Help / advice needed for best setup configuration of my TV and devices

bigshorty45

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Hello All

I'm in need of some help and advice in setting up my TV and all the devices that I want to view through it, to get the optimum picture and sound quality experience. I know this is a lot to ask of you all, but I kind of lost as to utilising all the connections of all my devices to get the best results. I'd ideally like 4K resolution where possible, but I also would like all my devices, or at least as many as is possible, to output 5.1 surround sound. I'll list my devices below and any details that may be relevant or of importance.

Toshiba 65U2963DB 4K HDR TV (3 x HDMI (1 x ARC), optical audio out)
Panasonic SA-BTT270 Blu Ray 5.1 surround home cinema system (1 x HDMI ARC, optical audio out)
Sky Q 1TB Box
Amazon Fire TV Box
Xbox One X
Playstation 3

Obviously I only have 3 HDMI ports on the TV so I am going to have to use an HDMI switch to be able to output all my devices through the TV.

I would be extremely grateful if any of you could spare the time and give me any ideas on how to set all of this up so I can achieve 4K resolution on all compatible devices, and have 5.1 surround sound. Things in particular I'm interested in is whether the ARC functions would benefit with surround sound, or would digital optical audio be a possible solution, also any recommendations for a HDMI switch that would help with this setup.

I know it's a lot to ask, but I would really appreciate any help and advice on this, and I'd gladly provide any other info if needed. Many thanks in advance.
 
Hello All

I'm in need of some help and advice in setting up my TV and all the devices that I want to view through it, to get the optimum picture and sound quality experience. I know this is a lot to ask of you all, but I kind of lost as to utilising all the connections of all my devices to get the best results. I'd ideally like 4K resolution where possible, but I also would like all my devices, or at least as many as is possible, to output 5.1 surround sound. I'll list my devices below and any details that may be relevant or of importance.

Toshiba 65U2963DB 4K HDR TV (3 x HDMI (1 x ARC), optical audio out)
Panasonic SA-BTT270 Blu Ray 5.1 surround home cinema system (1 x HDMI ARC, optical audio out)
Sky Q 1TB Box
Amazon Fire TV Box
Xbox One X
Playstation 3

Obviously I only have 3 HDMI ports on the TV so I am going to have to use an HDMI switch to be able to output all my devices through the TV.

I would be extremely grateful if any of you could spare the time and give me any ideas on how to set all of this up so I can achieve 4K resolution on all compatible devices, and have 5.1 surround sound. Things in particular I'm interested in is whether the ARC functions would benefit with surround sound, or would digital optical audio be a possible solution, also any recommendations for a HDMI switch that would help with this setup.

I know it's a lot to ask, but I would really appreciate any help and advice on this, and I'd gladly provide any other info if needed. Many thanks in advance.

Hi. Im not familiar with this TV or home cinema system but my thoughts would be:
You say the Panasonic has optical audio out, but surely that is an optical audio in?
With the limited connectors on the sound system, it seems you will have to connect all the devices to the TV, including via an hdmi switch as you rightly say, and then just connect the TV to the Panasonic via hdmi arc.
Connecting all the devices to the TV directly will ensure you get 4k and hdr where possible. The Arc connection will give you perfectly decent sound as I don't think you have any devices that would pass things like full fat Dolby atmos anyway, but ARC is capable of passing these as compressed packets anyway.
I guess you could connect your sky box to the TV via hdmi for picture, and then optical audio to the sound system, but I'm not sure you'd really get much benefit.
Hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction.
Cheers
 
Hi. Im not familiar with this TV or home cinema system but my thoughts would be:
You say the Panasonic has optical audio out, but surely that is an optical audio in?
With the limited connectors on the sound system, it seems you will have to connect all the devices to the TV, including via an hdmi switch as you rightly say, and then just connect the TV to the Panasonic via hdmi arc.
Connecting all the devices to the TV directly will ensure you get 4k and hdr where possible. The Arc connection will give you perfectly decent sound as I don't think you have any devices that would pass things like full fat Dolby atmos anyway, but ARC is capable of passing these as compressed packets anyway.
I guess you could connect your sky box to the TV via hdmi for picture, and then optical audio to the sound system, but I'm not sure you'd really get much benefit.
Hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction.
Cheers

Many thanks for taking the time to reply, much appreciated.

Yes you are correct, the Panasonic optical audio is in fact in and not out.

Just to clarify from your comments, this should be the best approach with my setup:

TV HDMI ARC port -> Blu Ray Surround System ARC port
All other devices -> 4K HDMI Switch -> Spare TV HDMI port

With this in mind, would sourcing an HDMI switch that supports ARC be a better option to look into. I'm also assuming that connecting the TV HDMI ARC to the Panasonic Blu Ray surround system HDMI ARC will give the best possible sound quality for all devices? My TV has audio options for PCM, compressed and passthrough, do you know which one I should select?
 
Many thanks for taking the time to reply, much appreciated.

Yes you are correct, the Panasonic optical audio is in fact in and not out.

Just to clarify from your comments, this should be the best approach with my setup:

TV HDMI ARC port -> Blu Ray Surround System ARC port
All other devices -> 4K HDMI Switch -> Spare TV HDMI port

With this in mind, would sourcing an HDMI switch that supports ARC be a better option to look into. I'm also assuming that connecting the TV HDMI ARC to the Panasonic Blu Ray surround system HDMI ARC will give the best possible sound quality for all devices? My TV has audio options for PCM, compressed and passthrough, do you know which one I should select?

Yes I'd agree with your setup suggestion. I don't see that you would need an hdmi switch with arc support as that will be covered by the direct arc ports on the TV and sound system. The switch will simply allow you to connect more devices than you could directly to the TV.
As far as best sound is concerned, if your sound system had one or more hdmi inputs and 4k passthru, you could connect devices to the Panasonic and let it pass just the video to the TV. But it doesn't appear to have any of that so I would just use hdmi arc.
I'm no expert but I would say you want to set the audio to pcm unless there is an option for bitstream.
If you have audio issues you may need to ensure that you have certified high speed hdmi cables but these are inexpensive.
That should all be fine. To improve things noticeably, I reckon you would need to look at upgrading both the TV and the sound system, but what you have should be very nice...
 
Yes I'd agree with your setup suggestion. I don't see that you would need an hdmi switch with arc support as that will be covered by the direct arc ports on the TV and sound system. The switch will simply allow you to connect more devices than you could directly to the TV.
As far as best sound is concerned, if your sound system had one or more hdmi inputs and 4k passthru, you could connect devices to the Panasonic and let it pass just the video to the TV. But it doesn't appear to have any of that so I would just use hdmi arc.
I'm no expert but I would say you want to set the audio to pcm unless there is an option for bitstream.
If you have audio issues you may need to ensure that you have certified high speed hdmi cables but these are inexpensive.
That should all be fine. To improve things noticeably, I reckon you would need to look at upgrading both the TV and the sound system, but what you have should be very nice...

Awesome stuff, thank you so much for your help in explaining best possible setup, I really do appreciate it.

I've just added a new thread with an issue regarding TV menu settings I'm having with my current setup, but thought I'd run it by you as well, if that's ok?

The issue I have is that with the TV powered on, but all connected devices powered off, I am able to browse and select the TV menu settings using the TV remote control. When I try to bring up the TV menu settings using the TV remote, with any of my connected devices powered on, the TV menu settings will not show at all. Once I power off the connected device(s) I am able to browse the TV menu settings again with the remote (I hope that description makes sense).

If you have any ideas why this is happening I'd be grateful to hear them, as it's proving to be quite a pain as I can't adjust any settings when using a device. Thread link is:


Many thanks again.
 
Awesome stuff, thank you so much for your help in explaining best possible setup, I really do appreciate it.

I've just added a new thread with an issue regarding TV menu settings I'm having with my current setup, but thought I'd run it by you as well, if that's ok?

The issue I have is that with the TV powered on, but all connected devices powered off, I am able to browse and select the TV menu settings using the TV remote control. When I try to bring up the TV menu settings using the TV remote, with any of my connected devices powered on, the TV menu settings will not show at all. Once I power off the connected device(s) I am able to browse the TV menu settings again with the remote (I hope that description makes sense).

If you have any ideas why this is happening I'd be grateful to hear them, as it's proving to be quite a pain as I can't adjust any settings when using a device. Thread link is:


Many thanks again.

So if you have the TV on and all devices off, then you turn a device on, does the signal auto switch to that device?
If so, maybe its an hdmi priority setting?
Also, if you have all the devices on, can you just use the remote's AV button to select TV input, and then see the TV Menus without having to switch the connected devices off?
Maybe try turning hdmi priority or CEC off...
 
In answer to your questions, yes the signal does auto switch to the device that is on. Also, I can use the TV remotes source selection option fine, it's just the picture, audio and other settings banner that doesn't pop up. I actually had someone else suggest turning CEC off, however when I do I loose all audio and the option to select TV or amplifier audio output is greyed out.
It's very strange indeed, but I have had it suggested to me that if I can I should bypass the HDMI ARC port altogether. With the setup suggestion you advised earlier this will be possible, so I'll give that a go, but I won't do that until tomorrow.
Thanks for all your help, I am grateful, and I'll report back my findings tomorrow. If you have any eureka moments in the meantime concerning this I'd be really grateful to hear them.
 
In answer to your questions, yes the signal does auto switch to the device that is on. Also, I can use the TV remotes source selection option fine, it's just the picture, audio and other settings banner that doesn't pop up. I actually had someone else suggest turning CEC off, however when I do I loose all audio and the option to select TV or amplifier audio output is greyed out.
It's very strange indeed, but I have had it suggested to me that if I can I should bypass the HDMI ARC port altogether. With the setup suggestion you advised earlier this will be possible, so I'll give that a go, but I won't do that until tomorrow.
Thanks for all your help, I am grateful, and I'll report back my findings tomorrow. If you have any eureka moments in the meantime concerning this I'd be really grateful to hear them.

Hi
A quick update for you. It's not great news to be honest, I've tried every possible configuration this morning, messed around with all settings on both the TV and surround system and I cannot work out what the best setup is, and no matter what setup I try, whenever I disable CEC I loose all sound, either way it has beaten me. I'm by no means a Technophobe, and can usually figure most things out, but this has got me really stumped.
I think I'll leave it for a while and see if a bit of research can help me figure out what I should be doing. Many thanks for your help anyway, it has been much appreciated.
 
So if you have the TV on and all devices off, then you turn a device on, does the signal auto switch to that device?
If so, maybe its an hdmi priority setting?
Also, if you have all the devices on, can you just use the remote's AV button to select TV input, and then see the TV Menus without having to switch the connected devices off?
Maybe try turning hdmi priority or CEC off...

At last I think I have sorted the issue. On my TV I have options for each HDMI source, and the options available are Regular, Enhanced, Custom and Disabled. HDMI 1, which is assigned to my Sky Q box was on Regular, HDMI 2 ARC which is connected to the HDMI ARC on my Blu Ray surround system was set to Enhanced, and HDMI 3 which is connected to my HDMI switch was set to Regular. I changed the HDMI 2 ARC setting to Regular and I am now able to bring up the TV menu settings whilst using any powered on devices.
It's always the simplest of things!! Many thanks for all the time and help you have offered, it is much appreciated.
 

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