BT TV Pro Box eARC source switching issues

[naylor2006]

Yup.....and the most stupid thing is the sound tends to be late.....and there is no minus - setting to bring it back to account for sound delay be additional processing, all you can do is add more delay. Always best to have audio hitting the AVR first, not to the TV then back to the AVR. My opinions are mine though from my own experience.

Everyones millage will vary but this is another reason I never use or recommend ARC. ARC does tend to be better at switching source but it not worth the other issues it brings.

[Midnight_Voice]

@naylor2006 

We should take ‘eARC port’ to mean ‘the dual purpose input on the TV  that acts as a normal HDMI Input for video coming from an AVR, or a soundbar with an HDMI input, but also acts to send audio from the TV to the AVR or soundbar for broadcast TV and for other HDMI inputs on the TV if ARC or eARC is turned on’.

But yes you are right when every video source is connected to the AVR - there’s no (e)ARC involved, and the port is just being a bog-standard HDMI In, like the other three (on my LG GX it would be three anyway).

I can see where somebody could avoid using eARC if they had an alternate source for broadcast TV - a Sky or Virgin box, or a Freesat one - but I wouldn’t have even if I had an AVR, so for me eARC Is essential. Yes, there’s optical, but it’s much less convenient than, and doesn’t have the bandwidth of, eARC. Which, in my setup at least, is unproblematical.

I have an Apple TV box, but it’s on the TV in the bedroom, a 48” LG C2, using the TV speakers. There’s something odd about its behaviour though, which I haven’t quite put my finger on yet, but suffice it to say that once it’s been switched on, it doesn’t let go of the TV like it should. Even with everything back to standby overnight, when I put the TV on in the morning to watch the news on a terrestrial channel, the ATV powers up and grabs the input. Which nothing else does in similar circumstances, not the YouView box, BluRay player or Amazon FireStick.

It sounds like your ATV does the same; but any CEC being generated by my C2, the only possible culprit here, doesn’t fire up those other devices.

[Midnight_Voice]

@naylor2006 @davecm 

HDMI cables were never tied to HDMI spec levels; only equipment ever had such ratings. cables were standard or high speed, with or without Ethernet. As PoE never really caught on, the Ethernet strand came to be used, alternatively, as a further strand for eARC.

That was it until recently, when Premium High Speed cables, 18 Gbit/s, came in to support HDMI 2.0, and Ultra High Speed cables, 48 Gbit/s, for HDMI 2.1.

Hopefully, the long cables described are High Speed with Ethernet, or better.

[naylor2006]

Always seems stupid when they come up with these names, High Speed, Ultra High Speed, same as HD, UHD, where’s it gonna end 😁

Cables to me started becoming important when HDR came out ontop of 4K, I even had a Sony 4K TV without HDR, stupid early adopter. Prior to HDR it seemed at least for my uses anything would do, TV and film being 25FPS or less and even sport at 50 or games at 60 seemed all fine.

But with HDR I’ve always ensured everything is rated right.

[Midnight_Voice]

@naylor2006 

It’s noteworthy that when my devices trigger one another, they get it right in all cases except where the YouView box goes on first, and sends the initial trigger.

It’s certainly possible that the YouView box could trigger another device to behave wrongly, but Occam’s Razor would suggest we consider the simplest explanation unless this can be eliminated.

@davecm ’s setup and mine differ only that I have the YouView box plugged into the TV, not the soundbar.

Two experiments I have carried out;

Firstly, turning off your bete noirs, eARC and ARC, on the TV, and repeating the firing up of the YouView box with nothing else running. It makes no difference. I find that unsurprising, though I was prepared to be surprised if it did.

Secondly, plugging the YouView box into the single HDMI input of the soundbar instead of the UHD. Powering up the YouView box, the soundbat came on HDMI, and the TV powered up on the HDMI In of the eARC port (though of course eARC wasn’t involved) to show the video. So that actually worked perfectly.

You haven’t missed the point; I’ve made my setup just like @davecm‘s, except my UHD player, unproblematic here, had to be disconnected to try this.

It’s late; more tomorrow.

[davecm]

This is now a long thread, and I think it's served its purpose. So a summary might be useful.

1) We've established that the BT TV Pro box doesn't behave as it should with respect to source switching and complete home cimema system or soundbar on and off switching, in a variety of configurations.

2) BT have said they are aware of the issue and working on a fix. The issue has existed since day 1, Aug 2021 in my case, so that might be just their stock answer to close the conversation. There have been numerous software updates, but these all seem to be related to Youview functionality and appearance, not hardware related issues.

3) eARC provides enhanced remote control functionality in addition to the return audio channel. So if all sources are connected to the HDMI inputs of a receiver or soundbar, and the TV is connected only via its eARC HDMI connector to the receiver, as recommended, then using the remote for whichever source you are watching, the TV itself, the BT TV box, a Blu-Ray player etc. can all control the volume and mute of the receiver, as well as the pause, FF, rewind, of the source you are watching.

4) Normal remote control behaviour would be a) use the remote for whichever source you intend to watch, e.g. Blu-Ray player. It's power button should, and does, automatically switch on the source, the receiver and the TV. b) Use the TV remote to turn everything off together when done. All my devices work like that, except for the BT Box which works as expected only when connected directly to the TV. Its remote control volume and mute functions operate via a receiver, but it doesn't play nicely with respect to on/off switching and source selection.

5) If the BT TV Pro box is connected directly to the TV by HDMI, to work around the source and on/off behaviour, and the HDMI ARC connection is also used to feed the audio to a receiver, the picture and sound of the BT box cannot be synchronised correctly.

[rbz5416]

Was the Pro Box ever connected directly to the TV, or has it always been via the AVR? I ask because when connected to the TV, the BT remote will also control the TV by IR. Just wondering if the remote is sending IR commands to the TV at the same time CEC is trying to do its thing.

I guess easy enough to test by ensuring the front of the remote is covered by your hand when you switch the Pro Box on.

[Midnight_Voice]

@davecm 

A few more pointers for the wrap-up:-

1. Yes. We must also include the DTR-T4000 and DTR-T2110 here, so it looks like the problem is deep-rooted, and goes beyond Sagemcom to Humax, if this is a hardware or firmware issue. Though it makes me optimistic that the issue may be in the YouView software layer, and can be resolved there.

2. As above, I hope BT that will, or have, set their net wide enough to cover more than just the Pro box.

3. I am sceptical here. I think that if a remote you have that is controlling a device connected to the receiver can also control the receiver, this can only be because you have set that remote to also control the receiver.

I also understand that your receiver cannot do eARC, only ARC, so although your TV can in principle do eARC, it is limited to ARC here.

I do believe that devices connected to the TV can control the receiver in as far as ARC allows.

4. My BT boxes both work fine when connected directly to the soundbar, though I think this is because they don’t have the ‘scope’ to go wrong that the multiple HDMI inputs on your receiver provide. As regards switching off linked devices, this seems to be a CEC design decision, and I have seen Always, Never, and Only If This Device Switched It On.

However, the YouView boxes don't work as I think they should when connected directly to the TV, if turned on first.

5. You can’t use eARC, which should allow for lip-synching corrections. However, I have tried my boxes over ARC, by turning the eARC off, confirmed as only ARC by the display on the soundbar, and lip-synching remains perfect.

Obviously there are different issues and experiences caused by receiver versus soundbar, but I think we have the same YouView box issue with our various models, and let’s hope EE can get all YouView boxes, old and new, fixed for this.

I wish I’d reported it while the YouView Community was still active, but I thought for a long time that this was an LG issue 😢

[davecm]

Final word.

Receiver user guide says if TV etc. supports eARC, and only the eARC HDMI lead is connected from receiver to TV, then any source's remote can switch on receiver and control volume, mute etc. for all active sources connected to receiver. That's how mine actually works. User guide says it's a feature of the receiver and of eARC, but I haven't researched it any further than that.

TV remote, BT box remote and Blu-Ray remote all do control sound. Lip-sync is perfect with all sources, and TV delay set to 60ms which I think is the default.

I just received delivery of a WiiM mini hi-fi audio streamer a few minutes ago. That's going to connect to the optical in on receiver. Will be interesting to see how that behaves. I'm expecting it will only work with the phone app, or the receiver remote control, as it has no HDMI connection.

[Midnight_Voice]

@davecm 

I’m looking at this manual:-

https://my.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/9/890839/web_YJ184A0_EN_HTR-2071_om_CRABGLF_En_A0....

Have you got a link to the one you are looking at?