Correct audio setup for 4K but with older LG BluRay speaker setup?

[Schtibbie]

Buying AppleTV 4K right now and I have Visio 4K tv (cheap D series) already but a years-old LG BluRay home theater setup (blue ray home theater setup with subwoofer and 5 other speakers). What cabling and how do I connect? I obviously can’t run the 4K video through my Blu-ray and then to TV like I did with my old 3G AppleTV. Do I run a good HDMI straight to TV and then ...?

 

[priitv8]

Running audio through TV works if your vizio has
- ARC in HDMI or
- optical audio out that you can connect to home cinema system

 

[Schtibbie]

Running audio through TV works if your vizio has
- ARC in HDMI or
- optical audio out that you can connect to home cinema system

And is a BluRay home theater system from 5 or 6 years ago (I think) likely to support that ARC thing? Guess i’ll Try that al out later when I get home. Shopping for cables now.

 

[waw74]

If your Blu-ray supports 3D then there's a good chance it supports ARC.
both were added in HDMI 1.4

i looked through a couple older LG blu-ray home theatre models, and they seemed to support ARC.
i'm really bored at work today 🙂

 

[Schtibbie]

If your Blu-ray supports 3D then there's a good chance it supports ARC.
both were added in HDMI 1.4

i looked through a couple older LG blu-ray home theatre models, and they seemed to support ARC.
i'm really bored at work today 🙂

OK so here’s how it ended up: I plugged HDMI from AppleTV 4K into my Vizio D50u-d1 (more on issues with that model in a bit) HDMI port 5 which is for 4K up to 60hz. Then after much stabbing in the dark trying things I have another HDMI cable going from TV’s HDMI 1 (which says ARC underneath it) to the OUTPUT of my LG Blu-ray (that part confused me since I thought it needed to go to input on Blu-ray but that didn’t work AT ALL). Then put Lg Blu-ray in ARC mode. Then video plays on my Tv and audio comes out the home theater system Blu-ray. This is ok but there are some caveats:

Vizio TV remote can turn up the volume of Blu-ray through ARC but cannot turn it DOWN! Weird. Also this whole setup requires CEC which means things turn on and off together. Meh.

Also: this Vizio TV doesn’t have HDR. No biggie. Also: this TV only has ONE hdmi port that supports 4K at 60, so I have to have my Xbox one S in a port that does 4K at 30, which the Xbox rejects. And the Blu-ray player doesn’t pass through 4K and neither does the Xbox on its input so ... yeah. I will be left jacking with plugs if I ever need to run a 4K disk in the Xbox.

 

[waw74]

yeah, ARC = audio return channel
so it returns down a line that's normally going the other way. It plugs into the main output of your audio device

as far as the volume, ARC doesn't send volume commands, it just sends a full volume digital signal.
if your TV remote is controlling the volume on the blu-ray, then it's either HDMI-CEC, or your TV remote is sending the IR commands that the LG is receiving.
My guess would be IR, and somehow, only the volume up is programmed correctly.

the appleTV is fairly smart in figuring this out. it gets all the model numbers of the connected TV and audio devices over HDMI, from the menu on the aTV, you can then select if you want to control via HDMI-CEC, or to send IR commands to the TV or stereo. the codes are downloaded from the internet, and automatically loaded into the aTV remote.
i use HDMI-CEC and i have to use the Television remote to choose between the TV and stereo speakers, the appleTV remote volume then controls whatever is chosen in the television menu.

go into the devices menu on the appleTV, and see what you can find in settings there.

HDMI-CEC will also let your TV remote control the aTV, once you're watching the aTV, the arrow, select, and back keys should work.