Trickledown....

[RCHeliGuy]

My 75" Sony Bravia HD TV kicked the bucket..

So I got an 85" QLED Samsung to replace it.
But my AV receiver was also limited to HD.
So I got an 8K capable AV receiver with Atmos and a bit more power.
Then I realized that my rear satellites came with the house so I upgraded them to match.
All my cables had to be upgraded to be HDMI 2.1 8K capable.

The new receiver did a great job calibrating my room and recognizing exactly where each speaker was in terms of distance and response. Interestingly my subwoofer which uses a wireless transmitter rather than a very very long cable had enough delay that the receiver thought it was another 25 feet away so it compensated for that.

Now the receiver can stream Spotify, Tidal, Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime etc. and of course the TV can as well. I can use enhanced ARC so that the source can come from either the TV or receiver and still have surround working.

The sad thing was that I was perfectly fine with my almost 10 year old TV and 10 year old AV receiver and upgrading the TV "forced" me to upgrade everything else.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

I think I've got it all figured out now.

My eARC is working well both ways now.

So VR Gaming PC -> TV -> eARC -> AV Receiver
Roku, BD, Cable -> AV Receiver -> TV

The latency appears to be improved in this chain. There used to be more of a lag between the PC - optical output -> AV receiver as perceived with my VR headset vs. surround sound.

 

[Robert D]

W

I think I've got it all figured out now.

My eARC is working well both ways now.

So VR Gaming PC -> TV -> eARC -> AV Receiver
Roku, BD, Cable -> AV Receiver -> TV

The latency appears to be improved in this chain. There used to be more of a lag between the PC - optical output -> AV receiver as perceived with my VR headset vs. surround sound.

Why not plug the computer directly into the receiver? I run all of my stuff into the receiver, there's no need to use the ARC on the tv.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

W

Why not plug the computer directly into the receiver? I run all of my stuff into the receiver, there's no need to use the ARC on the tv.

The reason I have the PC directly connected to the TV is that 99% of the time I don't need speakers because I'm wearing a VR headset, and the receiver doesn't need to be on.

However after saying I thought I had this figured out, I was wrong. I was fighting with the eARC. I think I'll just go back to running the optical connection to the AV receiver. Then I can just use that on the rare ocassions I run the PC audio out to the speakers. So I'm abandoning eARC. I think I have the HDMI configuration correct now.

As much as I'm loving the EverSolo DMP-A8 which seems to handle everything beautifully in my den.

This TV/AV receiver upgrade in my media room has been a bit painful.

 

[Nuri58]

As long you don't need Atmos I think optical will do.

 

[Robert D]

The reason I have the PC directly connected to the TV is that 99% of the time I don't need speakers because I'm wearing a VR headset, and the receiver doesn't need to be on.

However after saying I thought I had this figured out, I was wrong. I was fighting with the eARC. I think I'll just go back to running the optical connection to the AV receiver. Then I can just use that on the rare ocassions I run the PC audio out to the speakers. So I'm abandoning eARC. I think I have the HDMI configuration correct now.

As much as I'm loving the EverSolo DMP-A8 which seems to handle everything beautifully in my den.

This TV/AV receiver upgrade in my media room has been a bit painful.

I always use the optical cable for sound from my pc because I use a Sound Blaster card. It uses that. On my VR setup I did that. It works well. Another option is to just hit mute on the receiver.
If you want the best sound on your pc, I recommend a decent Sound Blaster or equivalent card. I compared that to the onboard sound on my mother board and there's no comparison. I have a nice mobo too. An Asus Hero. I also tried using my nvidia rtx card and it sounded worse too.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

I just use the optical cable to mirror my VR headset audio for visitors.

I'm running an external Soundblaster X4 to drive my sim rig tactile system with the amps below.
I had issues with substantial crosstalk from motherboard audio and internal audio cards. The X4 is giving me 8 clean channels.

I'm running an Asus TUF Gaming Z690-PLUS, 6000Mhz DDR5 & Asus TUF 4090 OC in my PC. I haven't tried to use the audio card on this motherboard, but I am using the Optical out. I've had much better luck with optical out from MB audio cards than I have the analog channels.

Enjoying my Bigscreen Beyond quite a bit in terms of VR.

 

[Robert D]

That headset looks great. Surely feels much more comfortable than the first gen Vive I have.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

The trickledown continues... My 13 year old OPPO BD-93 player just doesn't seem to be recognized properly for audio. I connected a recent cheapo $50 BD player and it immediately recognized it and worked. FYI, the cheap player is for the bedroom where a 15 year old Oppo BD-86 died recently.

So I just ordered a decent 4K BD player and of course it will stream just about everything itself too.

This smart stuff is crazy. I turned off the TV and AV receiver, but accidentally left the BD player running, so I suddenly start hearing something from my media room. The AV receiver and TV had turned themselves on because they had a signal from the player.

I just updated the firmware on my AV receiver that is supposed to fix a number of bugs and it is worked better for a number of things

 

[Robert D]

The trickledown continues... My 13 year old OPPO BD-93 player just doesn't seem to be recognized properly for audio. I connected a recent cheapo $50 BD player and it immediately recognized it and worked. FYI, the cheap player is for the bedroom where a 15 year old Oppo BD-86 died recently.

So I just ordered a decent 4K BD player and of course it will stream just about everything itself too.

This smart stuff is crazy. I turned off the TV and AV receiver, but accidentally left the BD player running, so I suddenly start hearing something from my media room. The AV receiver and TV had turned themselves on because they had a signal from the player.

I just updated the firmware on my AV receiver that is supposed to fix a number of bugs and it is worked better for a number of things

You need to go into a menu somewhere abd turn off the HDMI control, so that the different audio components can't turn each other on and off. I had that problem with my Apple tv 4k and the cable company's new tivo boxes. There are usually 2 settings in turn off. Then stuff only powers on/off with your remote.
With this new tivo box, the tv turned itself on and the Panasonic 4k player did too. PITA!

 

[Robert D]

I highly recommend this Panasonic 4k hi-fi player. It's great. This is what most OPPO users have switched to. I've had mine for over 8 years. Zero problems, and it's built like a tank! OPPO users have posted online that it's better than there old OPPO players in some ways. The Sound and picture are top notch, I'm not aware of any better. You can even use two hdmi outputs and separate the video and audio into different cables.

I never owned OPPO, so I can't personally compare. Online users that own both are highly impressed though. Amazon sells this too.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...p_ub9000p1k_hdr_uhd_blu_ray_player_wi_fi.html

 

[Robert D]

https://shop.panasonic.com/products/reference-4k-blu-ray-player-dolby-vision-hd-audio-dp-ub9000p1k

 

[RCHeliGuy]

I ordered the Panasonic and pre-ordered the Planet Earth III ( UHD HDR ) shipping next Tuesday

When Oppo saw that media was dying that basically left Panasonic and Sony as keeper of the BD players.

I still use the Oppo 105D in my Den and it works beautifully for movies feeding the Eversolo with stereo only. It almost sounds like I have a center channel. However I very rarely watch movies up there. The 65" 4K Samsung in my den looks good, but it's not quite as stunning at the 85" in my media room.

 

[Robert D]

I ordered the Panasonic and pre-ordered the Planet Earth III ( UHD HDR ) shipping next Tuesday

When Oppo saw that media was dying that basically left Panasonic and Sony as keeper of the BD players.

I still use the Oppo 105D in my Den and it works beautifully for movies feeding the Eversolo with stereo only. It almost sounds like I have a center channel. However I very rarely watch movies up there.

Good! You won't be disappointed. Mine is older and so doesn't have Dolby Vision. Dolby Vision didn't exist yet, so that's how old mine is. It still works like brand new.

The HDR on it is so good that it looks as good or maybe a bit better than the Dolby Vision on my Apple tv 4k. The Dolby Vision on your player should be incredible if you show it on a good OLED display like mine.

I'd buy a new player, but my old one works so well and looks/sounds so good that I can't bring myself to spend $1000 on another one.

 

[Robert D]

In order to watch Dolby atmos on that player, you need to change the audio setting on it to BITSTREAM.It will then output the pure unadulterated Atmos signal to your receiver and then it decodes it. The player can't decide Atmos. Probably a smart move on their part because the Atmos decoders on nice receivers are probably nicer than what they could put in their player and keep it somewhat affordable.

 

[Robert D]

If you don't switch to Bitstream you won't get Atmos.

 

[RCHeliGuy]

I got the Samsung QN90C 85" QLED
So far I'm impressed, but I haven't actually watched any HDR content yet. It seems a LOT darker and brighter than the 75" I replaced.

FYI, my 13 year old Oppo also used Bitstream

 

[Nuri58]

If you don't switch to Bitstream you won't get Atmos.

And even so you might have to force your amp from 7.1 HD master audio to dolby atmos - I know i did before it worked.

 

[Robert D]

I got the Samsung QN90C 85" QLED
So far I'm impressed, but I haven't actually watched any HDR content yet. It seems a LOT darker and brighter than the 75" I replaced.

FYI, my 13 year old Oppo also used Bitstream

Ok, good that you know about the Bitstream. The Panasonic default is PCM, so you'll have to change that.

Samsung doesn't use Dolby Vision, but if your set is brand new it should have the latest HDR. Dolby vision uses AI to constantly adjust the picture of the movie while you watch, frame by frame. The newest HDR is supposed to do that. Dolby Vision still has the best picture though from what I read. Samsung decided not to use Dolby Vision, I think they didn't want to pay the licensing fee. It's the major reason I went to LG for my TV, that and I wanted OLED. When I got my first OLED, Samsung wasn't making OLED tvs. The panels still come from LG now.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/is-samsung-finally-making-an-oled-tv-not-so-fast
The QLED tech is a lot different than OLED, but ita a good picture too. Blacks won't be as good. You don't have to worry about burn in though. Samsung either has or will have tv sets called QD-OLED. It's a combo of the 2 technologies. I'm pretty sure LG still had the exclusive rights to OLED panels in North America. So when you see Sony tvs that are OLED, it's a LG panel.

https://www.pcguide.com/tv/guide/best-qd-oled-tvs/

 

[Robert D]

And even so you might have to force your amp from 7.1 HD master audio to dolby atmos - I know i did before it worked.

My Marantz automatically switches over.