ARC (Audio Return Channel)

Are you looking to avoid optical cable and make ARC port work on your TV?

Here is my story, hopes it saves some of your time.
I have recently purchased new Samsung 55D 7000 series TV and connected to my AV receiver (Onkyo TX SR-604)
This receiver is pretty good, I’ve been using this for last 8 yrs. It’s 7.1 channels and 630 watt but unfortunately only had 2 HDMI input and 1 HDMI output.

The TV has these hdmi ports labeled as below
HDMI/DVI 1 IN
HDMI 2 IN (ARC)
HDMI 3 IN
HDMI 4 IN

After connecting
TV HDMI/DVI 1 –-> Receiver HDMI out
Set top box –-> Receiver HDMI in
Blu ray player –-> Receiver HDMI in

Everything worked as expected, except for the fact when starting any application using smart hub (Samsung apps) there was no audio. Then I connected TV optical out to receiver optical in and that fixed the problem. But I didn’t wanted to run an extra cable for this audio out because I had already wall mounted my TV with 2 HDMI cable hiding inside the wall. And this optical cable over the wall will make it an ugly setup. Also, one of the other related requirements was to run a slide show from external NAS storage along with background music.

After doing some research I figured out there is a way to avoid the extra digital optical cable running from TV to the receiver if we use ARC HDMI port. Now the question is how?

This is just a good reference for ARC and how to set it up
“An Audio Return Channel-enabled TV allows you to send audio over an already connected HDMI 1.4 cable. Ordinarily, in order to transfer audio from your source (ie antenna or VIA widgets) to your home theater system you would need a separate audio cable (analog audio or digital optical) going from your TV to the home theater system. With the ARC function, you will be able to send any audio from your TV back to an ARC enabled home theater system and listen to your TV's audio through the home theater system without having to connect an optical cable.”

How to use ARC:
These are the steps that you will need to take to enable ARC (Audio Return Channel)

•               Make sure your audio receiver is ARC compatible and your TV is ARC compatible.
•               Ensure that you have an HDMI 1.4 cable that is multi-directional
•               Use HDMI 1 on your TV and it will need to be plugged into the HDMI OUT of the receiver
•               Change Digital Audio on your TV to Dolby Digital
•               Turn off the TV internal speakers
•               Turn CEC on
•               Ensure the receiver is in TV control and is in discoverable mode (You may have to reference the manual for your receiver or contact the manufacturer of your receiver)
•               Search for the device under CEC menu
•               This will unlock System Audio Control (under CEC), turn to ON and enjoy ARC!

I guess the first most important thing you would need is an AV receiver which supports ARC. Don’t worry much about HDMI cables.

To make that work I ordered a Pioneer VSX-822-K receiver which is ARC compatible and has 6 HDMI input ports, network ready, lots of iphone/ipods and other media support. After connecting all those HDMI ports the same way it was connected before the problems remained the same.

Follow this connection layout:
make sure you use TV ARC port instead of HDMI/DVI.

TV                                                            RECEIVER                                                 DEVICE
HDMI/DVI 1 IN                                         
HDMI 2 IN (ARC)       à                             HDMI OUT
HDMI 3 IN                                                HDMI SAT/CBL          à             Comcast/AT&T set top HDMI OUT
HDMI 4 IN                                                HDMI BD                  à             Samsung Bluray Player HDMI OUT
                                                                HDMI GAME
                                                                HDMI DVR/BDR
                                                                HDMI VIDEO
                                                                HDMI DVD

Once all HDMI are connected as above.

Enable ARC on the receiver, it seems by default ARC is disabled on all receivers.

That’s all for enabling audio for smarthub using external speakers.
Now, can we also put background music once we start a slideshow? J

I guess unless samsumg doesn't support multitasking or add the background music feature with smart apps, the only option we have is to connect ipod using USB (front panel) on the receiver while running the slideshow. No wait ! How about Airplay?

We can use airplay to stream your iphone music while you start your slideshow.