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MDamico
Contributor I
June 25, 2020
Question

Sonos Arc TV Compatibility

Hi All, would anyone be able to confirm what TV’s are compatible with the Arc based on the surround sound supported? Most smart/TVs indicate Dolby Digital Plus under “surround sound supported” specifications; however I’m not sure if that is compatible with the arc Dolby atmos specifically . Appreciate your help!

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    Crazyed
    Contributor I
    July 19, 2020

    Thank you for the quick response.   I was thinking Tv,s built in APPs and perhaps use a Blu-ray player for discs. Also open for suggestions please..Thank you very much!!

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    Highfalutintodd
    Prominent Collaborator I
    July 19, 2020

    Thank you for the quick response.   I was thinking Tv,s built in APPs and perhaps use a Blu-ray player for discs. Also open for suggestions please..Thank you very much!!

    The TV’s specs page specifically calls out Dolby Atmos compatibility so I’m willing to bet that you’ll be able to get Atmos to the Arc (over Dolby Digital Plus) from the set’s built-in apps (at least those apps that support it - app support for Atmos seems hit or miss by manufacturer for built-in apps). This is currently the only way I’m able to get Atmos on the Arc at all using my Vizio TV. 

    Blu-ray is a bigger can of worms for a couple of reasons. First off if your TV doesn’t support eARC (which it looks like yours doesn’t), you WILL NOT get Atmos on your Arc from a Blu-ray Disc. Atmos on BDs and 4K BDs is encoded using a codec called Dolby TrueHD which simply can’t be transmitted over HDMI-ARC (though TrueHD CAN go over eARC). So there’s strike one. Second is that many (most?) BDs use DTS encoding for their audio which no Sonos product, including the Arc, supports. So not only will you not be getting Atmos, you may be limited to the disc’s 2 channel Dolby Digital stereo backup track to get audio at all. 

    Now, there are a couple of potential workarounds here. One would be to get a BD player that can transcode the DTS soundtrack to Dolby Digital. You still won’t get Atmos from a BD, but at least you’d be getting 5.1 to the Arc. I don’t have any recommendations here, so Google around for options. 

    The other option is the HD Fury Arcana (https://www.hdfury.com/product/4k-arcana-18gbps/), which is an adapter that’s specifically designed to pass full range audio from an external HDMI source to the Arc. Very simplistically, it bypasses the TV completely and tricks the Arc into thinking it’s connected to an eARC TV. Several hundred of us have already placed pre-orders for the device in order to do exactly that (or to get Atmos from an external streaming device like an Apple TV, for example, which is my use case). 

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      Crazyed
      Contributor I
      July 19, 2020

      Greetings,

      Thank you so much again for your quick response. This is all great and detailed information, which I truly appreciate and will help me a ton. I am new to all the advanced technology but am learning quickly thanks to individuals like yourself .  Keep up the great work and be safe. 
       

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