Hi,

I have royally screwed the cabling to my TV and surround.

Could you please help me with a configuration using only HDMI (and optical) with the following kit:

Samsung UE40ES6300 Smart TV (3 HDMI)
Samsung HT-E5550 Blu-Ray/Surround (2 HDM
PS3
Sky+ HD (optical from TV to Sky in place)
4-way+1 out HDMI switch box

At the moment, I have nothing.

Thanks in advance.

Neil

Why have you got an optical lead from the Sky box to the TV? I would be very surprised indeed if the TV had any Optical inputs and I am almost certain the Sky box doesn't. So you've got two outputs joined together which isn't going to do very much at all.

OK. So do this.

Surround HDMI OUT to TV HDMI 2
Sky HDMI to TV HDMI 1
Sky Optical OUT to Surround Optical IN
PS3 HDMI OUT to Surround HDMI 1 IN

Not sure what you want the HDMI switch box to do but with the kit you've listed it is pretty much redundant.

If you hook it up like this then the Surround system should get audio from the TV back down the HDMI using the Audio Return Channel (ARC). From looking at the manual on-line the TV seems to have ARC on HDMI 2. But you would need to check that. It may also be necessary to dive into the menus of the TV and surround system to configure ARC.

There is no point connecting the Sky box via HDMI to the surround system. It only does stereo over HDMI, to get surround sound from those channels broadcasting it you have to use the optical connection.

The PS3 however should send surround sound over HDMI so that can be connected to the surround system.

Makes it a tad more complicated than it needs to be because of Sky. You would need to select HDMI 1 on the telly to see the pictures and OPTICAL on the surround to make the noise.

Selecting HDMI 2 on the telly allows you to watch the Blu-Ray in the surround system or the PS3 depending on what you select on the surround system. If Sky did surround over HDMI then you could plug that into the surround system, leave the telly on HDMI 2 and use the surround system alone to select what you watch and listen to.

Thanks for that.

I told a while lie about the optical. It's going from surround to Sky.

I'll try those connections.

The way I've 'pseudo' restored the connections means I have no sound from the smart hub apps at the moment, for example BBC iPlayer.

The switch box was for when I had my old PC connected via HDMI before I got the Mac, which itself only has one Thunderbolt connection (which is occupied by my external hard disk).

I'll let you know how I get on.

N.

As I said you need to check which if any of the HDMI sockets on the TV supports ARC. The manual available from the Samsung website suggests it is HDMI 2. If any one has ARC written next to it then use that for the connection to the surround system.

You may also then have to configure both the TV and surround system to get ARC working. If It does work then the audio from the TV should be fed back down the ARC channel on the HDMI lead to the surround system. So that should take care of the Smart features on the telly and Freeview if you use that at all.

Another thought occurs. It is possible that you may need a new HDMI cable to be fully compatible with ARC. Something like this would do

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics.../dp/B003L1ZYYM

On the other hand if you've had your brain removed...

http://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/p...th-ethernet-2m

I have just 're-wired' and with a bit of ps3 menu tweaking, I get sound from all sources.

Thankyou so much for your help.

N.

I've noticed that since the 're-wiring', the HT-E5550 powers down after a timeout period after the TV has been put into standby. It never used to do this.

Any ideas?

N.

It could be HDMI Control, though different manufacturers call it different names. This allows various devices to talk to each other and for one device to control another. All very clever but can be a royal pain in the neck sometimes.

For example if I enable it on my system I cannot play a CD in my Blu-Ray player without leaving the TV turned on! If I put a disk in the Blu-Ray it wakes up the TV. But I don't need the TV on to play a CD so I turn the TV off. Which turns the Blu-Ray off! So I turn the Blu-Ray back on which turns the TV back on. And so on and so on. So I just turn it all off and then I have control of the technology not the other way round

Another case where an activity-based universal remote has the beating of CEC.

Anynet+ (HDMI-CFC) on the TV is set to on. However, auto turn off is set to No.

N.

And SCART beats them all

(apart for the obvious lack of HD of course )

Try turning AnyNet+ OFF and see what happens, if that doesn't cure it, check for settings on the amp.

That would only affect the TV. You need to check if there is a similar setting on the Home Theatre system. I would suspect that it too has an Auto Turn off setting that you may want to try turning off.

If it's not that then chuck it in the bin and get yourself a proper system

The auto-turn off would, but it 'may' be sending a signal to the amplifier (via CEC) telling it that the TV has been turned off, and causing that to shut down as well.

I've recently been playing with my Raspberry Pi on a Sony TV, and when you shut down the Pi it turns the TV off first - so presumably the Pi does CEC?.

Can that control the dimmer lights in my conservatory? No, I thought not.

I would have thought that CEC would tell the home theatre to turn off at the same time as the TV. From what was described it sounds like the home theatre waits a while before turning off.

Certainly my TV and Blu-Ray turn each other on and off instantly when I have CEC enabled.

Could be like the "Follow Me" feature with car lights to allow the user time to over to the home theatre system to put a CD in before deciding that it is no longer needed after all?

You can never tell with CEC, it does some weird things!

I turned Anynet+ off (on the TV) and it killed the sound, as it turned off the 'Control AV device via Anynet+'.

N.

Could also be that the TV does not drop the HDMI connection immediately it goes into standby?

Yep - weird things

I seem to recall reading a couple of Samsung manuals on line and I got the impression Anynet and Audio Return Channel are linked in some way. So if you are using Audio Return Channel (ARC) on the HDMI for TV sound via the home theatre then that might explain the lack of noise.

I would look for an auto turn off setting on the home theatre and try that instead and leave Anynet turned on.

I looked for auto turn off on the HT-E5550 a while back and there is no such option.

I re-connected my system according to your original reply to the topic, so yes, I use ARC.

N.

In that case I suspect there is not a lot you can do. It is probably a case of some techie bod at Samsung being incapable of conceiving that anyone would want to use a home cinema system with the TV turned off so just designed it to turn off when you turn the telly off with no option to change it.

Bit like my Blu-Ray player assuming that if I put a disk in the drive it must have video so I must want the TV on. Even though it's an audio CD and there are no pictures!

Sometimes the technology tries to be too clever and fails miserably.

Third time now - weird!

CEC is a nice idea, but it always seems to either not do what you do want, or to do things you don't want.