(solved)Sending my 4k player through my soundbar

Deadfall

I'm not exactly a home theater genius, but I've hooked up enough video game consoles that I feel like I have a grasp on things. Last year I bought a decent home theater rig. Big 4k tv, 4k player, 5.1 soundbar. At first I had it so the 4k player sent video to the tv, and the sound came out the soundbar. I don't remember exactly, maybe an optical cable? Anyway, this caused the sound to delay by a fraction of a second, which drove me absolutely insane. I spent days tweaking the audio delay settings to no avail.

I then routed the 4k player through my soundbar's HDMI, which I then cabled the soundbar out to the tv through the ARC output. Blu Ray works wonderful. Sound was perfect. But apparently 4k won't go through ARC?

I wired it exactly how one tech forum said (4k -> hdmi ->soundbar -> ARC hdmi -> tv) which is how the blu rays work. One other tech forum says 4k doesn't go through ARC at all. And yet another lone guy said he fixed it by using 8k eARC cables instead of 4k HDMI. This one had no followup or confirmation.

So surely there's a way to put my 4k through my soundbar ARC to my tv? Or did I waste a whole buncha money? I just really want to watch Into the Spiderverse and Fury Road and John Wick 3 in 4k glory and shake the walls with my speakers.

Shadowfire

Does your 4k Blu-Ray player not have two HDMI outputs? Mine has separate HDMI outputs for video and audio so I can send video straight to the TV while sending the audio elsewhere.

Deadfall

It does not. It has one hdmi and the optical cable plug.

Shadowfire

So the soundbar is connected to the TV. Why are you running the Blu-Ray player through the soundbar at all? Connect the BD to another HDMI on the TV and use ARC only for sending back audio.

Deadfall

That's what caused the sound delay. The arc is supposed to send both audio and video, and it does for the blu ray. Just not 4k.

Shadowfire

What about throwing the Blu-ray straight to the TV, then sending audio out from the TV via optical? That can often be a lower delay.

Also make sure the Blu-ray player is sending audio out in a proper format. I'm not sure without model numbers, but if the TV is having to do some extra encoding to deal with whatever the Blu-ray is sending for audio, that can certainly cause delays.

If you're bored and want to attach some model numbers I can play a bit more though.

mRahmani

4K AV stuff is kind of a mess, and everything has to be perfect for it to work. It is definitely possible to pass 4K video to your TV through soundbars and home theater receivers (this is how I'm set up at home), but it depends on a few conditions.

1) Does the soundbar support 4K passthrough? It should but budget models may not.
2) Cables actually matter for 4K. "High speed" certified cables will do 1080p and some 4K signals. "Premium High Speed" certified cables can handle 4K HDR. Since you are bouncing the signal two steps, you will need two "Premium High Speed" cables - 4K player to soundbar, and soundbar to TV.

Shadowfire

Remember too that this stuff is as much hardware as it is software. You can have all the right cables and things in place, but if the soundbar is handshaking at just the wrong interval everything is on fire.

ARC sucks.

Deadfall

Cool yeah I was on Samsung chat for like an hour and a half last night. The soundbar and tv should handshake according to their specs and even the tech couldn't get it to work. She had me try about a dozen different steps.

I can link the models if you're curious but yeah I bought it all specifically to connect to each other.

I have some eARC cables arriving tomorrow so we'll see!

Edit; like I know it is at least trying to handshake. A 4k disc will open and start to load and then it kicks me to "no signal" on my tv.

Edit2: I mean it's also not the end of the world, blu ray still looks and sounds awesome. But man I bought 4k I wanna use 4k.

Deadfall

And it was the cables. Mine were confirmed to work by the Samsung rep but you apparently need 8k cables. So I'm pretty sure I'm a tech genius now. Thanks random guy on a random tech forum and thanks you guys for trying to help!