Philips OLED806 sound is buggy combined with Sonos ARC

Someone did create a nice YouTube video where you can see the eARC and the Dolby Vision issue in action.
 
@Pwainx: Thank you for sharing this video that demonstrates the issues nicely

My setup:
  • Philips 65PML9506 (Mini-LED) TV
  • Apple TV 4k (2021)
  • Sonos ARC with 2 Ones and a Sub
Well, and I experience the exact same eARC issues and as soon as I turn "Match Frame Rate" on, I also get the same Dolby Vision stuttering. In addition to that, the Mini-LED models have some local dimming issues.

All things considered, it seems like as if everything that is new is currently not really working as intended (with the Dolby Vision issues on top) and I find it hard to believe that Philips never noticed these problems prior to launching their new 2021 models.
 
I haven’t seen this mentioned yet, but this also seems to affect the built in apps for me.

Unpacked my 9506 and connected it to the Samsung Q950T sound bar, and ATV4K (old version) yesterday. Also made sure to update to latest FW; TPM211EA_R.001.001.233.012.

Built-in (or simply Android) apps generated good sound and any external device worked great.

This morning no sound at all from the built in ambilight demo app or Netflix. Switching to ATV gave same result. Changing to Multichannel and back to Bypass had no effect, only setting eARC to off and back to Auto, while playing audio, had any effect for me. Simply toggling while no audio was playing did not seem to have any effect, but this could of course be pure chance, maybe it simply worked the third time (or which turn in order) I attempted it.
 
Someone did create a nice YouTube video where you can see the eARC and the Dolby Vision issue in action.

Hi Pwainix - want to say firstly, thanks for all your efforts on this forum and doing so much work getting people aware of the issues. So this morning i woke up and switched on tv - no sound coming out of my sound-bar any more...

I go to investigate and when turn on the sound bar I now get message:

"...Cannot switch to audio system. TV speakers still active..."

no amount of resetting tv, turning on-off etc works.

Weirdly, I can still activate eARC with no issues (and soundbar gets the eARC signal) but again because the TV doesn't push any audio via HDMI now, it doesn't work via soundbar anymore - only TV speakers...

I'm done with the TV now - just not worth the hassle for the money spent on it...

It looks great, but if the audio is this buggy its just pointless...spending this much on a TV and the manufacture just does not even acknowledge this thread or say anything, just tired of putting up with corporate BS like this...we shouldn't have to...
 
I'm done with the TV now - just not worth the hassle for the money spent on it...

It looks great, but if the audio is this buggy its just pointless...spending this much on a TV and the manufacture just does not even acknowledge this thread or say anything, just tired of putting up with corporate BS like this...we shouldn't have to...
I know exactly how you're feeling. This 2021 Philips line up will give you enormous frustrations. But the worst thing is that the manufacturer does not give any answer or the feeling that the issues will be solved.

Mine only hope is the upcoming firmware (that actually was promised by a local Philips customer service two weeks ago). If that update does not fix the eARC issues then we can say that this TV will be doomed forever to have audio issues. It's already taken more then an half year.
 
@

I know exactly how your feeling. This 2021 Philips line up will give you enormous frustrations. But the worst thing is that the manufacturer does not give any answer or the feeling that the issues will be solved.

Mine only hope is the upcoming firmware (that actually was promised by a local Philips customer service two weeks ago). If that update does not fix the eARC issues then we can say that this TV will be doomed forever to have audio issues. It's already taken more then an half year.
I hope so for everyones sake who have been patient with Philips. If an update does not come out by Dec 20th at latest, I just don't see it happening this year with xmas holidays coming up.

And couldn't agree more - i am not so bothered that that TV has issues (these things happen), its more Philips blatant lack of acknowledgement of the issue and at least reassuring us that they are looking into it...some transparency would be nice.

I may as well make the most of my guarantee now and see if i can get a new TV before year end...

PS forgot to add- i also started having issues with normal ARC before the TV stopped sending audio to sound bar - no joke :(

One evening - the audio just switched to TV Speakers for no reason...had to switch back on manually...I then also encountered the audio cutting out on ARC at one point after this issue as well...
 
Additional testing today seems to indicate that the 9506 does not really bypass/passthrough the sound unmodified. No matter how I tried the ATV4K wouldn't output any sound to the rear speakers of my soundbar, which it does without any issues whenever it's plugged directly to the bar.

The TV presents the Atmos overlay nicely, but the soundbar is still in denial that it's Atmos it receives.

So, just opened up my first case with the support for this TV. One could've hoped that would've taken more than 24 hours...
 
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I do not have the TV referred to in the subject but i do have a Philips system with similar issues.
I have 58PUS8536 and TAB8505 soundbar. Both are branded as "The one" and are practically made for each other. Still i have lots of audio issues.

I use eARC on auto and have EasyLink on. I have a new high quality HDMI cable with ethernet. I swtich between multichannel and multichannel bypass since only one of them works in many cases.

ISSUES:

1. Sometimes the sound disapperas and it is all random. It can be when i switch channel or app and sometimes when do nothing.

2. Sound can start to stutter on random and on TV-start up

3. The CEC seems buggy. Sometimes the sound bar goes from 5 to mute instead of 5 to 4 when i lower the volume.

4. Sometimes the soundbar wont wake up from standby when the TV does leading to it using the TV-speakers instead, so again something CEC-related?

5. I can not turn off auto standby. This is not deal breaking but annoying. Why? When i play playstation i use the 3d pulse headset and since sound goes trough the headset instead of the soundbar it turns itself of after 15 minutes leading to a few seconds och black and flickering screen before soundbar starts it self up again, just to repeat this again after 15 minutes. RIP Dark souls.

There are problably more issues but these one are the ones i remember right now.
It must be a software issue. That is my take.
 
Additional testing today seems to indicate that the 9506 does not really bypass/passthrough the sound unmodified. No matter how I tried the ATV4K wouldn't output any sound to the rear speakers of my soundbar, which it does without any issues whenever it's plugged directly to the bar.
Following myself up; it seems the ”losing eARC” issue causes the Q950T to be half identified on some toggles between Off to Auto mode, leading to the issues I encountered.

Upon successful re-initialization, which roughly happens 1 out of 5 attempts, even the Android apps work and produce sound from all expected speakers… So, hopefully if they manage to sort the issue of losing eARC the rest will be sorted.

I did notice the ATV4K did not detect the device on the other end as Atmos capable though, so not sure if toggle of eARC is needed again when switching between sources.
 
Hi, i watched this thread for weeks, because i have the same problems with my 2021 65PML9636. First i tried to solve the problems on my own, but the thread showed me that it is a bunch of common and known problems placed in the firmware. So i opened a ticket at the philips support to help to solve the problems and during the investigation i send them a lot of logs…

Oh, i forgot to describe my setup. Philips 65 Inch 9636, Sonos ARC 5.1 Setup with Sub. And it‘s no joke - with the actual firmware i have all the problems desribed here in the posts. No Sound on switching between inputs, Random Sound loss, wrong 5.1 channels on Multichannel (Bypass), Apple TV Sync, etc., etc.

All the problems where logged and send to the Philips Support and i also added a link to this forum thread in the ticket to prove that i‘m not alone with the problems.

Long things short. Today the customer support send me the info that all the problems will be solved with the next firmware update, but without an release date! So I hope the best and will test it as soon as it‚ release….

Kind regards RamBumBada!

———————————————————————————————————————-

Here is the original reply of Philips, but sorry its in german.

<…>

Sehr geehrter Herr xxxx,

vielen Dank, dass Sie sich an Philips-Kundendienst gewendet haben. Ihre Fallnummer lautet: xxxxxxxx

Ihr Anliegen wird mit der kommenden Software behoben.

Für weitere Fragen oder Fehlerbehebungen können Sie selbstverständlich sich nochmal per E-Mail oder telefonisch an uns wenden.


<…>

———————————————————————————————————————-
 
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Long things short. Today the customer support send me the info that all the problems will be solved with the next firmware update, but without an release date! So I hope the best and will test it as soon as it‚ release….

Great news! Let’s hope they are right about this because in the past months I had the feeling that the local customer service didn’t had any clue what the update team was doing.

So now the big question is WHEN is this update coming. Because some of us are already waiting an half year (!!) to get decent sound out of this television. That is certainly not customer friendly.
 
Hi Pwainx,

your right, the customer support of Philips is really a mess and not userfriendly. The first Mails i received seemed to be writtten by a bot and the content had no context with my described problems. After my replied a ‚little bit‘ angry, so supporter contacted me and ask me for some logs. After the last log i heard nothing for more than 2 weeks, so i contacted him again and received a day later the mail above.

Yes - the support has a lot of improvement!!!!!!
 
Philips support sucks. That aint News. And when they fix stuff i takes half a year like with the dolby vision 4k issue with disney+ last year. It is however clear that they need to focus och audio issues next patch.
 
It certainly explains why the firmware update takes longer, must be they are struggling to fix this.
 
It certainly explains why the firmware update takes longer, must be they are struggling to fix this.
No it means that they didn't do a properly test BEFORE shipping this 2021 line up televisions. The audio eARC issues are there from the beginning and the same goes up for the Dolby Vision frame matching problem.

If they were struggling with this and really find that those television should be available in the store shelves then they better add a notice that eARC is coming later available as a software update.

Now some people are buying these televisions for the eARC support, which is coming more and more important in certain setups. After unboxing and installing the television those new buyers will immediately notice that it ain't working. And it is still a shame not one reviewer (even the reviewer at AVforums) will mention all the problems. It seems no one dare to mention this because they are afraid being put on the black list of Philips.
 
The new firmware 233.022 is available today. The changelog is still not available but I can tell you that the audio is still a mess! Especially when you use the bypass function. The DD5.1 bug is still there!! 🤬 How could they NOT solve this issue??!!
 
The new firmware 233.022 is available today. The changelog is still not available but I can tell you that the audio is still a mess! Especially when you use the bypass function. The DD5.1 bug is still there!! 🤬 How could they NOT solve this issue??!!
Let’s hope they’ve got a two tiered development/integration-testing cycle, so we’re just one step behind. If this is really where things were supposed to be fixed, it’s a real setback.
 
The new firmware 233.022 is available today. The changelog is still not available but I can tell you that the audio is still a mess! Especially when you use the bypass function. The DD5.1 bug is still there!! 🤬 How could they NOT solve this issue??!!

The only thing that seems to be a little bit better now is the Dolby Vision stutter in conjunction with the ATV "match frame rate" option. Some sources on Netflix appear to work fine now, others do stutter like before.

eARC + multichannel bypass + Sonos Arc still messes up audio channels.
 
I feel for you and I hope that your problems will be solved. However, I have quite a different story.

Summary: No problems at all!

Hardware:
Philips 65OLED806/12
Sonos Arc + 2 * One SL (back) + Sonos Sub
Apple TV 4K (2. generation)

Dolby Vision: All OK. No Stuttering. Perfect picture!
Dolby Atmos: All OK. All sound channels coming from the correct speakers. Used the same test-software as above video. Sonos app reports Dolby Atmos.

Using eARC, all the highest setting and the latest software. Also new HDMI 2.1 cables.

The result is stunning!
 
I feel for you and I hope that your problems will be solved. However, I have quite a different story.

Summary: No problems at all!

Hardware:
Philips 65OLED806/12
Sonos Arc + 2 * One SL (back) + Sonos Sub
Apple TV 4K (2. generation)

Dolby Vision: All OK. No Stuttering. Perfect picture!
Dolby Atmos: All OK. All sound channels coming from the correct speakers. Used the same test-software as above video. Sonos app reports Dolby Atmos.

Using eARC, all the highest setting and the latest software. Also new HDMI 2.1 cables.

The result is stunning!
In my setup, I tried the eARC just moments ago with the new firmware, and tested via the Netflix app on the Philips itself and used the 'Test patterns' test, and it did go through all the channels and stuff and everything was spot on.
And also tested Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos content on that same Netflix, the 'Drive and Survive series' and also then Atmos worked like a charm on my Pioneer SC-LX704 receiver, so no SONOS here ;-)

I didn 't test my Apple TV 4k(1st gen) yet.
 
I feel for you and I hope that your problems will be solved. However, I have quite a different story.

Summary: No problems at all!

Hardware:
Philips 65OLED806/12
Sonos Arc + 2 * One SL (back) + Sonos Sub
Apple TV 4K (2. generation)

Dolby Vision: All OK. No Stuttering. Perfect picture!
Dolby Atmos: All OK. All sound channels coming from the correct speakers. Used the same test-software as above video. Sonos app reports Dolby Atmos.

Using eARC, all the highest setting and the latest software. Also new HDMI 2.1 cables.

The result is stunning!
Agreed @Spaghettii my setup doesn’t suffer as the other folks above…
… as per my signature I have a 936, but don’t use/need the B&W Soundbar as it would get in the way of my centre speaker.

eARC on auto works for me to get sound from the TV to the AVC and DV video is fine, though I typically use external boxes for Netflix etc.

The new software today, … -001.001.233.022 gave me a bit of a scare…
… it took quite a few minutes after downloading, seemed to boot twice and sat there with a black screen with just the power LED flashing - just waited until it came back to terrestrial TV. When I changed channels I noticed the channel ‘logos’ were greyed out, however, after a minute or so when I changed channels again the ‘logos’ were back.

The most unnerving brief issue was the loss of Home screen Android TV, it came up a blank screen. This was only recovered by a reboot rather than pull the mains plug…
… use All settings, Android Settings, Device Preferences, Reboot < which is at the bottom of the list.
 
For those who think they are not having the eARC issues make sure that eARC is in auto and that you set Multichannel - Bypass as your digital output. This is important to get trueHD audio, otherwise all your audio will be compressed by the TV.

Also make sure that you test this with a device that really make use of the eARC. The Apple TV is such a device and also some of the better Blu-ray players. Devices that just use ARC don’t have this problem because it simply can not handle Dolby Atmos trueHD.

I’ve done some serious testing with many external devices and different brands of home cinemas. I’m 100% sure that everyone in this setup will be frustrated by the eARC issues. Loss of audio, audio stuttering, DD5.1 bug, and so on.

But if you set the digital output to Multichannel then Dolby Atmos and DD5.1 will work. Although it will always be compressed audio. There also may exists for some external devices some lip sync issues then.
 
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