore.

There are others on Amazon but I saw one person complain about the J Tech (or whatever the J brand is) that it allowed for sound to still play on Sonos even when the TV was off and the switch was left on. I haven't experienced that with the Monoprice but I also always shut it off when shutting everything down.

Something like this might work, although it has a couple of extra features you may not be looking for:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=14529

There's also this one but there's limited inputs: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=24278