Don't have eARC? Get Atmos w/ HD Fury "Arcana" - Pre-orders now LIVE!

Hi - sorry for the really basic question but I want to check before I bite the bullet on a pre-order and I get lost when talking about all these things!

I have the Sky Q/Arc lip sync issue where the video is ahead of the audio (so audio delay doesn’t help me).  This can be resolved by plugging the Sky Q direct into the Arc via optical but then I lose the DD+ signal.  Will the Arcana help with this issue?  Does the Arcana essentially enable me to directly plug into the Arc via HDMI but also into the TV?

Re: lip sync - yes. From the Arcana product FAQ:

Can Arcana solves lip sync issue from eARC TV to SONOS ARC?

Yes! There is one thing people tend to forget, so far there is absolutely no TV that we know of that will modify its own internal EDID based on what CDS it can read from the connected eARC RX. It simply downmixes or re-encodes (with delay) the incoming audio according to what eARC RX can handle. This is why when connected to an eARC TV, the SONOS Arc can have serious lip sync issues. All that will be fixed with Arcana.

Re: connections - Basically. It’s more complicated than this, but you can think of it as a splitter that’s taking the  signal from an external source or switch, sending the video to the TV then sending the audio via eARC to the Sonos Arc. It will make the Arc think it’s plugged into an eARC TV and takes your TV’s audio capabilities out of the equation. 

Would this still work with a SONOS Arc and a TV that only does 1080p?

-JR

Absolutely. The TV’s sound capabilities are completely out of the equation at this point. Arcana is sending (via eARC) audio directly to the Sonos Arc via one HDMI connection and is sending video to your TV via a completely separate connection. So you can use whatever TV you want and still get full range audio from your external HDMI devices. 

Pre-ordered!

-JR

Awesome! Now begins the wait! 

Couple questions to make sure I am understanding this product: 

1.   It takes source input such as ATV4K and sends audio directly to the soundbar and splits the video to the TV? So, in a sense this turns tv in nothing more than a monitor.  So with this internal split of audio and video, is it still sending audio to TV? 
       

2.   Any modern day 2.0 capable HDMI switch work?

1. Correct, for all intents and purposes the Arcana acts like (and makes the Sonos Arc think that it’s plugged into) an eARC TV. And Arcana is built specifically to pass any and all sound formats the source (Apple TV, Roku, BD player, etc) is capable of directly to the Arc with no modifications.
   
   As for the question about sending Audio to the TV, you’ll want to go red through the Arcana FAQs on the HD Fury website, but I think the answer is no. They are working on functionality to be able to take the audio FROM the TV (e.g. from the tuner or its built in apps) and send it to the Arc via Arcana, but they’re not promising that until/unless they can get at least 800 pre-orders. 
    
2. Theoretically, yes. Make sure to get a well reviewed one that supports features you want (e.g. Atmos, Dolby Vision, HDR10, etc). HD Fury makes some apparently awesome ones but the price tag isn’t cheap. Many can be found on Amazon but buyer beware of course. There are big discussions about this on the HD Fury Discord support channel that I haven’t followed yet. I figured I’d let others do the grunt work of figuring out what works and then follow in their footsteps. 😎
   
   One note: if you only have a single external source you want to use you won’t need a switch - Arcana will work out of the box for one source  

Hope that helps!

First of all, thanks for this post and pointing out this product! Defenitely looking for such a solution. Below my 2 cents.

I was at the point of pre-ordering as well, but as I understand from their ‘Getting Started’ tab https://www.hdfury.com/product/4k-arcana-18gbps/, they have some sort of graduated scale in what they will adapt in the product (as I understand they call this their Stretch Goal). 
The most basic option would entail only splitting the audio from the video. In that case there is no ARC loopback from the TV through the device to the Sonos ARC. Also no CEC for control purposes.

The website also states: “Our Dev Team has a roadmap and a specific approach to make this a reality; there is no guarantee that it will work, but the outlook is VERY promising.”. Well that does sound promising, but I think I’ll just wait until the product is released and tested. I’d rather pay 199 USD instead of 155 USD with the guarantee of a working product.

Last but not least: I might be in the wrong here, but the whole idea of ARC vs eARC is the bandwidth right? Not being able to pass both 4K video and Atmos over TrueHD through HDMI 2.0? That makes me worried about the HDMI 2.0 specification on this product. Especially considering they specifically note 18Gbps, the speed of HDMI 2.0. And even if it does work, it’s definitely not future (8K) proof. Just something to consider.

They commented on HDMI 2.1 on their discord. They will not implement that until later in 2021 since there are no sources that output 2.1 so that it can be properly tested. I think that is fair, there are too many companies rushing out the latest standards with sub-par implementations of it only to put you as a consumer in a position where it might not work the way it should.