HDMI 2.1 chip used in many AVRs probably buggy

Just imagine all the people who bought these >500€ AV Receivers thinking they'd be ready for the next-gen consoles and graphics cards, only to discover they'll need to be using ARC or eARC to get the thing working.

I wonder if these brands will issue repairs or replacements.

 

Until you find out earc is a total mess as well as I believe none of the earc TV's out there do HD audio bitstreaming on earc. At least that was my understanding when I bought a C9 and at the time all I could find was that the CX would have the same issue. I believe Sony has the same issue.

By the way how do you manage to make a HDMI 2.1 chip that apparently doesn't work? I mean, they just skipped any UHD testing and figured it be okay? And not just whoever designed the chip, but also all the companies that use it?

 

I am totally clueless but can someone explain me the ARC and eARC how they work and what to they do?

 

LOL I naively believed hdmi 2.1 will be the one that eliminated all codec and compatibility issues.

@Nesh earc allows hdmi cables to transfer surround LPCM audio while ARC requires surround audio to be compressed.

Pretty much doesn't matter for consoles as they by default supports compressed surround audio output. But for windows pc gamers, earc is a must if you want to use surround audio thru hdmi.

Unless you are willing to use hacked audio driver and service, so your gpu hdmi port can outputs compressed surround audio.

Because zero games supports output in compressed surround sound.

 

I don't think that is an entirely correct explanation.

The idea behind EARC is that you are no longer dependant on whatever formats your receiver supports. Instead with EARC the TV can output whatever audio formats it supports to your speakers (assuming the whole chain supports EARC).

In theory this makes things easier because you no longer have to worry about your receiver supporting the same audio and video formats your TV does. You can just let the TV handle everything.

Though my understanding is that all current TV's are limited in their EARC capabilities (no hd audio) because of hardware limitations.

Arc is similar but much older and supports only a few audio formats.

 

By bitstreaming you mean LPCM?
I thought LG promised to send a firmware update to fix that in mid-2019...
Regardless, there's been no reason to fix anything HDMI 2.1 related considering there are no devices in the market with that output yet.

The consoles' release in November should change that. Hopefully.

ARC = Audio Return Channel. It let's the TV send the sound data to the AV Receiver through a HDMI cable.
Let's say we're using a console, a PS5.

With HDMI 2.0 we could have sound with two methods:

Normal: PS5 ---> AV Receiver-- -> TV
0000000000000000|
0000000000000000|
0000000000000 Speakers
______________________________________
ARC: PS5 ---> TV ---> AV Receiver
0000000000000000000000|
0000000000000000000000|
000000000000000000 Speakers




That way you can connect the PS5 directly to the TV to reduce latency, and still get audio from the receiver.
The problem with ARC is that it only supports either Stereo LPCM or Dolby Digital / DTS. It's the same formats as TOSLINK / optical and digital coaxial. In some cases, it supports Dolby Digital Plus which has a higher bitrate than Dolby Digital.

eARC works the same way as ARC but it adds support for Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD and up to 32 channels of uncompressed LPCM. With this, there's no quality deficit at all between using the TV or the AV Receiver as "HDMI hub", and the AV Receiver can be used for many more years / decades.

 

It does not look good for any equipment involved. Translated snippets from the page.

 

That's going to be an expensive oops to fix.

 

Apologies, I remember incorrectly. LG did fix the lpcm bug. What I was talking about is regarding any of the TV apps not being able to bitstream hd audio over EARC. HD audio over EARC from a HDMI source should still work unlike what I claimed.

 

I gave up on ARC with my LG C7 and Yamaha HDMI 1.4 receiver. Some of the TV apps wouldn't play audio through it. The receiver would flicker DD Plus for an instant then go mute. It supports everything prior to Atmos. Optical works perfectly.

It's unfortunate that it's too much to ask for just a separate HDMI output for audio only. DRM reasons?

 

Arc is working good here on my C7 with a Yamaha rx-v383. Last firm on both...

For the HDMI 2.1 report, damn, it's a shame this news is not on every tech website front page, it's a big problem...

 

I have a RX-V375. It's HDMI 1.4. I tried today and still no audio from Amazon or Netflix with ARC. There are no firmware updates for the receiver. Fortunately ancient digital optical is just as capable as ARC and works flawlessly.

Early this year I bought a HDMI 2.0 extractor which allows HDMI 2.0 to the TV while splitting to a separate HDMI for audio. This way I can get all bitstream and PCM audio formats, and I avoid the TV's Dolby processing lag, and there's no need for consoles to do any re encoding to compressed formats. I have a PC connected with separate HDMI for AV as well.

 

They don't call it "the bleeding edge" for nothing.

 

Yeah just this year's hot newness that doesn't work right.

 

This is a bit different from previous bleeding edge compatibility issues, since those could be updated with firmware updates on either the AVR side or the client device or display device. I am so fortunate that I put off my AVR upgrade until at least next summer.

 

There are reports on Reddit that it actually works on Sony's HDMI 2.1 TV using the newest firmware.

 

Does that hdmi extractor have multiple hdmi input?

I need minimum have 2 inputs. Even better if it can auto sense which hdmi to pass thru to optical.

 

No the one I bought is only 1 input.