Question 4K AVR to HDfury Arcana to Sonos Arc - Viable?

Hi Everyone,

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this but I'm hoping someone here can help. I'm looking at maybe buying an HDFury arcana to solve a particular issue and wanted to reach out to the experienced community here as I'm very new to all this.

A bit of background first on why I'm thinking the HDFury arcana might be my solution...

My problem concerns 4k, hdr, truehd, lossless atmos 7.1, blu-ray rip playback of files sizes of around 50 to 60 gb size.

My system is:

HTPC - Laptop Dell G7, i7- 8750 Cpu @ 2.20 GHz 2.21 GHz, nvidia geforce gtx 1060 with max-q

TV - 2019 Samsung Q80r 65 inch (no one connect box)

Soundbar - sharp ht-sbw800 5.1.2 dolby atmos soundbar

The system is connected HTPC hdmi to Soundbar Hdmi in and then the Soundbar is connected Hdmi ARC to the TV Hdmi ARC.

When playing large blu-ray rips with 4k hdr and truehd 7.1 atmos of say 50 gb size, they play fine for say 10 to 15 minutes with what appears to be full 4k hdr and lossless atmos as the lcd on the soundbar says dolby atmos when the film starts and they sound good. Then after about 10 to 15 minuntes of playback the films stutter or hiccup for a second and then the audio is out of sync slightly. The only way to resolve is to restart the films at the point of the hiccup at which point its fine again for another 10 minutes of so. So to watch a full film requires many restarts.

So my question is can my system actually play these files with full 4k hdr and lossless atmos or not. My cables are brand new 8k hdmi 2.1 certified.

Would an HDfury Arcana help by splitting the video and sound and perhaps then wiring it differently??.... or is the limitation of my hdmi bandwidth the real problem and there is no way around it even with an HDfury Arcana🤷🏻‍♂️

I belive all my HDMIs are 2.0b.

Thanks for anyone's help in advance.

Andy
 
'My cables are brand new 8k hdmi 2.1 certified' - Red Flag straight away. Cables can be Ultra High Speed Certified but not certified by HDMI version numbers.

The Arcana is not the solution to consider - look at the Vertex² instead.

Connect the HTPC (and up to three other Sources) to the Vertex² then 4K UHD/HDR to the Display plus Full Atmos Audio to the Soundbar - if required the Vertex² has a second Video Out which can be 4K UHD/HDR or scaled down to 1080p.

The Vertex² also supports ARC so you can still access any audio the TV is Outputting and route it via the Vertex² HDMI Audio out.

Joe

 
Hi Everyone,

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this but I'm hoping someone here can help. I'm looking at maybe buying an HDFury arcana to solve a particular issue and wanted to reach out to the experienced community here as I'm very new to all this.

A bit of background first on why I'm thinking the HDFury arcana might be my solution...

My problem concerns 4k, hdr, truehd, lossless atmos 7.1, blu-ray rip playback of files sizes of around 50 to 60 gb size.

My system is:

HTPC - Laptop Dell G7, i7- 8750 Cpu @ 2.20 GHz 2.21 GHz, nvidia geforce gtx 1060 with max-q

TV - 2019 Samsung Q80r 65 inch (no one connect box)

Soundbar - sharp ht-sbw800 5.1.2 dolby atmos soundbar

The system is connected HTPC hdmi to Soundbar Hdmi in and then the Soundbar is connected Hdmi ARC to the TV Hdmi ARC.

When playing large blu-ray rips with 4k hdr and truehd 7.1 atmos of say 50 gb size, they play fine for say 10 to 15 minutes with what appears to be full 4k hdr and lossless atmos as the lcd on the soundbar says dolby atmos when the film starts and they sound good. Then after about 10 to 15 minuntes of playback the films stutter or hiccup for a second and then the audio is out of sync slightly. The only way to resolve is to restart the films at the point of the hiccup at which point its fine again for another 10 minutes of so. So to watch a full film requires many restarts.

So my question is can my system actually play these files with full 4k hdr and lossless atmos or not. My cables are brand new 8k hdmi 2.1 certified.

Would an HDfury Arcana help by splitting the video and sound and perhaps then wiring it differently??.... or is the limitation of my hdmi bandwidth the real problem and there is no way around it even with an HDfury Arcana🤷🏻‍♂️

I belive all my HDMIs are 2.0b.

Thanks for anyone's help in advance.

Andy

Your laptop should be able to play back the files but it depends what player your are using, also the gpu needs to be hardware decoding the codec.for the Nvidia gpu that would be NVENC and quicksync for intel. you can check this by looking at cpu load in task manager. Also I am not sure if optimus is still a thing on laptops, this is where it would, depending on load, switch to the integrated gpu, usually to preserve battery.

Personally, considering the price of the arcana and vertex, I would look at a dedicated player instead, perhaps something like the Vero 4k (around £120). You can then just use the laptop to store the files and share over SMB.
 
'My cables are brand new 8k hdmi 2.1 certified' - Red Flag straight away. Cables can be Ultra High Speed Certified but not certified by HDMI version numbers.

The Arcana is not the solution to consider - look at the Vertex² instead.

Connect the HTPC (and up to three other Sources) to the Vertex² then 4K UHD/HDR to the Display plus Full Atmos Audio to the Soundbar - if required the Vertex² has a second Video Out which can be 4K UHD/HDR or scaled down to 1080p.

The Vertex² also supports ARC so you can still access any audio the TV is Outputting and route it via the Vertex² HDMI Audio out.

Joe

Thank you for getting back to me Joe.

I hope I didn't waste my money on the cables🤦‍♂️.... They seemed okay, screen shot attached.

The Vertex seems great but its alot of money (nearly twice the price of the arcana on Amazon Spain). Also maybe a bit much when I consider I only have my HTPC, a soundbar and tv to get working togther as I won't be getting any more sources like a ps5 etc to connect up. The arcana seemed to do what I thought which was send all video from the HTPC straight to the TV and send all audio uncompressed to the soundbar.

I actually tried connecting my HTPC direct to my TV hdmi 1 in and not via the soundbar Hdmi in and then I connected TV Hdmi ARC down to the soundbar Hdmi ARC. However films that worked with atmos suddenly stopped and were all only dolby audio... a downgrade was clear to here as well.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought connecting HTPC Hdmi to Soundbar Hdmi in and then the Soundbar connected Hdmi ARC to the TV Hdmi ARC meant that all video and audio was flowing into the soundbar direct from the HTPC and the soundbar was then processing the audio at that level and only the video was just being passed through to the TV and no audio was going via the ARC in this scenario. That way I had plenty of bandwidth etc and shouldn't really encounter any issues. Thats why I thought maybe its not working that way and I need to find something which splits out the audio and keeps it at the soundbar level🤷🏻‍♂️.
 

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Your laptop should be able to play back the files but it depends what player your are using, also the gpu needs to be hardware decoding the codec.for the Nvidia gpu that would be NVENC and quicksync for intel. you can check this by looking at cpu load in task manager. Also I am not sure if optimus is still a thing on laptops, this is where it would, depending on load, switch to the integrated gpu, usually to preserve battery.

Personally, considering the price of the arcana and vertex, I would look at a dedicated player instead, perhaps something like the Vero 4k (around £120). You can then just use the laptop to store the files and share over SMB.
Hi Chopples,

Thankyou for taking the time to write to me and appreciate your input 🙂.

I play the videos using just the standard windows movie & tv player as I wasn't sure what other players would play atmos and hdr and work with windows and dolby access properly.

I tried looking for what you mentioned in the task manager but couldn't readily identify it and really need to look again and confirm whats happening with decoding there. However I noticed in the GPU column that it was under load which seemed to indicate it was working away.
 
Hi Chopples,

Thankyou for taking the time to write to me and appreciate your input 🙂.

I play the videos using just the standard windows movie & tv player as I wasn't sure what other players would play atmos and hdr and work with windows and dolby access properly.

I tried looking for what you mentioned in the task manager but couldn't readily identify it and really need to look again and confirm whats happening with decoding there. However I noticed in the GPU column that it was under load which seemed to indicate it was working away.

yes it does mate, low cpu load along with high gpu load suggests it is decoding properly.

Clutching at straws but as you said it happens every 10/15 minutes do you think it could be a power saving feature kicking in on the laptop? Possibly even some kind of throttling? The shutting down of a process which isn’t needed could be enough to cause the stutter which is knocking everything out of sync. You can probably check if it’s power saving by plugging in a mouse and just giving it a wiggle every 5 minutes, then see if it still stutters at the same moment in the movie.

I do still think though, given the cost of the vertex, a dedicated box is the way to go.
 
Andyh4411 - the HDFury Arcana works with Soundbars (and AVR's) which have an eARC Input, most often it is used with the SONOS ARC Soundbar.

The HDMI Audio Output of the Vertex² is used when you have an eARC or ARC enabled TV plus a Soundbar (or AVR) with no eARC Input or one which only supports ARC but does support uncompressed HD audio via its 'regular' HDMI Inputs.

Source > Soundbar > TV - should work as required in your system, as chopples points out though it may be your Source device which is the issue.

Joe
 
Hi everyone,

Apologies for piggybacking this thread, but I think my question is somewhat related.

I've just taken delivery of a SONOS Arc and am already experiencing the widely reported lip syncing issues from a BT youview (rebadged Humax) box on which we mostly watch BT Sport Ultimate in 4K. No such issues when viewing Freesat channels that broadcast in Dolby 5.1 - everything looks good when going directly from the TV tuners into the SONOS Arc. I've experimented with the audio sync settings on the BT youview box, but even when set to 240ms (the maximum available) does not resolve this issue for me.

I have the BT youview box plugged into HDMI1 on my Panasonic TX58DX902B TV. The SONOS Arc is then connected to HDMI2 (ARC). This TV does not have an eARC port, obviously. I'm able to passthrough Dolby 5.1 from the BT youview box via the TV (I know this because the SONOS app tells me it's Dolby 5.1), but not Dolby Atmos (which I expected when I bought the Arc).

I'm just wondering if you think an HDFURY Arcana is going to solve my lip syncing issues from the BT youview box? Im guessing it might also enable me to play Dolby Atmos on the SONOS Arc but I'm less bothered by that; I just want the lip syncing issue to be resolved.

Thanks for taking the time to read my question here.

Steve
 
Installing the Arcana will allow you to connect the YouView box direct to the Arcana and send 4K UHD to the TV plus Atmos to the Soundbar - if you install the Arcana and prefer to keep the YouView connected to the TV the Arcana ought to fix the lip-sync issues.

Your TV may not support Atmos via its HDMI Inputs - which could be the reason for no Atmos when connecting the YouView via the TV.

Joe
 
Hello,

I hope it is okay for a newbie to revive this thread, but I have a question that is similar to the one right at the start.

I’m currently running a Sony STR-DH520 receiver with a traditional 5 speaker set up, operating with a range of games consoles, a Sky Plus box, a Blu-ray, a Firestick and some audio equipment (CD player, minidisc and turntable). My TV is getting on a bit so I am looking at upgrading to 4k and Atmos, probably via a Panasonic TX55JZ1500B. Now, the weird shape of my living room and the inconvenient placement of lots of patio windows means that there wouldn’t be room for the front speakers with this type of TV (currently bookshelf ones on stands that sit beside the smaller TV) and accommodating the centre one could also be difficult. I am therefore looking at a Sonos Arc plus surrounds as a more streamlined set up.

What I would like to do is connect the new TV to the Arc in order to get Atmos from its own apps plus a new UHD Blu-ray and the Firestick (both connected to TV HDMIs) and also still be able to run the Sony Amp through the Arc for the audio devices plus some of my other HDMI inputs that only deliver 5.1. Reading this thread, it seems like an HDFury Arcana would allow me to do this – is that the case? Are there any other shortfalls or issues with this type of set up that I need to think about?

Thanks,

Matt
 
Layout - keep in mind placement of your Speakers (Soundbar + Surrounds) relative to the room shape and your seating will dictate how ‘enveloping’ surround and immersive (Atmos) will be for you.

TV - ensure it has eARC and you connect all of your ‘video’ Source devices direct to the TV and the TV eARC to the SONOS eARC port.

Music sources - integrating the CD, minidisc and TT with the SONOS Arc is tricky, would you consider a stand alone stereo system (+ the Soundbar for TV audio)?

Speakerbar - another option wood be to retain the AVR and place a passive Speakerbar below the TV, looks like a Soundbar but house the Front LCR speaker drivers and is powered by your AVR.

Arcana - likely not required in your system.

Joe
 
Joe - thank you, some food for thought there.

The TV that I'm looking as has eARC so that shouldn't be a problem. I had thought about splitting the TV and hi-fi elements, but I have more HDMI inputs than the TV itself can cope with so was thinking of using the receiver as a switching box for that as well as the audio components. However, the passive speaker idea sounds a possibility so I will look into that.
 

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