Question

Sonos setup with hdmi switch

  • 12 January 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 4695 views

Hello,

I am trying to find a way to have audio (best possible) from all the following devices:
1) Panasonic Viera plasma Tv
2) Apple TV
3) other HDMI

Following discussions on other topics, I bought a hdmi switch. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0734SYLJL/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_ARpwAbX82CTCD
It has 5 inputs and 1 HDMI output, and optical + ARC audio outputs. So I connected all my devices such as Apple TV, youview box and laptop at the HDMI inputs and I connected the HDMI switch with my Playbar via optical. From the HDMI output of the switch I connected my TV.

I do have proper 5.1 Surround when I use Apple TV or a YouView box. My TV though has no sound at all. At my TV I have enabled the hotel mode and I have set the internal speakers max volume to 0. What I am doing wrong and TV first get any audio output to my sonos system?

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3 replies

The issue is that your TV isn't sending a signal back to the HDMI switch for it to send data out through the optical port.

Now I'm going to go into conjecture land, and suggest something. I believe that if your TV has an HDMI ARC port, and that the "output" from the switch is also ARC compliant, it might work. I am not sure of that, though. Perhaps someone who knows more about this can correct me as necessary.

If you think about the signal as a stream of water, what's going on is each device is sending its stream to the switch. In the switch, that stream is being split, where some of it is sent to the PLAYBAR for audio purposes, and the rest of the stream is going to the TV to provide video.

But when you're watching TV using the TV's tuner, the stream is from the antenna, and inside the TV, and doesn't go back down the HDMI cable to get to the switch, where it would be split to provide both sound and video. It is my unconsidered opinion is that is what ARC is designed for, but I don't know, nor can I tell if the switch will work in that fashion.

At the end of the day, I think you need to push all content through the switch in order to get sound through the PLAYBAR. So that means watching something on the TV's tuners or smart apps won't work, unless my previous 2 paragraphs work.
I thought about the ARC, but I don’t know if that will work as switch as the ARC as the output exit as well. How all the people that are using HDMI switch sort out the audio from the TV when the have a playbar also?
I think (based on just my interpretation) is that the majority of folks have some sort of outside device feeding that signal. Either a cable box, or a satellite box, or even a game console. I don't think many people (in this forum) tend to use the tuner on the TV set....or if they do, the TV sends an appropriate signal out via the optical out.

Sorry I don't have a better answer for you.