Hi, wonder if anyone can help, I currently have a 1080p Samsung TV and 1080p Samsung Blu-ray surround sound, it is an older model that doesnt support hdmi-arc, but does have 2 hdmi inputs, this is great at the moment because it means that i can send 1080p content to my TV and get HD audio from the surround sound, however I am soon going to be purchasing a 4k TV which means that if I was to aquire some 4k content or even play 4k Netflix content from my XB1S, I wont get surround sound (would have to wire direct to TV), what I am looking for is a device that can split HDMI into HDMI (video and audio to TV), and then a second HDMI sending purely audio, which I could send to the HDMI input on the receiver, I know that Samsungs latest 4k blu-ray player does just this, 1 hdmi out for video+audio and 1 hdmi dedicated to audio only for older receivers.
I know that I can get an hdmi-arc device that splits out the audio to optical which would work, but i would lose HD audio.
Any ideas.
Usually Audio-Video Receivers do exactly this.
They have a number of HDMI inputs and one HDMI output.
All signalources are connected to the AVR
the TV gets its signal from the AVR
source selection is done by the AVR
the AVR splits out the audio information from the HDMI port and decodes it accordingly and then sends it to its speakers.
There are a number of ‘HDMI Splitters’ and ‘HDMI audio extractors’ available which enable you to to do this if you don’t have an AVR.
Although: how do you get high resolution surround audio decoded when not with an AVR?
@OttoKerner said:
Usually Audio-Video Receivers do exactly this.
They have a number of HDMI inputs and one HDMI output.
All signalources are connected to the AVR
the TV gets its signal from the AVR
source selection is done by the AVR
the AVR splits out the audio information from the HDMI port and decodes it accordingly and then sends it to its speakers.
There are a number of ‘HDMI Splitters’ and ‘HDMI audio extractors’ available which enable you to to do this if you don’t have an AVR.
Although: how do you get high resolution surround audio decoded when not with an AVR?
My XB1S and my PMP player are connected directly via HDMI in on my Samsung Blu-ray surround sound system, this system will playback TrueHD and DTS-HD etc, but it will only output 1080p to the TV (2012 model), I am reluctant to buy a new surround sound system as well as a new TV so was wondering if there was a device that I could get that would split the audio via HDMI back to the samsung AVR and video to the TV, all the splitters I have seen split the audio to optical which will only give me dolby digital and basic dts at most.
Then you need a ‘HDMI splitter’.
There are several available. You need to read up on the different models, some may have problems getting recognised by either the TV or the signal source (wrong resolutions or picture refresh rates etc pp)
just wondering if a hdmi splitter would see a 4k resolution device and a 1080p resolution device and adjust down to the lowest resolution.
@richarddc79 said:
just wondering if a hdmi splitter would see a 4k resolution device and a 1080p resolution device and adjust down to the lowest resolution.
I am not that experienced in that regard. I know that some of them can be configured how to behave in certain situations.
If you expect 4K material in the future you want to look for explicitly stated compatibility.
So your receiver doesn’t extract HDMI audio even though it has an HDMI in? I would assume you could just split the HDMI and allow the receiver to handle the audio extraction. Otherwise, you can buy a 5.1/7.1 HDMI audio extractor with passthrough like this and run analog to the receiver.
Edit: Just read the follow-up comments. Just get a 4K-compatible splitter, run a split to the receiver and don’t bother with the receiver’s output, or buy an audio extractor with 4K passthrough and do as described above.
