New AV receiver and TV setup - HDMI Arc issues

[Wildfire]

For the last 10 years I have used a 40” Samsung LCD and Yamaha 5.1 AV receiver (it didn’t even have HDMI).

The TV died and the receiver followed 2 weeks later.

So long story and one 58” Panasonic LED TV later, I replaced the TV with a 55” Samsung and a Denon AV receiver.

Currently I have my Virgin box into my Xbox One (HDMI), then the XBox into the AV receiver (HDMI) and the AV receiver connected to the TV by HDMI ARC.

With the Panasonic everything worked fine. I switched the XBox on and it turned the TV on which in turn switched the receiver on by ARC.

As I had to replace the Panasonic with a Samsung now I have issues.

First issue is that the TV is not turning on the AV receiver on via ARC. The TV turns it off, and can trigger it on and off during tests, but not on normal operation.

Second is that I think the TV is doing something weird with the Virgin box and bypassing the AV receiver then pushing the sound back to the AV receiver. When the XBox and TV comes back on, the receiver is off, but the TV still shows the Virgin box. When you turn the AV receiver back on, it only comes out 3.1, apparently Samsung HDMI ARC only supports 3.1.

Thing is the Virgin box goes into the Xbox and then into the AV receiver and the TV should only be receiving a signal from the Virgin box if the AV receiver is on?

Any ideas?

I was thinking of cutting out ARC and just usin g HDIM to see if it is ARC that is bypassing the AV receiver and taking the Virgin box signal.

[B17NNS]

Surely the Denon has multiple HDMI inputs.

Have you tried putting the X-box into HDMI 1, your TiVo into HDMI 2 etc?

Then one output from the receiver (ARC) to the TV.

Does the TV have an optical out?

[SS2.]

As above, I'd plug everything into the receiver individually via HDMI and have just the one cable connecting the TV's ARC input to the amp. This means ARC would only be used for apps on the TV (Freeview, Netflix, etc) or when watching a movie on a USB stick plugged into the TV.

HDMI CEC (which might need switching on in settings) should take care of auto turn on / off and source switching.

[Wildfire]

Ok. There seems to be an issue with Samsung CEC that has been known about since 2016.

The reason I plug the Virgin box through the XBox is so that I can use the XBox to control the TV and quickly switch between apps on the XBox. This way One guide (TV) functions just like an app.

If I went everything into the AV reveiver it would do the switching.

[SS2.]

Wildfire said:

There seems to be an issue with Samsung CEC that has been known about since 2016.

Not specifically a Samsung problem, but the only issue I have with control of my Samsung TV / Pioneer AVR combo is that my current Sky decoder doesn't appear to [properly] support HDMI-CEC.

This means that whilst everything powers up from a single button press, the AV receiver automatically switches the input from HDMI (SAT / SKY) to TV after about 10 seconds.

It does this every time and needs the SAT / SKY button to be pressed on the receiver remote to switch back. Once done, it's fine until the next shutdown.

Irritating, but not the end of the world.

[aquarianone]

Wildfire said:

Ok. There seems to be an issue with Samsung CEC that has been known about since 2016.

The reason I plug the Virgin box through the XBox is so that I can use the XBox to control the TV and quickly switch between apps on the XBox. This way One guide (TV) functions just like an app.

If I went everything into the AV reveiver it would do the switching.

For what it's worth, I use the Xbox in a similar way...however after changing tv's I noticed that connecting Sky through the Xbox and then onto the Amp was not quite working correctly..so I tried going back to normal, so everything plugged into the Amp and the Amp connected to the TV and that seemed to work fine.

With the Sky box not connected to the Xbox, the Kinnect can still understand and beam out the correct signals based on voice command (i've also set it to boot to tv mode)

So I can still say Xbox ON, Volume Up / Down / watch BBC1 etc...and the commands are still triggered correctly, the only manual step is having to switch back to the XBOX to watch Netflix, Plex etc

Edited by aquarianone on Monday 30th October 14:35

[Wildfire]

Cheers good to know! I’ll have a play this weekend with various configurations then!

[aquarianone]

Just re-read your OP and the only other thing i'd add (in case you haven't already tried) is to setup your TV, AV receiver and Virgin box in the Xbox Device control - you can then get it to switch everything on in the right order when you say Hey Cortana Turn on / Turn off..

https://pureinfotech.com/setup-xbox-one-automatica...

The amp will then auto switch back on to the last used connection - ie tv

Then just set the Xbox to boot to TV mode and it should then still listen for TV voice commands.

[Wildfire]

Thanks for that!

I'll have a read and then see how it goes this weekend.