Upgrading to 4K TV without upgrading HDMI 1.4a receiver

Oli

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Apologies in advance if this isn't the right forum for this question!

I've currently got a lovely Panasonic VT65 panel and everything hooked up via an Anthem MRX300 and a 7.1 speaker setup

I'm very much happy with the panel itself, but I'm able to get an extremely good deal on a Sony A1 4K OLED TV which is making me think about a switch. The problem is that the Anthem predates HDMI 2.0 spec so will not be compatible with the video signal from the TV, so I can't just feed all my sources (PS4 pro, sky, xbox etc.) into it and expect a 4K HDR signal. I don't want to upgrade the Anthem right now as the only real route that would allow me to keep the excellent room correction & 7.1 would be to go up to a 720, which would make the upgrade massively expensive

Is it possible to solve this problem with some kind of splitter/switch, so the Anthem still processes the audio signal?
 
TVs don't output video so there's no issue with the TV being incompatable with any AV receiver. THe issue associated with having an older receiver is associated with not being able to passthrough 4K UHD video accessed from sources connected to the receiver. There are ways around this that allow you to still use some UHD sources alongside older receivers.

Most UHD disc players include 2 HDMI outputs so that you can connect one directly to an UHD HDCP 2.2 compliant UHD display while using the other output to still convey HD audio to the non compliant receiver via HDMI. Not all UHD source devices have more than one HDMI output though.

If dealing with a SKY or BT UHD compliant STB then you can connect them directly to the TV via HDMI and passthrough the SD audio signal. Such services do not use the HD audio formats that can only otherwise be conveyed via HDMI. The audio would be sent to the receiver via either HDMI ARC or even via an optical connection from the TV to the receiver.

For UHD sources that lack dual HDMI outputs and if wanting access to HD audio formats such as DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD or multichannel PCM then you can use something like this:
AVR KEY
 
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You could connect everything to the TV, and then pass the audio out of the TV via it's optical audio output, into the amp. Or, you could connect the source to the TV for video, and then a second cable from the source to the amp for audio.

The downside of this is that optical audio does not carry HD audio or multi channel PCM. You would still get 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS and stereo PCM.

If you use a source that has dual HDMI outputs such as a UHD player or PC, you could then use one HDMI output for 4k video to the TV and one for HD audio to the amp. There is also an HDMI audio extractor newly available that can take one HDMI input and turn it into dual HDMI outputs, one for video and one for HD audio to an older AVR, it is approx £150.
 
Thanks both - some interesting thoughts

My setup is fairly console-centric. At the moment I don't have a UHD sky box so for now the 4K content will come from a PS4 Pro for Netflix/Games. Perhaps I should just plug an AVR key in to the PS4 pro to split out the multichannel PCM to the Anthem and then i'm sorted for now - If I ever get a 4K disc player in the future I can always cross that bridge when I come to it :)
 
Thanks both - some interesting thoughts

My setup is fairly console-centric. At the moment I don't have a UHD sky box so for now the 4K content will come from a PS4 Pro for Netflix/Games. Perhaps I should just plug an AVR key in to the PS4 pro to split out the multichannel PCM to the Anthem and then i'm sorted for now - If I ever get a 4K disc player in the future I can always cross that bridge when I come to it :)
Yep, that should work. I think most, maybe all, 4k disc players have the dual HDMI outputs for the exact purpose of not having to upgrade the AVR.
 
Getting rid of a Panny VT65.:eek:

Nooooooo......:thumbsdow
 
I have just bought a Samsung Q7F with the free Samsung Blueray HD and I am having terrible problems with sound.

My set-up consists of a Pioneer AV amp and a 5.1 speaker set-up (B&W), the Samsung TV and Blue Ray. The blue ray connects to the Samsung TV box via HMDI the Samsung TV box connects to the amp via optical.

I have set the DVD/Blue Ray to bitstream and I have set the Samsung box to Bitstream and if I play a Dolby digital disk I get DD. If I watch Netflix I get Dolby digital if it is encoded that way. However if I try to play a DTS disc I get Pro-Logics unless I change the settings on the Samsung TV box from bitstream to DTS, then I get DTS. However if I do this and then use a DD source I will get pro-logic, unless I change the box back to either bitstream or Dolby Digital.

I don't understand why this is happening because the idea of bitstream is to pass everything in its original form straight to the amplifier to decode. Indeed if I move the optical cable from the Samsung TV box and plug it into the DVD/Blueray the amplifier auto-detects the source and decodes it correctly, whatever the codec.

Before I bought the Samung I used to feed freesat, freeview and DVD/Blueray directly into the AMP and then let the amp control the picture source to the TV. Interestingly the amp use to detect Dolby Digital Plus when playing Netflix which I assume is a better codec than standard Dolby digital.

This concerns me because it looks to me as though Samsung is taking source audio no matter where it is from, Blueray/Netflix etc and re-encoding it to basic Dolby Digital and it is not passing on bitstream and it can't transcode DTS to Dobly digital so it falls over with DTS and transcodes it to Pro-logic.

Am I missing something, it seems a real shame that the disks are encoded with really high quality sound only for Samsung to screw it up. Has anyone managed to get Dolby Digital Plus from Netflix?

I can run an optical cable from the Blue ray to the amp as well as from the Samsung TV Box but that means changing source on the amp if I play a disc and that is something I am trying to avoid.

I have tried connecting an HDMI cable to HDMI2 on the Samsung box to HDMI1 in the Pioneer and set the Pioneer to (ARC - audio return channel) but the Samsung does not see this and so it does not seem to pass any audio down the HDMI cable.
 

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