Sound bar set up

[tanbir17]

My sony tv has 3 hdmi inputs of which one is ARC.
My sound bar has 2 hdmi and 2 optical out put.

I have 3 hd source, ps3 and youview and sky hd.

As the tv has 3 hdmi ports but I now have 4 hdmi connection (1 is the sound bar) what is the best way to set this up without having to plug a cable in/out every time I want to watch what ever is not plugged in.

[Anonymous]

Hi there

Firstly, Can I assume that the soundbar has an HDMI -ARC port 2?  If not, you will also need to connect an optical cable from the soundbar to the TV.  As well as the following.  The soundbar should have optical IN.

Soundbar > TV (HDMI ARC)

YouView > TV (HDMI)

Sky HD > TV (HDMI)

PS3 > Soundbar (HDMI)

If this doesnt work, can you provide brand/model numbers of soundbar and TV

Cheers

[tanbir17]

The sound bar has got the following ports:
Hdmi arc
hdmi bdvd
opt 1 tv
opt 2 aux

Sound bar is panasonic htb20eb
Sony tv 55w805a

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Hi there

The KDL-55W805A TV actually has 4 HDMI ports.  3 on the bottom, labeled (HDMI 1 ARC, HDMI 3, HDMI 4) and 1 on the side, labeled HDMI 2 - MHL.  The HDMI MHL is a dual use port for ordinary HDMI connections and for MHL connections.

Therefore you can connect all devices to the TV, if you so wish.  Just ensure that the Soundbar is connected to HDMI 1 ARC.

However, in my opinion, you might get better sound from the PS3, if you connect the PS3 to the HDMI (AV IN - BD/DVD) port on the Soundbar.

Cheers

[ToonPatriot]

I have the same TV/
Just a quick one,
I have 5 speakers and a sub (5.1 surround), a Sony AV receiver. and it all came to around 250-300£
and I see these single sound bars for nearly £1000. I'm very happy with the surround sound but am wondering what the sound bars are all about, and why they command such a high price without surrounding you with speakers??

[Anonymous]

I cant answer for tanbir13 - but for many it comes down to 3 issues from what I have seen on the forums:

• Ease of use/setup
• Space saving related issues
• Wife issues (where-as wife wont allow it full speaker setup)

[tanbir17]

The reason for the sound bar was because of the space, space was limited. I got the sound bar with the sub really cheap £80. Was going to get the Sony260 300w model but that was £200+ couldn't really afford it. Sound from the Panasonic is amazing.

Connecting the PS3 to the BDVD port on the sound bar will that transfer both audio and video as long as a cable is running from both arc ports of tv/soundbar? I tried this with youview and I could only get sound but no video!

or is it only the port on the PS3 that can send audio/video to soundbar then to tv?

[Anonymous]

The soundbar should be sending video up to the TV, So I dont really know why it didnt with your YouView box.

Give it a try with the PS3 anyhow.  If it fails to send video up (which is the whole point of having the HDMI connections on the soundbar in the first place) - have a look at the settings. 

[tanbir17]

Thanks for your help. I've managed to get both audio and video to send to tv with YouView and the ps3 worked flawlessly.

Quick question, do you get better audio via hdmi or optical cable?

[Anonymous]

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@tanbir17 wrote:
Quick question, do you get better audio via hdmi or optical cable?

---

That question is actually a little more difficult than a Yes/No answer.  If the source material (ie Bluray disc) is played using Dolby Digital or DTS (or an audio format that both support) the audio quality is the same. 

However, Optical does not support higher quality audio like lossless mult-channel audio codecs such as DTS-HDMA or Dolby TrueHD, and therefore will be reduced down. 

Therefore HDMI is the way.....

By the way, glad its all working

Cheers