I bought a Sharp LC-50LB261U 50" TV.
I also bought a Samsung HW-H450 sound bar.
My current setup has a digital audio cable connected from the TV to the soundbar. In this mode I need to use the soundbar remote to control audio and the TV remote to control video. I would like the TV remote to handle both.
If I connect an HDMI cable from my TV to the soundbar then the TV remote will adjust the audio on the soundbar and when I power on/off my TV the sound bar follows suit. The problem is that I do not get actual audio in this mode. I even tried connecting the digital audio cable with the HDMI cable, but the sound bar refuses to use it. When I select it as an input, the sound bar changes to another input after a few seconds.
Does anyone have an idea of what is going on? I am sure it is something simple I need to do.
Seems like a setting in the sound bar, maybe an audio pass-through setting in the TV. That said, using one remote is usually a hurdle unless you buy a dedicated remote such as a Logitech.
If I connect an HDMI cable from my TV to the soundbar then the TV remote will adjust the audio on the soundbar and when I power on/off my TV the sound bar follows suit. The problem is that I do not get actual audio in this mode.
So how do you know it’s adjusting the audio on the soundbar? By numbers on a display?
Have you gone into the TV’s menus and set the speaker and digital audio out settings appropriately?
Have you tried a different HDMI cable? And is the HDMI cable plugged into a CEC-capable socket on the TV? Is the Sharp remote programmable at all?
There are numbers on a display. I can clearly see it controlling it. I think the answer might be a new remote when I get tired of juggling 3 remotes. The thing is, all the HDMI ports on the TV are inputs. I am betting that is the problem. While my soundbar does have a pass-through which I am sure would work, then I would be limited to just one source with audio.
Yup, the best audio out you can get on that tv is via the optical output. Plus, from what I see, neither of those devices includes a universal remote. You could set the tv audio at a certain level, then only use the soundbar remote to control sound from then on, but that’s not a real solution. I agree with others who say that once you start having more than one device in your entertainment system you will not regret investing in a decent universal remote. Just make sure you get one with room to grow. It’d be sad to get one that handles four devices then one day you add a fifth device…
Look for ARC (Audio Return Channel) on one of the TV’s HDMI inputs; if it has one (most good quality sets do these days), that’s the input you want to use… assuming the sound bar’s HDMI port will use the ARC channel for audio (all receivers I’ve seen with HDMI output will use it… I haven’t used a sound bar though).
and I swear I had my HDMI cable connected to that jack and it didn’t work. There was no audio. Ill go try it again.
Edit: Tried it again. Same result. I the soundbar powers on/off with the TV and the volume display updates to the sound level when I use the TV remote, however there is no sound. The bar switches to ARC mode, which is what it should do, yet there is no audio.
However I made this post in another thread, forgetting I had made this thread. Perhaps someone can tell me if this will work:
Does anyone know of a HMDI hub that supports CEC such that when I change input on my TV, the hub will switch inputs? I dont know if this is a thing with these. The theory is that all my inputs go to the hub, which then goes to my soundbar and the passthrough then goes to my TV which, in theory should link everything together unless you can’t daisy-chain things together like that with CEC. If anyone knows if this will or will not work, please let me know.
Ill check that when I get home. I may have missed that. I do have CEC control turned on though. I might have tried that without the soundbar plugged in.
I checked it when I got home and the ARC setting was on. Do you think I might have bad TV or sound bar? I did get this from best buy. Does their geek squad fix / troubleshoot these kinds of things?
Does telling you that “Uh, man, you like totally need this wicked awesome ruby-gold-plated hyper-DMI cable from MonsterCables to make this thing work normal platinum-gold coating just won’t make the sound molecules flow. Only $499 installation!” count as troubleshooting, because if so, then yes. . .
That’s weird. Are there any other cables you could disconnect? If you have nothing but 2 power cables and one HDMI cable, ARC is on on both devices (I wouldn’t worry about the CEC for this testing), and you’re using the right HDMI port… it ought to work. It might be worth doing a factory reset on both gadgets and only verifying ARC is turned on afterwards, and trying once last time. After that it’s time for a call to tech support. Do be sure to check the volume on the sound bar, by manually turning it (way) up from the sound bar itself while something is playing.
The optical audio cable was connected. I had disconnected it in the the past. There is also a chrome cast and my HDMI from my TIVO. I could unplug the chromecast and just have the two HDMI cables plugged in and then do a factory reset on the TV (I am not sure how to do that with my soundbar). I suppose Ill call best buy sometime in the next few weeks and get their tech support if that doesn’t work.
I did switch some HDMI cables around thinking one might be bad. I do get audio the way I have it configured now, via the optical port without the CEC control in both configurations.
When I switch configurations, do I need to unplug my TV or is simply turning it off enough?
Don’t have the same soundbar, but to get ours working we have it setup as TiVo <-Optical-> Sound Bar <-HDMI-> TV. The soundbar also has input selector, so we had to cycle through that to find the right one. Maybe that helps, maybe not.
The Setup is like this:
TV HDMI ports: Bottom ARC port is to the soundbar.
Middle port is a Chromecast
Top port: Tivo
TV has CEC turned on, and in the setup menu the ARC audio is turned on.
The Soundbar naturally goes to ARC mode when it plugged in via the HMDI port. I can set it to HMDI instead of ARC, but that still results in silence. It will refuse to use the Digitial IN port (it will sit on that setting for a few seconds, and then switch back to ARC Input).
That’s probably the problem right there. ARC was designed to return audio back upstream, using the same HDMI port that the TV is currently getting its video from. Some TVs also support sending audio from other HDMI-connected sources back over the ARC port, but not all of them. The idea is that you’ll only need one cable going to the TV (well, two if you count power). Usually people use a receiver for the HDMI to go through, but it’s often used with sound bars as well. You need to plug the TiVo into sound bar’s HDMI input, and then plug the TV into the sound bar’s HDMI output. I’d get those working on their own before adding anything else.
If you want the ChromeCast to also use ARC, you’ll need to use an HDMI switch on the sound bar’s HDMI input, since that model only has one of them.
Or you could just go back to using optical, and forget all this newfangled stuff :)
