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4K UHD/Blu-ray/DVD Community Thread: Bringing the Theater Home!

I have a quick question...

On my TV I have 3 HDMI ports labelled 1 2 3, on the one labelled 2 it also says ARC. My Sony soundbar which is currently plugged in with an optical cable has one HDMI port labelled 1 ARC.

How do I set it up to use ARC? I currently have all 3 HDMI ports on the TV in use, 1 = Apple TV 4K, 2 ARC = Blu-Ray player and 3 = Sky TV box.

I've very confused, is ARC even better than Optical?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/hdmi-arc-explained-works-care/

Looks like it helps connect your devices intelligently.
 

Markitron

Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
I have a quick question...

On my TV I have 3 HDMI ports labelled 1 2 3, on the one labelled 2 it also says ARC. My Sony soundbar which is currently plugged in with an optical cable has one HDMI port labelled 1 ARC.

How do I set it up to use ARC? I currently have all 3 HDMI ports on the TV in use, 1 = Apple TV 4K, 2 ARC = Blu-Ray player and 3 = Sky TV box.

I've very confused, is ARC even better than Optical?

Your TV should have an optical-out. Run an optical cable from this to the optical-in on your soundbar, then go into your TVs sound settings and set it to optical out. There's no need to mess around with the HDMI as you would lose an input and wouldn't get any better sound.

It sounds as if you already have it set up like this though?
 
Your TV should have an optical-out. Run an optical cable from this to the optical-in on your soundbar, then go into your TVs sound settings and set it to optical out. There's no need to mess around with the HDMI as you would lose an input and wouldn't get any better sound.

It sounds as if you already have it set up like this though?

Correct, thanks for your help, I won't bother with ARC.
 
Correct, thanks for your help, I won't bother with ARC.

I used to work in Best Buy home theater department, and HDMI ARC is definitely recommended over Optical. Better quality is one thing, but also it allows your TV remote to control the soundbar so you don't have to use the soundbar remote for power or volume. Keep the ARC input for the soundbar and plug the bluray player into another input.

Alternately, plug the soundbar into the ARC port, and plug your HDMI devices into the soundbar and use it like an AV receiver. Sony soundbars across the board should have 3-4 HDMI inputs. Higher end ones pass through the HDCP 2.2 spec so 4K HDR passthrough is possible.

EDIT: It's pretty obvious the guy below me is not a nice person.
 
The Last Knight is a dumpster fire, but damn is it one reference disc. Just spectacular looking on my B6.

I'll have to keep an eye out for a sale in the future. I've seen the rest, so I can tolerate another just for the eye candy. I still think the forest fight in Transformers 2 is some of the craziest looking CGI ever. If these movies had been two hours of that, they would be among the best action movies ever.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area

this article is super confusing.... 80% of what it describes is CEC which has nothing to do with ARC.

So curious if anyone has a suggestion (speaking of CEC).

So I can't have my ATV4K plugged into my receiver. Sadly my Denon X2000 is old enough that it will only pass at most 4K30 no-HDR. grrr. so I have ATV4K plugged directly into my TV (I figure I'll upgrade my receiver when Apple updates to Atmos). Anywho.. with CEC the system won't turn on my receiver now that my ATV is plugged into my TV :( Does anyone have a device connected directly to a TV, passing audio through ARC, that turns on the TV and receiver when you turn everything on? I did set the HDMI port my receiver is on to "AVR" on the TV.. hoping that would do it.. but alas my ATV only turns on the ATV, not the receiver.
 

Dave_6

Member
I'll have to keep an eye out for a sale in the future. I've seen the rest, so I can tolerate another just for the eye candy. I still think the forest fight in Transformers 2 is some of the craziest looking CGI ever. If these movies had been two hours of that, they would be among the best action movies ever.

I love the first one. Saw all the sequels in the theater except for this latest one. The forest fight is the only redeeming part of ROTF minus the score.
 

Clockwork

Member
EDIT: It's pretty obvious the guy below me is not a nice person.

I love how you edited your post to call me out, but didn't correct the misinformation you provided about HDMI ARC which unlike normal HDMI, ARC is limited to PCM 2.0 or compressed 5.1 formats (Dolby Digital, DTS).
 
I used to work in Best Buy home theater department, and HDMI ARC is definitely recommended over Optical. Better quality is one thing, but also it allows your TV remote to control the soundbar so you don't have to use the soundbar remote for power or volume. Keep the ARC input for the soundbar and plug the bluray player into another input.

Alternately, plug the soundbar into the ARC port, and plug your HDMI devices into the soundbar and use it like an AV receiver. Sony soundbars across the board should have 3-4 HDMI inputs. Higher end ones pass through the HDCP 2.2 spec so 4K HDR passthrough is possible.

EDIT: It's pretty obvious the guy below me is not a nice person.

So much misinformation.

ARC isn't any better than optical. At all. If anything it's worse because dealing with it in some setups is a pain in the ass due to handshake issues. Optical is a one-and-done setup for the same exact output.

The article you linked to doesn't mentioned anything about ARC anyway, just using HDMI vs optical for audio, and even spells out when one is used over the other or when it matters at all (which is actually pretty good for a cnet article!). I very strongly disagree with their statement about DTS-HDMA and Dolby TrueHD being only barely better than their lossy counterparts, but whatever.

Also, it won't matter what HDMI port he plugs into on the TV if the sound bar is passing the video back because at that point it's really only the video that matters: ARC only matters if the TV is handling all of the input switching and sending the audio to the AVR/sound bar.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
this article is super confusing.... 80% of what it describes is CEC which has nothing to do with ARC.

So curious if anyone has a suggestion (speaking of CEC).

So I can't have my ATV4K plugged into my receiver. Sadly my Denon X2000 is old enough that it will only pass at most 4K30 no-HDR. grrr. so I have ATV4K plugged directly into my TV (I figure I'll upgrade my receiver when Apple updates to Atmos). Anywho.. with CEC the system won't turn on my receiver now that my ATV is plugged into my TV :( Does anyone have a device connected directly to a TV, passing audio through ARC, that turns on the TV and receiver when you turn everything on? I did set the HDMI port my receiver is on to "AVR" on the TV.. hoping that would do it.. but alas my ATV only turns on the ATV, not the receiver.

Yes. My PS4 pro is connected to my TV because my receiver doesn’t yet handle 4K. TV connected to receiver via ARC. when I turn on the PS4 it turns on the TV which turns on the receiver
 

Westonian

Member
CEC is fine if you don't have a good universal remote.

I use a Harmony One and I disable CEC on all of my devices because it invariably screws up the Harmony macro timing.

I also never use my PS4 for anything but games, so I'm going to have the controller in my hand anyway to turn it on. Everything else is controlled by the Harmony.
 

Smokey

Member
Didn't know this thread existed !

I've been waiting and waiting on the sidelines to hop into the 4k game, preferably with OLED. 2018 was my planned year. I was using a shit Samsung 55" 1080p tv from 2011. Drives me insane how bad it is to the point that I don't game on it, I don't watch movies on it, or so anything outside of regular cable viewing.

But last week I found an open box B6 65" for $1500 last week. Also picked up LG UHD player and a bunch of movies to go with it. I know all of the benefits of OLED. As I mentioned I was just waiting to jump in, but I couldn't pass up that price for that screen size.

The screen size combined with the OLED tech, UHD Blu, HDR etc is incredible for movies. Watched Transformers Last Knight and although the movie is absolute shit, I'm just blown away by the clarity and overall package of what I mentioned above. Planet Earth II is absolutely insane, and is by far the best material I've ever seen on a screen. Hope UHD Blu ends up sticking around and people get to experience it properly. It's incredible.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
Yes. My PS4 pro is connected to my TV because my receiver doesn’t yet handle 4K. TV connected to receiver via ARC. when I turn on the PS4 it turns on the TV which turns on the receiver
Grrrrr... ok will have to look to see if there is a setting in one of the three devices to turn to receiver on in this chain. Funny enough when I put the ATV to sleep it does shutdown the AVR. It just won’t power it up. But I think it’s the TV. I think if I turn the TV on by itself it also won’t turn on the receiver. Wonder if their is a setting somewhere.
 

Friggz

Member
If im in the market for a 4k player, should i hold off until project scorpio? Seems like the bet bang or your buck player available.
 

robotrock

Banned
If im in the market for a 4k player, should i hold off until project scorpio? Seems like the bet bang or your buck player available.
We don’t know if the Xbox One X has a better bluray player than the S yet. Can’t hurt to holf off till reviews though and find out if it does.
 

jstevenson

Sailor Stevenson
Man what is up w Blade Runner 4K price on Amazon? Stock issues due to mfg glitch?

they put the wrong Disc 3 in. so yeah, it seems as if they recalled all the stock for the most part to fix it. combine with good reviews and new movies mean people snapping up coppies, and you get the shortage
 
We don’t know if the Xbox One X has a better bluray player than the S yet. Can’t hurt to holf off till reviews though and find out if it does.

I canceled my One X preorder. The problem for me is the app for the player. It seems that over the last two years there's been at least three times they broke 3-d on it.
That's not what I want with something I intend to use to host viewings etc so after researching that (because it was failing) I canceled and ordered a dedicated player.
By the time I want some 4k games the price on bundles will be down and I'll get one and probably come out even.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
was hoping for a 4K update to itunes this week beyond the couple of new releases. boo. also I swear some universal titles were updated at launch last week, but are now HD. I am almost 100% positive my copy of Oblivion said 4K last week, and now it's HD.
 
was hoping for a 4K update to itunes this week beyond the couple of new releases. boo. also I swear some universal titles were updated at launch last week, but are now HD. I am almost 100% positive my copy of Oblivion said 4K last week, and now it's HD.

I’ve heard some reports of things reverting as well
 
Ya’ll are making me want to check out the movie, even knowing it’s going to be the hottest of garbage. Maybe I’ll just rent it one day soon and enjoy the spectacle
 

Dave_6

Member
Anything good bonus features-wise?

I've yet to check them out. Seems that there are less this time than with the earlier films, probably due to the box office results.

Missed this before my post earlier, but yes. I even said as much in my post lol. Garbage movie but the visuals and we're whew

I've only watched maybe ~45 mins but I'm anxious to sit down and watch the rest of it because I know the visuals will get even crazier towards the end. The HDR is just nuts too.

Agree with your assessment of Planet Earth II. That's probably my favorite UHD so far out of my small collection. The overall package of content and visuals is hard to beat.
 

J_Viper

Member
My ET and Get Out wouldn't redeem on Vudu. I opened a help ticket and still haven't heard anything. Has anyone else had a similar issue?

Don't know about ET, but Get Out can only be redeemed through Fandango Now or iTunes.

If you redeem through Fandango and link your UV account, the movie should eventually appear in your Vudu library. 4K Streaming is only available for Fandango though.
 
Don't know about ET, but Get Out can only be redeemed through Fandango Now or iTunes.

If you redeem through Fandango and link your UV account, the movie should eventually appear in your Vudu library. 4K Streaming is only available for Fandango though.

Oh really? Odd that I was directed to Vudu from the Ultraviolet site. Thanks for the info
 

zeeaykay

Member
I'm super excited to get my 65" OLED B7. I'm upgrading from a cheap 42" 2013 basic model. Unfortunately I won't have a UHD player until the One X comes out. Can anyone recommend a good streaming UHD option to show off the TV? I'm going to pick up the Blade Runner Blu-ray but the little I've read of the VUDU stream says it goes a little too heavy on the film grain.
 

Realyst

Member
I'm super excited to get my 65" OLED B7. I'm upgrading from a cheap 42" 2013 basic model. Unfortunately I won't have a UHD player until the One X comes out. Can anyone recommend a good streaming UHD option to show off the TV? I'm going to pick up the Blade Runner Blu-ray but the little I've read of the VUDU stream says it goes a little too heavy on the film grain.
If you have amazon prime, you can stream one of the Grand Tour eps.

And there’s a billion things to see on YouTube.
 

Smokey

Member
I've yet to check them out. Seems that there are less this time than with the earlier films, probably due to the box office results.



I've only watched maybe ~45 mins but I'm anxious to sit down and watch the rest of it because I know the visuals will get even crazier towards the end. The HDR is just nuts too.

Agree with your assessment of Planet Earth II. That's probably my favorite UHD so far out of my small collection. The overall package of content and visuals is hard to beat.

Oh you really missed the good stuff then (visuals of Transformers TLK) Movie drags but the real spectacle is in the latter half.


If you have amazon prime, you can stream one of the Grand Tour eps.

And there’s a billion things to see on YouTube.

I see this mentioned alot. Since I just got my equipment, I'm still feeling my way through services for 4k content. Is there a dedicated 4k section on YouTube? And what about HDR on YT as well?
 
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