Originally Posted by chrisjr:
“unlesss of course the cable was not constructed to ARC spec. ARC uses two connections that were unspecified in the original cable spec. So possible they were not wired properly in a cable not specifically designed to the ARC spec.”
On a more serious note I SUSPECT this to be the case (in which case I stand by my original comment that not all HDMI cables are created equally - an age thing, rather than quality)
However I now think darker forces are at play. I only had a couple of older cables to have and one HDMI 1.4.
Dolby Digital (DD) was passing from the Sky Box via HDMI (I plugged it direct to the processor - but obviously at that point wasn't connected to the TV so couldn't play with the on screen settings). However on reconnecting it to the TV, then using the ARC from TV to processor no DD just stereo. I did swap the cables around but the same effect happened, which proves nothing if one of the older cables can't pass the DD signal via the ARC chain.
I have a (cheap) HDMI 1.4 cable on order, which will be here for the weekend so I can see if it is a cable problem.
Though - hence the darker forces comment - I am becoming mindful that it may be a variance of the whole HDMI spec as applied to the equipment by various manufacturers. I have read reports that Panasonic do not allow pass through of DD information via ARC, whereas Samsung (for example) do on SOME of their TVs.
This is worrying, only in that surely a connection like HDMI should be universal. If not and it is applied in different ways by different manufacturers plays into the hands of the snake oil merchants.
Though I will put my hand up to having some pretty exotic analogue cables. (but I suspect we have to agree to differ here)