[James_liv]

Afternoon,

Wondering if anyone can help.

I've got a new HDR Samsung Q8 TV but I've only a non HDR capable amp (for now).

So I have two options if I want the best quality.

1) to have kodi connected directly to my TV and Arc it back to my amp but I'll lose the DTS-MA audio but gain HDR.

2) to have kodi connected to the amp and send the picture to the TV which gives me DTS-MA but loses my HDR.

I'm exploring the option of a HDMI splitter to send the picture to the TV and also the audio to the amp giving me both.

Has anyone tried this? In theory it would work but would I lose any picture/sound quality by running it through the splitter?
I'm getting confused with the 4.4.4. Stuff etc

Can anyone recommend a good cheap splitter which would work until I get the money together to replace my amp?

Thanks in advance.

[noggin]

You will need to go for a splitter specifically designed for that purpose (HD Fury make an AVR Linker that does it) However they aren't cheap as chips. (There are some Amazon options which are cheaper but I don't know how good they are) 

A conventional splitter just sends the same signal to all outputs (either based on the source connected to the first output, or the combined common formats supported by all connected devices) so won't send HD Audio and UHD HDR if your TV doesn't support HD Audio and your AVR doesn't support UHD HDR.  (You will probably end up with SDR HD video and DD/DTS audio with a regular splitter...)

[James_liv]

Thanks for the advice.

It's £400 for a reasonable amp which will pass the HDR. Guess that's the best option really.

I was just trying to do it temporarily on the cheap as it'll be a while before I've got that kind of money.

[stammie]

Whilst not cheap, but still cheaper than a new amp I successfully used one of these until recently (when I bought a new amp) for the very purpose you need:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fury-18Gbps-HDM...ry+avr+key

[Boulder]

Do you have the possibility to output the multichannel audio via S/PDIF from your TV to the amp? It would be the cheapest solution.. the audio quality will be lower though, but I'm not sure you can really tell a difference. I personally have such a setup for now as my amp only supports SDR and resolutions up to 1080p. The TV is a Sony XE9005.

[noggin]

Do you have the possibility to output the multichannel audio via S/PDIF from your TV to the amp? It would be the cheapest solution.. the audio quality will be lower though, but I'm not sure you can really tell a difference. I personally have such a setup for now as my amp only supports SDR and resolutions up to 1080p. The TV is a Sony XE9005.

 Yes - ARC or SPDIF (which can be extracted with an HDMI audio extractor) are solutions - but they are compromises for audio quality, won't give you True HD + Atmos or DTS:x spatial audio, and will require FLAC, AAC, PCM etc multichannel to be transcoded/encode to AC3 5.1 lossy.  

Whether people can hear the compression artefacts in a high bitrate AC3 stream? That's a discussion for another place.

By the way - how do you find your XE9005?  I had to get mine replaced under warranty because of the major bug that all XE900x models had that caused pairs of frames to be dropped, and other pairs of frames to be repeated, causing random judders.  Sony accepted this was a fault across the range (I demonstrated it on 3 models using slow motion recording and source material with embedded frame numbers that allowed it to be proved incontrovertibly as a fault).  A work around of running in GAME mode or enabling a Bluetooth compensation delay (which then stopped many AVRs being able to suitably compensate for processing delay as it added too much vision delay) was offered, but Sony replaced my XE9005 with an XF9005 (which added Dolby Vision support) free of charge as a warranty 'repair' and my retailer has agreed to honour the original 5 year warranty (always provided free-of-charge by that retailer in the UK) for the new set (as expected)

I haven't checked recently to see if the 'type fault' with the XE9005 has been fixed yet.

[noggin]

Thanks for the advice.

It's £400 for a reasonable amp which will pass the HDR. Guess that's the best option really.

I was just trying to do it temporarily on the cheap as it'll be a while before I've got that kind of money.

 Yes - I was lucky because my only HD Audio + UHD HDR Video source initially was my UHD Blu-ray player, and this has two HDMI outputs (one HDMI 2 HDR UHD, the other HDMI 1.4 HD Audio) allowing me to route the video directly to the UHD HDR TV and the HDMI 1.4 feed to our older amp.

When I got a Kodi UHD HDR capable box, and an Apple TV 4K, I'd got a budget to allow me to replace the AVR with an HDMI 2.0 (HDR10, DV and HLG-friendly) model.

[Boulder]

By the way - how do you find your XE9005?  I had to get mine replaced under warranty because of the major bug that all XE900x models had that caused pairs of frames to be dropped, and other pairs of frames to be repeated, causing random judders.  Sony accepted this was a fault across the range (I demonstrated it on 3 models using slow motion recording and source material with embedded frame numbers that allowed it to be proved incontrovertibly as a fault).  A work around of running in GAME mode or enabling a Bluetooth compensation delay (which then stopped many AVRs being able to suitably compensate for processing delay as it added too much vision delay) was offered, but Sony replaced my XE9005 with an XF9005 (which added Dolby Vision support) free of charge as a warranty 'repair' and my retailer has agreed to honour the original 5 year warranty (always provided free-of-charge by that retailer in the UK) for the new set (as expected)

I haven't checked recently to see if the 'type fault' with the XE9005 has been fixed yet. 

 Hmm..I think I set the A/V sync setting to ON and forgot about the issue. At AVForums, some people say that upgrading to Oreo made the issue appear again despite that setting. I tried to find an OTA update last week but the TV said that I already have the latest version (which is not Oreo). I think I'm going to complain about it to Sony and see what they say. I was supposed to do that a long time ago but totally forgot it as I don't watch that much 50p content.

[stammie]

@James_liv hopefully this isn't going against any forum rules but my HD Fury AVR Key is now collecting dust in my "tech drawer", I'm willing to let it go to a good home for a very reasonable price,
pm me if you wish to find a temporary solution until you have the funds for a new amp (I know what its like to be in that position).

[noggin]

Hmm..I think I set the A/V sync setting to ON and forgot about the issue. At AVForums, some people say that upgrading to Oreo made the issue appear again despite that setting. I tried to find an OTA update last week but the TV said that I already have the latest version (which is not Oreo). I think I'm going to complain about it to Sony and see what they say. I was supposed to do that a long time ago but totally forgot it as I don't watch that much 50p content. 

It doesn't have to be 50p content, it does it in exactly the same way with 50i (aka all native interlaced TV shows in the UK)

The A/V sync setting was a non-ideal solution if you used an external AV amp as it introduced so much delay, many AVRs didn't have enough matching delay in them to avoid sync errors.  Game wasn't a great solution as it reduces your ability to calibrate the TV correctly ISTR.

[Boulder]

Hmm..I think I set the A/V sync setting to ON and forgot about the issue. At AVForums, some people say that upgrading to Oreo made the issue appear again despite that setting. I tried to find an OTA update last week but the TV said that I already have the latest version (which is not Oreo). I think I'm going to complain about it to Sony and see what they say. I was supposed to do that a long time ago but totally forgot it as I don't watch that much 50p content. 

It doesn't have to be 50p content, it does it in exactly the same way with 50i (aka all native interlaced TV shows in the UK)

The A/V sync setting was a non-ideal solution if you used an external AV amp as it introduced so much delay, many AVRs didn't have enough matching delay in them to avoid sync errors.  Game wasn't a great solution as it reduces your ability to calibrate the TV correctly ISTR. 

I contacted the Sony support earlier and naturally the first response was to try the motion settings, which of course have no effect here because it's a case of repeated or dropped frames. I just responded politely that I don't want to add any soap opera effects when I'm watching stuff and in sports, it's basically useless because it's natively interlaced and smooth enough. Well see if anything happens when they respond back..

[noggin]

Hmm..I think I set the A/V sync setting to ON and forgot about the issue. At AVForums, some people say that upgrading to Oreo made the issue appear again despite that setting. I tried to find an OTA update last week but the TV said that I already have the latest version (which is not Oreo). I think I'm going to complain about it to Sony and see what they say. I was supposed to do that a long time ago but totally forgot it as I don't watch that much 50p content. 

It doesn't have to be 50p content, it does it in exactly the same way with 50i (aka all native interlaced TV shows in the UK)

The A/V sync setting was a non-ideal solution if you used an external AV amp as it introduced so much delay, many AVRs didn't have enough matching delay in them to avoid sync errors.  Game wasn't a great solution as it reduces your ability to calibrate the TV correctly ISTR.  

I contacted the Sony support earlier and naturally the first response was to try the motion settings, which of course have no effect here because it's a case of repeated or dropped frames. I just responded politely that I don't want to add any soap opera effects when I'm watching stuff and in sports, it's basically useless because it's natively interlaced and smooth enough. Well see if anything happens when they respond back.. 

It was a known fault, acknowledged by Sony.  There's a long thread at AV Forums about it.