BT TV Pro Box eARC source switching issues

[davecm]

I have a BT TV Pro box, connected to a Yamaha HTR-2071 AV receiver and a Samsung QE50Q80 series TV. Also a Sony 4K Blu-Ray player. Easier to start with what works as expected, then move onto what doesn't.

The TV and receiver are both connected via their respective eARC HDMI sockets and an appropriate cable. The BT Box and the Blu-Ray are connected to the receiver's HDMI inputs.

If I turn on the TV using its own remote, the receiver turns on, the receiver sets itself to the correct HDMI input and the TV input source sets itself to the receiver's HDMI connection and I get live TV, as expected. If I turn off the TV, the receiver turns off.

If I turn on the Blu-Ray player with its own remote, the receiver turns on, then the TV turns on, and the source is set correctly on TV and receiver. The Blu-Ray home screen is displayed. If I turn off the TV with its own remote, the receiver and the Blu-Ray player both turn off.

The above seems to suggest that the TV, receiver, Blu-Ray player and leads are all working correctly.

If I turn on the BT TV Pro box with its own remote, the result is inconsistent and depends on the order in which the other devices were last turned off, and a specific sequence of turn-off operations is needed to, and then only sometimes, ensure that the correct input source is selected on the TV when it is next switched on.

1) When it works properly, maybe 50% of times, I turn on the BT TV box, the receiver turns on and its display always indicates that the receiver's correct HDMI input is selected. The TV turns on and the correct HDMI source is selected, but there's a few seconds delay.

2) The other 50% of times, the the receiver always works as above, but the TV does not switch to the receiver's HDMI input. A blank screen with a "Source" button and some hints is displayed. Selecting the Source button with the TV remote displays the home screen with the source options, with the receiver's HDMI inout already selected, but apparently not active. Attempting to change the source to the receiver with the TV remote doesn't work, the input source doesn't change.

If I turn off either the TV or the BT box with their own remote, only the 1 device turns off and the other 2 remain on.

3) In order to avoid, or at least minimise, the occurence of (2) above, I have to remember to do the following in the correct order. Turn off the BT TV box with its remote, use the TV remote to set the input source to live TV, then turn off the TV. The receiver then turns off automatically.

If I do all that, it might work as expected next time I turn on the BT TV Box, or it might not. Often I have to repeat the turn-off sequence above several times.

Given that everything works normally with the Blu-Ray player, that seems to suggest that the issue is with the BT TV box. Anyone else having this issue?

[ozsat]

I have a HTR-2071 too and have found it occasionally seems to have issues switching some devices on or off. All four HDMI ports are in use with 4K kit - one of them is a Box Pro and another is a Sony blu-ray player.

It is only occasional and can work for days with a problem, but once it happens it seems to be regular until I do a mains reboot of the Yamaha.

Actually have to power off at the mains for 10-15 seconds - as the standby option does seem to resolve it.

[Midnight_Voice]

@davecm 

I take it the ‘appropriate cable’ for eARC is High Speed (or better) with Ethernet?

I have a DTR-T4000 YouView box in HDMI 2 on my LG GX TV, with eARC from TV HDMI 3 to LG GX soundbar

The soundbar has one HDMI In, besides the eARC/HDMI Out, which has my UHD BluRay player plugged into it. (This setup is chosen because the soundbar handles DTS which the TV doesn’t).

There’s a Roku on HDMI 1 and a Firestick (presently) on HDMI 4.

All is well, in every case except when I turn on the YouView box first.

What should happen is that the TV should come on set to the correct HDMI input, and the soundbar should come on set to eARC. Which the Roku and Firestick both do.

What does happen is that the soundbar turns on slightly before the TV does, goes to HDMI In not eARC. Then the TV turns on, set to the YouView HDMI input momentarily, but because the soundbar has come on HDMI In, this wakes the UHD player, which in turn causes the soundbar to switch the TV to HDMI 3 and show the menu for the UHD player.

Such are the vagaries of CEC that I have no idea quite what is going wrong where, and/or which devices are behaving correctly and which not.

Accordingly, I never turn on the YouView box first (except by accident). If I put the TV on first, the soundbar comes on eARC like it should, and when I turn the YouView box on, the TV switches to that input, without affecting anything else.

Your problem sounds similar, except things sometimes work OK for you, and for me, never.

I suspect the YouView box is putting out a broadcast CEC ‘turn on’ instead of one targeted at a single upstream device; you then get a race condition between all your devices, which fight to be the arbiter of CEC control, and, as you have seen, which one wins depends on which ones were on last.

”Doctor, it hurts when I do this”. 
“Don’t do it then”.

😛

[davecm]

It's not just me then 😀
Your set-up is roughly the same as mine.

I will try powering off the receiver to see if that makes a difference.

Does the Blu-Ray player interact correctly, as mine does? Suggesting the issue is the TV box, not the receiver.

I could also try a different HDMI lead from receiver to TV box, but I'm using the one supplied with it at the moment.

[ozsat]

Both my Box Pro and Bluray boxes seem to work fine - until everything stops switching correctly.  Then time for a mains reboot of the HTR2071

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@davecmwrote:

It's not just me then 😀
Your set-up is roughly the same as mine.

I will try powering off the receiver to see if that makes a difference.

Does the Blu-Ray player interact correctly, as mine does? Suggesting the issue is the TV box, not the receiver.

I could also try a different HDMI lead from receiver to TV box, but I'm using the one supplied with it at the moment.

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[naylor2006]

This actually isnt anything to do with eARC though right, you arent using audio returning to the AV from the TV...your devices are connected to the AV first and then audio comes from the AV to the speakers you have and then video goes to the TV via one link? Have I got that right?

I was gonna do the usual thing I do and say "stop using eARC" then me and  @Midnight_Voice will get into it again 🙂

Actually I do have similar behavior and always power things on in a certain way and power them off to avoid issues, yes for me it seems the EETV Box isnt as reliable but actually part of the blame is the Apple TV 4K I also have....and ive switched off CEC type sync on my PS5 because a 3rd device in the mix which is used way less than the other two was just issues not worth worrying about, also only I use the PS5, no one else does. Most of the time we are ensuring things work for other people, because, for me at least, other people in my family will never remember how to recover from a HDMI storm resulting in devastation...

Anyway...

I have an LG C3, Denon AV, Apple TV4K and EETV.

ATV goes into HDMI 1 and EETV into HDMI 2 on the Denon, then output from the Denon goes to HDMI 1 on the TV, no other HDMI's go to the TV. ARC is disabled everywhere, even on devices in boxes in my attic, just in case.

I always power on the ATV first, this powers on the AV and TV and everything is great, EE TV box stays off. If I want to watch EETV at this point I power on the EETV with its own remote (actually I used a 3rd party but nm) and this changes the source on the AVR, the TV doesnt give a **bleep** because its still getting only one HDMI as the AVR as switched. All good! To power off I power off the EETV (does not power off the AVR or TV, never does), pickup the Apple TV remote, hit any button and the AVR changes back to Apple TV input which displays on the TV, then I power off the Apple TV and the TV and AVR click off.

Problems occur varying in results when I power on the EETV first when nothing else is on, Power on the EETV, AVR and TV come on great, but also the Apple TV comes on as a result of one of the other devices I expect, and because it comes on slightly after the initial EETV boot up then the source switches back to Apple TV, usually can press a button on the EETV remote and it will go back but its worst case scenario for some members of my family.

There are other scenarios I wont bore you with but I think all these different devices trying to work together in harmony just ask for trouble sometimes and to have a perfect setup is tricky, for me I never want the AVR remote out, I only want folks to use the ATV and EETV remotes, if the AVR remote has to come out then I know theres trouble.

Not overly sure how helpful this post is but having used AVR's for so long I can honestly say that no one setup ive had over the years has always been perfect. The most annoying one is the PS5, which is why ive switched that off completely, I mean its CEC type stuff.

I probably could solve this by stopping the ATV from turning on when other devices turn on but it seems not possible, that thing is so thirsty for attention, whats worse is that during large FIFA sessions and the ATV would power off due to its own power saving settings it would power everything off during a game, easily solved by disabling any sort of inactivity power setting, but still, youre not the only device in the room btw.

[davecm]

Thanks for your reply.

When I moved into my house in 2013, I had 2 long HDMI cables installed by drilling through the chimney breast, behind the TV, feeding the wires down into a fake fireplace and via some trunking to the furniture unit in the adjacent alcove, where the other devices are situated. I don't actually know what spec the cables are, but I asked the installer to make sure they were future-proof as far as possible. Not sure if there's a way to check.

One cable was originally connected to the previous Humax BT Youview box, and the other a spare in case I bought additional devices.

I got the Yamaha receiver and the Sagemcom BT TV Pro box around the same time, so everything is now plugged into that, and one of the long HDMI cables is connected to eARC on TV and receiver.

I'm guessing the cable to the TV should be ok, as the Blu-Ray player, receiver and TV interact normally and it plays in 4K with correct surround sound.

I could test with a new cable from receiver to TV, bypassing the ones in the wall.

[naylor2006]

It probably isnt cables, if you cables werent up to spec you'd be seeing different issues in my opinion, like no signal at all or lack of HDR at high resolutions or frame rates.

Its not totally out of the question I guess as I just googled HDMI 2.0 which came out in late 2013 so maybe you have 1.4 going to the TV from the AV, im just not sure how much that would effect the issue you are having.

Recently I changed mine to cope with 4K+HDR+120Hz, also resulted in a change of AVR also to pass that through from the PS5, you need the 48Gbps cables for that (actually the PS5 does not operate all the way to 48). I choose to just swap all of my cables for 48Gbps, totally pointless for the Apple TV and EETV but Amazon basics cables are so good for the price.

[davecm]

Thanks for the detailed reply, which basically says you have the same issues as me, the TV box misbehaves and we both have to live with them🤣

[naylor2006]

I had the weirded issue like 15 years ago where enabling LG's Simplink or whatever it was cause at the time cause audio delay on my Sky Box.

It took me around 6 months to figure it out, the two things wouldnt be related right....in fact back then I didnt use CEC at all, I would have an all in one remote which allowed you to switch AV source from the same remote that would let you control your other devices as well. Sky even came over to change the box.

Sky was using its Optical Out to send audio to my surround system I had then and its HDMI output when to an input on the TV. What was happening was every now and then there would be an audible, but quiet, pop in sound, hard to notice, each time it happened the audio would slip a little, powering off the Sky box and back on and it was solved. Randomly one day I just went through the TV turning off stuff I wasnt using, Simplink was (HDMI control) was one of these features, couldnt believe it, it solved it. It must have been sending some sort of pulse every now and then.

Probably one of the most annoying issues ive ever had.