Dumb vs Smart TV
Discussion
Hi all.
I’m really not with all the Smart TV lingo and my home cinema set up revolves around a 12 yr old Yamaha receiver that everything gets plugged into (DVD, Humax Box, Firestick, Lap top, etc).
Obviously it’s an old set up and my TV is definitely on the way out, so I’m looking at the ‘Smart’ options (are there any Dumb TVs on sale these days?).
The burning question is this - will my receiver take the audio feed and be able to decipher it into 7.2/5.1 surround sound?
I’d prefer to keep my set up...
TI A
I’m really not with all the Smart TV lingo and my home cinema set up revolves around a 12 yr old Yamaha receiver that everything gets plugged into (DVD, Humax Box, Firestick, Lap top, etc).
Obviously it’s an old set up and my TV is definitely on the way out, so I’m looking at the ‘Smart’ options (are there any Dumb TVs on sale these days?).
The burning question is this - will my receiver take the audio feed and be able to decipher it into 7.2/5.1 surround sound?
I’d prefer to keep my set up...
TI A
Whatever lounge-suitable TVs there are that are dumb are really not worth buying. Pretty-much everything from basic budget sets upwards have some sort of smart features, but that doesn't mean to say you have to use them.
My own lounge TV is a 50" Panasonic with smart doo-dads. But I also have a Fire TV stick plugged in to it, and that's my Go-To device for streaming. There's a Freeview tuner in the TV, but we watch via Sky. For what it's worth the TV might as well be a monitor with built-in speakers, but the economies of scale make it cheaper to produce a fully-featured TV than a 50" basic screen with decent scaling and picture processing. Go figure.
All your current gear and amp can connect to the new TV just as you do right now. The fact you're running a Firestick suggests that your amp and TV have HDMI inputs, so that would mean you're using a flatscreen TV of some description. That then means it's probably better resolution than 576p (standard definition), and so the TV is upscaling some source signals to the panel's native pixel resolution. Your new TV will do the same. This time though it will upscale to 4K UHD resolution.
Where you want to take advantage of sources in 4K UHD res, you can move those sources to the TV and then pick up the sound from the TV via an optical output. You must check though that the TV has Optical out as there are some models that have dropped it solely in favour of audio out via HDMI; usually this is something called eARC.
Optical out will handle stereo, stereo with Dolby Surround (as decoded by DPL/DPL II) and Dolby Digital 5.1 as a minimum. Depending on the TV, you may also get DTS 2.0 (stereo) or DTS 5.1 from optical. What you won't get from that connection though is 7.1 or ATMOS or any HD audio in the forms of either Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio. These are either beyond optical's capabilities or they're software blocked as part of anti-copy.
I wouldn't worry about any of this though as streaming doesn't go beyond Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) which is comprised of core DD 5.1 with a lite version of ATMOS layered on in a similar way to how Dolby Surround is invisibly encoded on to a stereo signal. Any gear that's not ATMOS compatible simply plays the core DD 5.1 audio and ignores the rest.
My own lounge TV is a 50" Panasonic with smart doo-dads. But I also have a Fire TV stick plugged in to it, and that's my Go-To device for streaming. There's a Freeview tuner in the TV, but we watch via Sky. For what it's worth the TV might as well be a monitor with built-in speakers, but the economies of scale make it cheaper to produce a fully-featured TV than a 50" basic screen with decent scaling and picture processing. Go figure.
All your current gear and amp can connect to the new TV just as you do right now. The fact you're running a Firestick suggests that your amp and TV have HDMI inputs, so that would mean you're using a flatscreen TV of some description. That then means it's probably better resolution than 576p (standard definition), and so the TV is upscaling some source signals to the panel's native pixel resolution. Your new TV will do the same. This time though it will upscale to 4K UHD resolution.
Where you want to take advantage of sources in 4K UHD res, you can move those sources to the TV and then pick up the sound from the TV via an optical output. You must check though that the TV has Optical out as there are some models that have dropped it solely in favour of audio out via HDMI; usually this is something called eARC.
Optical out will handle stereo, stereo with Dolby Surround (as decoded by DPL/DPL II) and Dolby Digital 5.1 as a minimum. Depending on the TV, you may also get DTS 2.0 (stereo) or DTS 5.1 from optical. What you won't get from that connection though is 7.1 or ATMOS or any HD audio in the forms of either Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio. These are either beyond optical's capabilities or they're software blocked as part of anti-copy.
I wouldn't worry about any of this though as streaming doesn't go beyond Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) which is comprised of core DD 5.1 with a lite version of ATMOS layered on in a similar way to how Dolby Surround is invisibly encoded on to a stereo signal. Any gear that's not ATMOS compatible simply plays the core DD 5.1 audio and ignores the rest.
S6PNJ said:
PotHoleHater said:
The burning question is this - will my receiver take the audio feed and be able to decipher it into 7.2/5.1 surround sound?
If you tell us the model number of your Amp (RX-V something I'd guess?), you might get some more accurate answers.I think, it’s more down to the audio output of the potential new TV as the Yamaha has two optical inputs.
PotHoleHater said:
I think, it’s more down to the audio output of the potential new TV as the Yamaha has two optical inputs.
Well, as the potential new TV is not yet know, it's a bit of a 'how long's a piece of string' question, but I'd expect a new smart TV to have an optical output or HDMI, both of which your amp will take.S6PNJ said:
Well, as the potential new TV is not yet know, it's a bit of a 'how long's a piece of string' question, but I'd expect a new smart TV to have an optical output or HDMI, both of which your amp will take.
Oh, for sure.I’m busy reading up the latest reviews to see what’s what. The choices are mind boggling!
The RX-V1065 has HDMI inputs (upto 1080p) and of course a HDMI out, but there's no ARC feature on the HDMI out. Sound from the TV then has to come from Optical out, or it's possible to use an ARC/eARC audio stripper (HDMI ARC in, optical audio out), but they're flaky 3rd party products. It's much better to choose a TV with Optical out to keep things simple, uncluttered and reliable.
When it comes time to buy a new amp then the chances are it'll have eARC as standard. At that point a TV to amp connection can be made with a HDMI cable from eARC socket to eARC socket that passes DD, DTS, DD+ (Atmos from broadcast and streaming) and HD audio in the form of Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio. That's kind of moot though since the new amp will accept any 4K UHD sources and all the current audio formats directly via its own HDMI inputs, so there's no need to connect anything direct to the TV just to get 4K UHD picture compatibility. The amp will have all that and the ability to pass any signals whilst it's in standby as well as when its on.
In the meantime though, buy a new TV with optical out. Job done.
When it comes time to buy a new amp then the chances are it'll have eARC as standard. At that point a TV to amp connection can be made with a HDMI cable from eARC socket to eARC socket that passes DD, DTS, DD+ (Atmos from broadcast and streaming) and HD audio in the form of Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio. That's kind of moot though since the new amp will accept any 4K UHD sources and all the current audio formats directly via its own HDMI inputs, so there's no need to connect anything direct to the TV just to get 4K UHD picture compatibility. The amp will have all that and the ability to pass any signals whilst it's in standby as well as when its on.
In the meantime though, buy a new TV with optical out. Job done.
Lucid_AV said:
The RX-V1065 has HDMI inputs (upto 1080p) and of course a HDMI out, but there's no ARC feature on the HDMI out. Sound from the TV then has to come from Optical out, or it's possible to use an ARC/eARC audio stripper (HDMI ARC in, optical audio out), but they're flaky 3rd party products. It's much better to choose a TV with Optical out to keep things simple, uncluttered and reliable.
When it comes time to buy a new amp then the chances are it'll have eARC as standard. At that point a TV to amp connection can be made with a HDMI cable from eARC socket to eARC socket that passes DD, DTS, DD+ (Atmos from broadcast and streaming) and HD audio in the form of Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio. That's kind of moot though since the new amp will accept any 4K UHD sources and all the current audio formats directly via its own HDMI inputs, so there's no need to connect anything direct to the TV just to get 4K UHD picture compatibility. The amp will have all that and the ability to pass any signals whilst it's in standby as well as when its on.
In the meantime though, buy a new TV with optical out. Job done.
Thread resurrection time...When it comes time to buy a new amp then the chances are it'll have eARC as standard. At that point a TV to amp connection can be made with a HDMI cable from eARC socket to eARC socket that passes DD, DTS, DD+ (Atmos from broadcast and streaming) and HD audio in the form of Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio. That's kind of moot though since the new amp will accept any 4K UHD sources and all the current audio formats directly via its own HDMI inputs, so there's no need to connect anything direct to the TV just to get 4K UHD picture compatibility. The amp will have all that and the ability to pass any signals whilst it's in standby as well as when its on.
In the meantime though, buy a new TV with optical out. Job done.
Lucid, I'm buying this - LG TV OLED65C16LA. It's got the optical out, but I'm unsure if the eARC it has is on the correct side of life...on the rear it seems to be on the input side, when I think I need it on the output (for when I buy a new AV receiver). Am I correct, or am I being a numptie?
TIA :-)
PotHoleHater said:
Thread resurrection time...
Lucid, I'm buying this - LG TV OLED65C16LA. It's got the optical out, but I'm unsure if the eARC it has is on the correct side of life...on the rear it seems to be on the input side, when I think I need it on the output (for when I buy a new AV receiver). Am I correct, or am I being a numptie?
TIA :-)
No, you're not being a numptie. It's one of the weird things about ARC/eARC HDMI. Lucid, I'm buying this - LG TV OLED65C16LA. It's got the optical out, but I'm unsure if the eARC it has is on the correct side of life...on the rear it seems to be on the input side, when I think I need it on the output (for when I buy a new AV receiver). Am I correct, or am I being a numptie?
TIA :-)
In the normal course of things HDMI is a one-way connector: Your source connects to the amp, then the amp connects to the TV. The signal flow is from source to amp to TV; all one way.
ARC and eARC are different though. The leads are the same ordinary HDMI cables. What's different is the way the sockets work in ARC/eARC enabled devices. They have some tech that can push an audio signal back down in the opposite direction to the normal signal flow.
It's important at this stage to remember that whenever ARC/eARC is being used, it's because the TV already has the picture signal e.g. from the TV tuner or the streaming apps or a source directly connected to the TV. In this instance the HDMI cable from the amp isn't carrying any picture content. That's because the TV is the signal source, not something connected to one of the regular HDMI input on the amp. The HDMI cable isn't doing anything with picture, and so it gets this reversed audio signal instead.
The TV has a dedicated HDMI socket labelled ARC or eARC. This is the only socket with the special reverse signal tech. Your amp needs an ARC or eARC enabled HDMI output. If only the TV has ARC but the amp doesn't then you can't use the feature. Both need it. eARC offers HD audio (DTS-MA, Dolby True HD) as well as DD and DD+ that ARC carries. To get the full eARC benefit you need the source with the higher audio quality and both the TV and amp to have eARC. If the amp only has ARC then the TV will respond by sending a compatible signal; DD/DD+
Gassing Station | Home Cinema & Hi-Fi | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff