2018 Sony TV, Sonos and Atmos...finally sorted

robmypro

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Hey guys I have a 2018 Sony TV (75x900F) which has an ARC HDMI port. About a year ago I purchased a Sonos Arc sound bar (and sub), and it has been a long road of frustration. When I wired the Apple TV 4k (1st gen) to my Sony, and then connected the Sony to my Sonos Arc, I would not get Dolby Atmos. Then I purchased the Arcana HD Fury. This allowed me to get Dolby Atmos by running one HDMI cable to my TV and the other to my Sonos, but the user experience was pretty bad. My TV would show the HDMI banner every time I watched a Netflix movie, plus a blank screen, and randomly the sound would not work when I turned the system on.

I bought new HDMI cables, and nothing fixed it. So then I had an idea. What if I tried another streaming box? I decided to buy a NVIDIA Shield Pro, as it states that it does Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. I plug in the Shield to the TV, then run a HDMI cable to the Sonos Arc via the ARC connection on the Sony, and magically everything works perfectly.

I turn on the TV using the Shield remote, and the TV instantly goes no showing the Android dashboard. With the Apple TV 4k this took much longer, and resulted in a banner for HDMI Input 2 showing. That is now gone. The next improvement was that when I get the message that the Audio connected to external speakers, I again go right back to the Android dashboard (no HMDI input banner again). Then I check the settings and to my amazement Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos work perfectly. No hassling with settings.

The picture quality and sound are amazing. The UI is super fast. It is a huge generation leap over the Apple TV 4K. I don't need the Arcana HD Fury anymore, and the user experience now matches the beautify TV. The whole mess started because the Apple TV would not send Atmos correctly, so I could not use the ARC HDMI port. The NVIDIA Shield Pro has no such limitation. Maybe the 2021 Apple TV 4K fixes this, but I was ready to move on.

So if you have a Sony TV and you are trying to get Atmos, and possibly you are using the Arcana, I would take a long look at the NVIDIA Shield Pro.
 
For a hassle free life, I recommend a Shield for use with any TV.
 
Just wanted to follow up on this after a month of use. This Shield Pro has been 100% trouble free. It has worked perfectly. I love this thing.
 

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