It has taken nearly two weeks to get my new Playbase to play sound from our Sony TV. Thanks to some very patient and expert help from a couple of people on this support forum we concluded that I needed an HDMI extractor to get the sound directly to the Playbase since it wouldn't pass through the digital optical cable. That did the trick, but it is not perfect, by any means.
There is still one glitch that I can't figure out. When we finish watching a TV show and turn off the set, the next time we turn it on, often, the sound has defaulted to the wi-fi feed and the only way I can get the TV sound back is through the Sonos app on my Android phone. To make matters worse this doesn't seem to happen every time.
If it was only me, I might be able to tolerate this, but the whole point of getting the Playbase in the first place, was to make watching TV easier for my wife. Obviously, I can't be present every time she wants to watch something. (Teaching her to use the app is waaaaaay out of the question) :)
To be honest, I'm burned out from two weeks of troubleshooting and thus not too anxious to jump in and start changing settings. I'm hoping someone has experienced this or otherwise has an easy solution. Thanks .... dk
Question
Using Playbase with HDMI extractor
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+22Make sure under settings...rooms....the playbar that under the TV setup and Control option the TV Autoplay is turned on.
No that doesn't help. Keep in mind that the sound is not coming directly from the TV when using the HDMI extractor. It doesn't help that the Android app is extremely user unfriendly. IMHO
+22So that is checked on (yes I realize its coming from the extractor but it is taking the place of TV).
If you have the playbar on a music source (not TV). If you turn off the HDMI extractor and turn it back on does the playbar automatically switch to TV sound?
If you have the playbar on a music source (not TV). If you turn off the HDMI extractor and turn it back on does the playbar automatically switch to TV sound?
Well - gosh; that does work, at least the few times I tried it just now. Pretty sure I was doing that before but..... I'm easily confused. BTW -- My HDMI extractor doesn't have an on/off switch, but I have an HDMI switch to toggle between the cable box and my Roku. That is what I'm turning on or off.
That more or less creates the opposite problem, is there simple way to toggle back and forth from music source to TV"? In my case the TV sound is much more important, but I should be able to use the other feature when I want to. Yes?
That more or less creates the opposite problem, is there simple way to toggle back and forth from music source to TV"? In my case the TV sound is much more important, but I should be able to use the other feature when I want to. Yes?
+22The system will automatically switch to music when you chose something from Sonos controller. It will automatically switch to tv when it senses a signal start.
I'm assuming in your case because because it was never seeing the stream end (your cable box turning off) then it was never prepared to switch to TV. If you could get your TV remote to turn off your cable box at same time TV turns off then it would interrupt the signal and when you turned cable box back on it would send signal again and cause playbar to turn to TV input.
It doesn't auto switch to TV input when it was receiving a continuous signal for your other reason. If you have the TV on and playing and you decide to play music. You want the Sonos then to start playing your music and not arbitrarily switch back to the TV input. So it only switches to TV input once the playbar sees the sound from TV end and then when it starts again.
I'm assuming in your case because because it was never seeing the stream end (your cable box turning off) then it was never prepared to switch to TV. If you could get your TV remote to turn off your cable box at same time TV turns off then it would interrupt the signal and when you turned cable box back on it would send signal again and cause playbar to turn to TV input.
It doesn't auto switch to TV input when it was receiving a continuous signal for your other reason. If you have the TV on and playing and you decide to play music. You want the Sonos then to start playing your music and not arbitrarily switch back to the TV input. So it only switches to TV input once the playbar sees the sound from TV end and then when it starts again.
Okay - thanks for that explanation, it helps me understand what's going on. Typically I have the cable box "always on". I will experiment with the remote a bit and see what I can work out. Would that affect the program recording function on the box?
I love the sound that I'm getting out of my Playbase and there's no way I can now go back to my old set up, but it sure as heck isn't the "easy as pie" set up that I thought I was getting.
I love the sound that I'm getting out of my Playbase and there's no way I can now go back to my old set up, but it sure as heck isn't the "easy as pie" set up that I thought I was getting.
+22As an example I have DirecTV. When I hit off on my directv remote it turns off the directv box and my TV. This is what you would want with yours.
Having the cable box turned off via remote won't effect background operations (its still really on just not sending out signals). It would still be recording DVR stuff etc.
Sorry - it would be an easy as pie if TV manufacturers complied with standards to pass DD5.1 from their optical out. Higher End Sony TV not doing it and my cheap Visio TV plug and play with setup (passes DD5.1 perfect)
Having the cable box turned off via remote won't effect background operations (its still really on just not sending out signals). It would still be recording DVR stuff etc.
Sorry - it would be an easy as pie if TV manufacturers complied with standards to pass DD5.1 from their optical out. Higher End Sony TV not doing it and my cheap Visio TV plug and play with setup (passes DD5.1 perfect)
Yup - My Sony Bravia is a few years old, but it is perfect in most ways and it does have a digital/optical output. Sonos claims on their website that the Playbase/playbars will work on any TV with that output. Now just from reading through posts on this website I can see that this is clearly not the case and there are many people who have run into this problem.
Thanks for all of your help and guidance.
Thanks for all of your help and guidance.
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