My Apple TV fails to connect the ARC/eARC for the Homepods with my TV

[lawlietkm]

I'm not sure what I do wrong. My TV is a Philips OLED Ambilight (model 65OLED707) and it comes with eARC and ARC HDMI port and compatible with CEC because I'm already using the Apple TV remote to control the TV sound and turn it on.

I recently bought Homepods and I'm really amazed with them but I'd like to setup in a way that other devices connected to the TV also uses the Homepods. It should be under the Settings > Sound and I should enable the ARC, but every time I try it fails. I've changed the settings of the TV sound to try various ways, I made sure the ARC is on and CEC as well, I've tried various ways to handle the canal (Multicanal, Multicanal + derivate, Stereo uncompressed) but nothing changes, it's always failing.

When I go back to the menu, it says ARC: Yes (unavailable).

Has anyone else faced this issue with the same setup and managed to fix it? I'm confused because the TV is pretty recent and equipped with everything that should let me enable it.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

To what port is AppleTV connected? HDMI or HDMI eARC?

Have you tried swapping HDMI cables to rule out cables?

Are you sure you have CEC turned on within the TV menus? Some brands call CEC something else- consult the manual (looks like it may be called Easylink on Philips). Yes, you say that AppleTV already turns TV on and manipulates sound but check your menus anyway. Menu: Settings > General settings > EasyLink > EasyLink > On

For sound control, it looks like there may be another menu item to turn on: Settings > General settings > EasyLink >EasyLink 2.0 sound control: ON.

Be sure the AppleTV side of things is set up properly. Apple Setup Instructions

1. Apple TV 4K, Settings.
2. Select Video & Audio.
3. Select Audio Output.
4. Select HomePod as the default audio output.
5. Under Arc Return Channel, select Play Television Audio.

I believe only second gen AppleTV 4K and newer can stream audio from other devices through TV to AppleTV to wirelessly send to HPs but not 100% sure of that. Is your AppleTV Second Generation 4K or newer?

 

[lawlietkm]

It was on an ARC HDMI but now I've swapped to the eARC and it works! It's weird because I believe I tried it before and it didn't work?

 

[lawlietkm]

Update: it works now (I mean it's activated correctly) but when using another device the sound still comes out of the TV…

 

[lawlietkm]

Update: it works now, I put it derivative!