HDMI splitters - advice needed

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Chrisblobster

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+1 received by user: 3

#294105 5-Mar-2022 12:18

Hi all, I recently bought a Philips 65" 4K OLED TV. I have a compact Linux based gaming PC and a 1080p Bluray player connected to it. My AV Receiver is an older but nice Pioneer unit that has Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD MA decoding, but only 1080p HDMI passthrough. Rather than replace my AV Receiver with a 4K capable one I've decided to keep my existing receiver, and buy a 4K Bluray player with dual output, so I can send audio to the receiver and 4K video separately to the TV. For the computer however I'd like to do desktop stuff at 4K, and game at 1080p, so I will need to split the HDMI out to both the TV and Receiver, as getting 5.1 audio from the TV back to the receiver over HDMI ARC only seems to work on TV channels, every other 5.1 source such as incoming HDMI signals, or from built in apps (Netflix etc) in the TV will only send audio that can decode if digital audio output for HDMI ARC is set to 2.0 channel mode.

Has anyone used a simple 4K capable HDMI splitter to duplicate signal to both the TV and Receiver, and did you encounter any issues? I've considered that and also an HDMI audio extractor, but most of those I can find for sale only have toslink digital output rather than a more capable coaxial or HDMI audio out.

Any advice, suggestions, recommendations are welcome 😁

Regards, Chris W, Christchurch

richms

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#2879413 5-Mar-2022 13:03

I got one with a scaler to try to be able to capture the consoles on my older 1080p caprure device while watching 4k. Results were mixed at best. Made it only do stereo I assume because one of the devices was only stereo (capture device)

Was this listing, seems to have gone up massivly since I got it https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32952661746.html - that may be because there is an upcoming "sale" which brings it back to about what I paid 1+ year ago. - its now relegated to the shed being used as a splitter on my android TV box between monitors as it seems to sort out the constant blanking issues that my other splitter had in that situation.

The listing has changed since I bought it and has 3 on it now, the one I have is the ZY-HS20B type. I only have old dolby and DTS capable stuff so not sure on its claims to pass atmos etc

First tried this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32861122694.html off a splitter but that gave issues with nothing happening unless everything was powered up in the exact right order and would then freak out often with changes in the output from the console.

I did not try any HDR with either as I still dont have a display with that.

Richard rich.ms

PANiCnz

999 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#2879429 5-Mar-2022 13:45

I'm using one of these and its great. 4k60 HDR to my TV, and DD+ and DTS-HD to my soundbar. Works perfectly.

Chrisblobster

24 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#2879697 6-Mar-2022 12:26

PANiCnz:

I'm using one of these and its great. 4k60 HDR to my TV, and DD+ and DTS-HD to my soundbar. Works perfectly.

Thanks for reply. I managed to solve the issue - my GTX 1650 GPU has HDMI, DVI, and DP outs, and since DP also carries audio I popped down to PBTech, grabbed an $18 DP to HDMI cable, and now I can run 4K video via HDMI to the TV, and the DP output on the GPU goes to the AV Receiver delivering the 5.1 sound I could not for the life of me get from the TV back to the receiver over HDMI ARC. It was a simple switch via dropdown list in my audio settings from HDMI 5.1 to DP 5.1. Job done!

The AV Receiver shows up as a 1080p display in display settings, but with no monitor actually displaying that I'll need to somehow get Linux to restrict newly opened apps and the mouse pointer from either opening on or crossing over to that. Otherwise it's solved 😄

Cheers,

Chris W, Christchurch