Meet Arc, Brilliant sound for your TV

ore even fancier - do all your switching 4 inputs to the 2 outs

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Does the Sonos Arc have to receive HDMI-ARC or eARC.  I have been under assumption most playbars will play direct from HDMI source without ARC (ie exactly why some soundbars have in and out so that it can be direct from the HDMI source and then repeat on the signal to the TV.

So far, there are no Sonos products that accept HDMI. Only HDMI-ARC, and now eARC, and of course the older optical.

Per Sonos Keith N on a thread a year ago …

The Beam will accept an HDMI signal from anything that gives it. It does not necessarily need to be a TV or HDMI ARC port. Keep in mind, if you were to plug a cable box into a Beam, you wouldn't be able to see anything and you'd simply be testing audio. Personally, I've done this to test if TV's were passing Dolby Digital 5.1 properly.

In strict HDMI terms, the HDMI port on the Arc is an output, not an input.  ARC is an Audio Return Channel, meaning that it’s audio going in the reverse direction than the normal ‘flow’ of an HDMI signal.  Unless I’m mistaken, the Arc wouldn’t be able to ignore the video portion and just read the audio portion..it’s looking to read the ARC portion of the signal...which isn’t there.

Since eARC is rather rare still I believe a lot of people have been doing such things to get TrueHD to their audio sources from Blueray players.

I don’t know Chris, doesn’t fit what I’ve understood about ARC and eARC.  As far as how people were able to get True HD, I thought it was because the AVR or soundbar had separate HDMI inputs and an output to the TV.  The video source connected to soundbar first, then soundbar to TV, so no need for ARC or eARC.

So if your TV doesn’t have eARC then your going to normally get Dolby Digital Plus Atmos from all sources going into TV (not to shabby)

If your source is a Dolby TrueHD and you want to feed TrueHD to the Sonos Arc then you could get splitter to send the signal to TV and the Sonos Arc.

Exactly - no need for ARC or eARC (I just said the soundbars have inputs and outputs - exact thing I said). What I am explaining is the video source is then connected to the Sonos Arc first.  

What is the difference in the Video source hooked to the Sonos Arc directly vs. the same exact signal that has been duplicated and then sent to the Sonos Arc and TV.

Keith N post I referenced above confirmed from Sonos that the Beam will except direct HDMI as well as ARC input (so the Sonos Arc should be no different).

Sonos - naming your device arc makes discussing hookups very difficult!!!

But the HDMI port on the Arc is output, not input.  I don’t think it can read it.  In fact with the Beam, when not using the optical adapter, you had to establish a CEC connection with the TV so that the TV and Beam knew that the ARC channels on the cable were to be used, and what codec to use.  Maybe I’m missing something the HDMI port is both input and output (in the way traditional HDMI connections work)?

Agreed!  I am using all caps for HDMI-ARC and mixed cased for the Arc soundbar.

Did you read Keith’s statement from Sonos - it say it can do exactly that - receive the full HDMI signal and ignore the Video portion and play the direct HDMI audio signal.   No where does he say it has to be an ARC modified signal (he says the exact opposite - that it doesn’t have to be an ARC signal).

Plus I wouldn’t be surprised in near future for these switches to have an eARC output as well.

The HDMI port on the Arc is an input!!!!!!!!   That is how you play the output from your TV.  It’s primary function is to be an input.

It does handshake and also output back to the TV (rather uselessly I will ad) - but it doesn’t need to do that hand shake and output back.   It having ability to also output is meaningless and can be forgotten.

If you take your Blueray player output HDMI and plug it directly into your Beam it will play the Blueray Player audio.

Rysn S/others from Sonos - Is it okay to mount the Arc above a TV (like the Playbar) or does it really have to be mounted below the TV given the up firing speakers?

But then you would only get audio through the Beam when you use the Blu-ray player, right (and no video to the TV unless your Blu-ray player has two HDMI outputs)?  I think the point of HDMI arc is that you can be on a different source (e.g. HDMI 2 or 3) and still receive audio to the Sonos through the HDMI ARC port, which may be HDMI 1.  Or am I wrong?
 

The reason why output off the soundbar would be helpful is if your TV does not have Dolby Digital Plus decoding (i.e. is pre-2015/16), you could plug your Apple TV into the soundbar and then output the video through the soundbar to the TV.  

The whole conversation started with yes having 2 outputs from the Blu-Ray player - using a duplicator (I will call it that instead of splitter) as linked to create 2 of the exact same signal from Blu-Ray to send to TV and Sonos Arc.  Functionally exactly same as having input/output on the Sonos Arc.

Yea, I read it, and I think it’s wrong.  In fact, I vaguely remember when it was said, and vaguely remember Keith taking it back….but it’s vague memory, so not worth a darn.

ok - then if he was wrong and it can’t take full HDMI then would have to wait for a splitter that had eARC output - which shouldn’t be too long down the road as there are already a lot of them that will do regular ARC.

But then don’t you need the Blu-ray player to also pass through audio from other sources on the TV, like your cable TV, unless you only plan on using the Sonos Arc with your blu-ray player?  An Oppo can do that, but I am not sure there are many other blu-ray players that do that… And the person with a super high end blu-ray player is probably going to have a TV with arc passthrough.

Well the other question is coming up is will the Sonos Arc really receive the HDMI direct like those soundbars …. there seems to be inconsistent answers.   It would take someone plugging and HDMI direct into a Beam to see if really will or not.

But assuming then it doesn’t work - a lot of switches already will extract HDMI ARC so just a matter of time before you can get a switch to do the eARC to the Sonos Arc (mouthful there).

The example Switch had 4 inputs and 2 ouputs (of which one currently can be ARC …. just need updated version that will also do eARC)…. at about $50 a lot cheaper then replacing TV.

A lot of hypotheticals right now - I’m sure a lot of creative solutions coming to get eARC ability for people on many things not just Sonos.   So a TV not having eARC shouldn’t be the biggest concern.

I am happy that at least you can get Atmos over regular ARC - just not lossless.

Not many things worse than learning less than 5 months after purchasing the Sub and Playbar that both have been replaced. I'm quickly losing my enchantment for SONOS. 

The connection via HDMI-ARC has a handshake to communicate with the TV to understand if it’s plugged into the correct port. It reads that to determine that the HDMI signal is coming from the TV, and you need to be connected to the HDMI-ARC port on the TV if you want to use straight HDMI-ARC or eARC with the Arc or Beam. Use the Sonos Optical to HDMI adapter if you need skip the TV for any reason. From what I’ve heard, Arc won’t strip out an audio signal from straight HDMI if you connect that in.
 

The Arc should be below the TV in best practices. Because of the up firing speakers, you need them to be a good amount of distance from the ceiling in order for the “arc” to get to your seated position. Arc doesn’t support being flipped or having multiple orientations like the Playbar. 

I think what you really need for Atmos is a TV with HDMI Arc that can do Dolby Digital Plus.  TrueHD (the format you need eArc for) is a Blu-ray only lossless format.  Most people are going to want to listen to Atmos content off Netflix/Apple TV/Roku and none of those support TrueHD.  The difference between True HD and a lossy format (Dolby Digital Plus) that does Atmos is probably going to be negligible on a Sonos soundbar.  I can’t imagine that will be detectable with the naked ear.  If you told me you had a 7.1+ system with speakers in your ceiling and spent 10K+ on it, then I’d believe True HD begins to make a difference, but I won’t believe it makes a difference on a soundbar until I hear it.  So, I really don’t think the eArc piece is significant at all.  Now if you don’t have HDMI Arc and the ability to pass Dolby Digital Plus, that will be a problem for Atmos. 

I was wondering about the position thing if below better or now - thanks Ryan.

So sounds like no direct HDMI ability only ARC.   Hopefully eARC extractors aren’t far off for those without eARC TVs (majority)