BT TV Pro remote volume confusion

[Tobers]

I have a BT TV Pro box, a Sony AF9 TV and a Sonos Arc sound bar with 2 rear Sonos One SL surround speakers. The BT box is HDMI’d to the TV and the TV is HDMI’d to the Sonos Arc using the ARC HDMI channel.

My question is as follows:

If I set the BT TV Pro box to Settings > Picture & Sound > HDMI Sound to “Surround” I lose the ability to change volume via the BT remote, but get what sounds like full surround sound. It sounds excellent.

If I set the BT TV Pro box to Settings > Picture & Sound > HDMI Sound to “Stereo”, I get the ability to change volume via the BT remote, but no surround sound. I do get some sound from my rears but I think it’s just balanced output.

Can anyone confirm if the “Stereo” setting only outputs stereo, or if it actually outputs 5.1 surround sound? 

The reason I want to know is that in “Surround” mode you can’t change the volume except by using the TV remote (which is set to also control the Sonos Arc). Juggling another remote just to change volume is a PITA.

I want to have full surround sound, with the ability to change volume with the BT remote so I don’t have to use a 2nd remote.

Can anyone tell me how I can use the BT TV Pro remote to control the volume on my Sonos Arc or  Sony TV, seeing as the BT remote seems to be bluetooth only and the Arc and TV use Infrared.

Thanks 

[scharter]

@Tobers   I can't really help. My Pro remote controls sound on all modes.

But I have a question back to you. Some of us Pro Box owners are having poor (terrible) output from the surround mode, muffled etc, when the source pgm is not 5.1 You say surround sound is good, is that when watching ALL sources including stereo and basic sound,  or just a 5.1/Dolby source?

[Tobers]

The 4K Champions League football last night was pretty awesome. It felt like I was in the stadium. And running the intro scenes to “6 Underground” on Netflix (from the Pro box’s Netflix app) was stunning with the Sonos setup.

But…only when setting the HDMI sound output to “Surround” (and thereby losing volume control from the BT box remote, which is my main problem I’m trying to fix).

When I set the HDMI sound back to “Stereo”, the proper surround output was lost, there was no spacial separation, and it sounded muddy and horrible. Therefore my conclusion is that the HDMI Sound option must be set to “Surround”.

Alternatively, I could output from the BT box using optical but that would require a Sonos adapter and I’d lose Atmos (but hopefully gain volume control again). I might try this if I can get the required adapter.

[Tobers]

I should add that I have only one source, which is the BT box.

[scharter]

@Tobers  So what is the sound like when set to surround mode, watching  e.g. BBC1 SD?

[Tobers]

I’d say it’s “fine”. Lower volume and less “spacious” than when using BBC1 HD. I wouldn’t expect a SD channel to give me the same quality of sound as an HD channel.

[scharter]

I wouldn't expect SD channels to sound spacial, but my box seems to being trying to convert them into surround sound, and the result is awful.  I'm trying to determine whether I have a faulty box, or it's a software issue. I had a BT Home Tech engineer come out and he said, yep, sounds terrible, but didn't have a replacement box to check for a difference.

If yours sound ok via the soundbar, in SD using surround, maybe I have a duff box?

[Tobers]

TBH I very rarely watch any SD channels so I can’t really help all that much on this one.

All I want to do is control volume using my BT remote control when HDMI sound is set to Surround.

[Tobers]

I suspect the only way around this is to get a universal remote control that works with both bluetooth and infrared.

Does anyone know of such a thing? AFAIK all the universal remotes are infrared only. 

[Tobers · Accepted solution]

I have solved my own problem.

I was very confused by the Pro box remote and how to get it to control volume of output to my Sonos Arc soundbar using the Pro remote while the Pro box is in “Surround” mode. I ended up having to use the TV remote to control volume and the Pro remote for everything else which was really annoying.

My setup is BT TV Pro > Sony AF9 > Sonos Arc (via HDMI ARC).

After trying many things, I eventually realised that I had the Pro box setting Bluetooth Remote > Control Volume and Source set to “Set Top Box”. As a result I was getting the box telling me it could not control volume while in “Surround” setting.

The confusing thing is that the “Set Top Box” menu option is greyed out. But you can select it.

Once I changed it to “TV”, and re-paired the remote (hold down the purple home key and the “9” key until the remote light flashes), I could then control the sound output from my Sonos while the Pro box remained in “Surround” mode. I can therefore ditch my Sony remote and just use the Pro box remote now. 

Happy days.