Avid Contributor I

Sonos Beam Compatibility w. Panasonic Plasma TV

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I'm unsure if my Panasonic Plasma TV (TC-P50V10) has ARC functionality. It does have HDMI. The TV's documentation is not clear. Are any community members know if these older sets have HDMI capability?

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melvimbe

Since it's not mentioned in the documentation, and the port on the TV is not labeled as ARC, probably not. The tv does have an optical audio out though.

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Danny

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MettamanAuthor

Avid Contributor I

I read somewhere that using the optical audio out is not compatible with the voice assistant on Beam. Is that correct?

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Paulw123

Virtuoso

I have read that some Panasonic tvs also will not pass through DD5.1 from tv hdmi input to the tv optical out.

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Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

I read somewhere that using the optical audio out is not compatible with the voice assistant on Beam. Is that correct?

Beam is able to send some basic voice control commands to the TV over HDMI-ARC using CEC. So you'd need to be connected using an HDMI-ARC connection, and one that supports CEC commands. If you're using the optical you won't be able to send over those commands as the Optical is output only.

However, Beam will still have voice control, which means music playback and other Sonos functions that can be voice controlled will continue to work just fine, no matter what connection you're using to the TV. In addition to that, if you're using an Amazon Fire TV, you'd be able to use your Beam to control that.

I have read that some Panasonic tvs also will not pass through DD5.1 from tv hdmi input to the tv optical out.

Copied from the manual of that TV on page 58:

You can enjoy your home theater by connecting a Dolby Digital (5.1 channel) decoder and "Multi Channel" amplifier to the DIGITAL AUDIO OUT terminals.

Caution

Depending on your DVD player and DVD-Audio software the copyright protection function may operate and disable optical output. When an ATSC channel is selected, the output from the DIGITAL AUDIO OUT jack will be Dolby Digital. When an NTSC channel is selected, the output will be PCM. When playing movie on SD Card Movie player, when the sound has been recorded in Dolby Digital, the output from the DIGITAL AUDIO OUT terminal will be Dolby Digital. When the sound is recorded in the other formats, the output will be PCM.

From the same manual, on page 45, it lists HDMI2 as ARC. But you'd want to double check that.

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melvimbe

Weird. This is the manual I found.

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/television/om/tc-p50v10_en_om.pdf

It does have page 58 as Ryan stated, but no mention of ARC on page 45. Maybe there are different versions of the manual out there.

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Danny

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

It does have page 58 as Ryan stated, but no mention of ARC on page 45. Maybe there are different versions of the manual out there.

It looks like I had the manual for a similar model, but not exactly the same one. So I may be mistaken on that ARC, the TV itself should say ARC on the port. I pulled it up again and I was looking at the TX not the TC.

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MettamanAuthor

Avid Contributor I

No ARC printed on port. 😞

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rawpoly

Contributor I

My 2012 panasonic plasma does have ARC.
However just like optical it only sends stereo. Not 5.1.

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