Best way to hook up USB hard drive to amp

KC104

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I have 2 setups in lounge and bedroom.

Lounge : Denon AVR 4500 with monitor audio speakers hooked up to LG OLED Bv7 65 inch
Bedroom : Sonos playbar / sub / 1's hooked to LG Oled bv7 OLED 55 inch

I have some high quality - 4k movies on external hard drive. Some have audio built in i.e. dts-x and dolby dig ect. I plug usb drive into usb port on TV.

When playing in bedroom - it seems to work. TV tells me what audio I get and the resolution, and surround sound seems ok.

In lounge, a lot of the time, it plays in stereo or defaults to audio. I use Arc from TV to Amp.

Was wondering what is the best way to hook up a usb drive to a tv / amp, to get the right signal to tv so amp can play true surround sound.

i.e. Plug USB into blueray player and play through that machine
USB through xbox

USB to TV Direct (as I am doing)

A product that I don't have yet, that specialises in hooking USB to TV!!!
 
ARC only supports stereo and Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1.

If you want any of the other formats, you will need to connect a device such as XBox, 4k BD Player, 4K Streamer such as Nvidia Shield, to your AVR and plug the HD into that.
 
thanks for that buddy. I have an Xbox360 and a Sony Blueray player (about 3-4 years old) but using in a different room, so i guess its time to invest in something else to help me out here. For this purpose and this purpose alone (usbto tv with best sound) and money no object - what is the opinon of people of which device will do the best job?
 
hmm - the Nvidia sheild is similar price to an Xbox one S. but less than Xbox one x. Would you say the Shield is better than Xbox one (s or x) for usbplayblack?
 
The PLAYBAR only supports DD5.1 and PCM 2.0.

Have you tried connecting the BDP to the AVR and playing the files on the USB drive to confirm what audio is in the files?

Joe
 
hmm - the Nvidia sheild is similar price to an Xbox one S. but less than Xbox one x. Would you say the Shield is better than Xbox one (s or x) for usbplayblack?

I'm not sure that the XBox will actually output HD audio formats if using its inbuilt media player to play files? The same would be true of most UHD disc player which inordinately only allow you to access such formats if accessed via disc based media. THe XBox One's MKV support is limited and the best you can expect to get via MKV if using the XBox is AC3 Dolby Digital.

You'd ideally need a more dedicated external media player if wanting to play 4K files with the inclusion of HD formatted audio. You'd also need this to be connected directly to the AV receiver.
 
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What about using the USB port on the Denon Avr 4500? I have never tried that, but would that work?
 
What about using the USB port on the Denon Avr 4500? I have never tried that, but would that work?

The port is limited to 2 channel audio. This is the case with all implementations of USB onboard AV receivers. The same is true of their networking and inbuilt media playing capabilities. You are limited to 2 channel audio formats if using such abilities and or their USB ports.


Here's what you'd be limited to via the USB input:
snapshot001.jpg
 
I have both an Xbox One S and an NVidia Shield TV in my office and the Shield is by far the best player. The Xbox can do quite a few things ok, but the Shield just does them all perfectly, very quick and with HD Audio passthrough. The Shield is also pretty powerful and can be a Plex server, so put it in your main room, plug your usb in the back and enjoy. To watch content on your other tv just load Plex client and remotely watch it. If your broadband is good you can also do this on the move outside your house by loading Plex on your phone or tablet.
 
Ok guys. Thank you so much for all that information. I have now purchased the Nvidia Sheild (don't have it yet).

I was wondering if I can run live TV through the shield? Might need a usbTV tuner type device. I would like to know if the picture shown on my LG Oled 4k tv would be better, if I watch live tv through the shield vs just a normal aerial that is plugged into my tv, as i have no virgin or sky.
 
Ok guys. Thank you so much for all that information. I have now purchased the Nvidia Sheild (don't have it yet).

I was wondering if I can run live TV through the shield? Might need a usbTV tuner type device. I would like to know if the picture shown on my LG Oled 4k tv would be better, if I watch live tv through the shield vs just a normal aerial that is plugged into my tv, as i have no virgin or sky.

There's no reason to access TV via the Shield and simply use the TV's own inbuilt tuners.
 
Dante, thanks for that answer. So are you saying the signal will not be better or upscalled in any way.Might it help me with audio? (for live tv, or streamed) compared to ARC from the tv?
 
Dante, thanks for that answer. So are you saying the signal will not be better or upscalled in any way.Might it help me with audio? (for live tv, or streamed) compared to ARC from the tv?


The signal is the same signal and the TV scales video to fit its own panel itself if of a lesser resolution than that panel. There's no benefit to access TV broadcasts via the Shield. THe Shield hasn't access to Freeeview anyway so you'd only be convoluting the process of accessing TV content via it as opposed to accessing it directly via the TV.

You'd have the exact same access to audio via ARC in association with TV broadcasts as you'd get via the Shield. TV broadcasts only use Dolby Digital 2 and 5.1 channel audio or 2 channel PCM.
 

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