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Apple TV 4K: How to Stream Audio From Your TV's Inputs to HomePod (eARC)
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Apple's support for discontinued hardware has been a HUGE plus and a definitely makes me a lot more confident in buying stuff from them, even if it costs a little more up front.
Well to be fair the HomePod Mini sounds like crap by comparison and I'm not sure why anyone would use it for a home theater. I bought a Mini earlier this year and returned it in favor of the full-sized HomePod and it was a great decision.
Of if you already own a HomePod or two you could not "just buy" any additional hardware use this new feature. But whatever.
I recommend everyone buy white because it is easy to turn them space gray. lol.
ok I imagine if you vacuum them or hit with some compressed air regularly then the white ones will stay white.
yeah but it got a lot better last fall. that problem largely if not entirely went away.
Aren’t two speakers (like homepods) better than a soundbar since two speakers have better stereo separation?
I think the Homepods probably started to offer too much value and flexibility for Apple to continue making them.
It’s clear the teams at Apple are not talking and communicating. This is like the 12th example in the last year.
Just joined to inform you all that I have this set up working and IT IS FANTASTIC! Works perfect with my PS5.
In theory, yes. However, most people don't place their speakers far enough apart for this to make much of a difference. If you're only putting them directly on either side of your TV, the stereo separation is going to be minimal.
That said, one of the great things about the HomePod Home Theatre Audio is you can place them just about anywhere in the room — as long as they're equally distant from your viewing/listening position. I have mine directly to my left and right, and the experience is just as rich and immersive as the full 5.1 system I was using before.
Yet does Sonos support spatial audio & Dolby Atmos across their lineup as their speakers are omnidirectional from the Play one to the beam.
OMG, so true.
I wanted to like my HomePod, but I honestly cannot recommend it to anyone.
It's a terrible HomeKit hub (far worse than the Apple TV) but even so it insists on taking over HomeKit Hub duties -- to the extent that I have a smart plug set up whose only job is to cut power from the HomePod once a day at 3am to "reset it" so that it switches to the standby HomeKit Hub (which seems to last about 24 hrs before it again becomes the primary HomeKit Hub).
It was supposed to augment my Apple TV audio, but Apple keeps fscking that up.
It worked adequately with last year's tvOS (the setup UI was terrible, but once set up it did the job). But Apple broke that with tvOS 14, while introducing a different version of the same idea (which only works with aTV 4K so I can't comment on it).
Seems now they have abandoned THAT solution for this eARC solution.
I'm all for using newer tech in better ways; and I'm willing to accept that at SOME point things become obsolete.
But I do not consider the way HomePod has been treated to meet these standards. Rather than continually building on the things that HomePod was actually good at, and FIXING the bugs, the team keeps running from one thing to the next. The end result is not more love of HomePod, but even less love, as each successive group that found a use case that worked for them sees Apple destroy the functionality of that use case with the next OS upgrade.
Miguel de Icaza said that "Papercuts matter more than Features" by which he meant that more people hate your product and will never buy it again because of the small (but constant ongoing) irritations, than will buy your product because of grand new features. I think HomePod is the absolute embodiment of that for Apple.
IF *everything* actually worked the way it was supposed to it would be fantastic. But as it is, nobody gives a fsck about some new thing that is supposed to be added that is supposed to be "even better" when so many papercuts exist, and when Apple keeps adding to them by breaking things, rather than removing them.
Yep. And it's a breeze to set up. Works as expected on the Switch as well. What an incredible feature for people with the stereo HomePod set up.
IN THEORY you are supposed to be able to do it.
IN PRACTICE it (mostly) worked for tvOS 13. It's completely fscking useless in tvOS 14.
The problems in tvOS13 were bearable -- but bad enough that I would buy a proper alternative (soundbar or whatever) than rely on Apple. They included
- you had to re-set-up the system every time some part of it (either HomePod or aTV) lost power
- for god knows what reason it wouldn't work with some apps. I would have thought audio handling would be transparent to apps, but it totally broke random access in Channels DVR (an app for recording TV and playing it on aTV).
There is a replacement thing called HomePod Home Theatre Audio, which only works for aTV 4K. I can't speak to how well it works because it doesn't work with the equipment I have.
Same but the audio seem to be laggy with the tv audio(I got mines connected to 2 iPod hifi’s) and the homepods
My tv is a arc only compatible tv though I think(samsung RU8000)
You would need to connect it to the displays ARC HDMI input. But there is a big problem here. If you have the ATV going to the AVR which is using the only ARC HDMI input in the 4K display then you would see no ARC choice. So one would really want the ARC, eARC selection be used with a AVR not the ATV4K.
Think of the setup involved. ATV4K output goes by a single cable to the 4K Display ARC input. How is that help anything using a inline HDMI 2.0/4K passthougth AVR or expensive sounder with either doing the Dolby Atmos decoding.
I think the new APTV 4K just adds eARC because ARC is legacy functionality?
I don't think anyone with a good system that uses AVR or preamp /amp with multiple 4K sources connected to HDMI inputs(UHD BD Players, ATV4K and similar) would use this functionality from a ATV4K.
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Well, if you already have an AVR, chances are that's driving a set of much better speakers anyway, so you're right, Apple's ARC/eARC is completely redundant and unnecessary in this case.
Well, the Apple TV never had ARC/eARC at all, since there was really no point in adding the feature until Apple introduced Home Theatre Audio in tvOS 14.2 to allow the Apple TV to drive a pair of HomePods in full Dolby Atmos mode. The Apple TV simply wouldn't have been able to do anything at all with the audio prior to that.
Exactly. However, the main benefit to the new Apple TV 4K is that if you have a pair of HomePods, it can replace your AV receiver entirely. I happily pulled mine right out, along with the mess of speaker wires, and simplified my entire system. Everything now goes HDMI right into the TV, and the Apple TV 4K handles all of the audio in place of my receiver, beaming it wirelessly to a pair of HomePods.
Thanks for bringing up the other example of wireless Homepods as a stereo pair, forgot about that option. I tend to look at most people setups as utilizing a soundBar or AVR with speakers. But there is a lot that use 2.1 wireless setups with a 4k TV also compared to a pair of HomePods.
Does the Apple TV have to be on for this to work?
(I suppose by “on” I mean “awake,” i.e. with the front light illuminated and transmitting video signal)
(I suppose by “on” I mean “awake,” i.e. with the front light illuminated and transmitting video signal)
Is the audio only going to the Homepods? Or do you have it coming from your tv as well?
Nope. The Apple TV can be off and yes, it is only going to the homepods. I have them paired left and right at each end of my sofa, works a treat!
With the older Apple TV 4K, when using the HomePods as a stereo pair the WiFi speeds would drop dramatically if the Apple TV wasn’t connected directly via Ethernet. For anyone using WiFi on their new Apple TV, can you confirm if there are any internet speed issues when using the new HomePod ARC/eARC feature?
Not even sure if ARC/eARC would have anything to do with it, but maybe the new Apple TV internal hardware fixes the issue?
Not even sure if ARC/eARC would have anything to do with it, but maybe the new Apple TV internal hardware fixes the issue?
