Sony 55XE90 with Onkyo TX-NR609 HDMI Connection Questions

[XSnPX]

Hello all,

With a new addtion this weekend the Sony 55XE90 I need a little help. First I was surprised to find on my Onkyo 4K upscaling, but this amp is quite old and from reading HDMI versions have imporved since.

Currently I have the set up as follows;

Main HDMI in the HDMI ARC 3 Input of the TV leading to the main monitor out output of the Onkyo.

Then I have the Chromecast Ultra & TV Box connected to the HDMI inputs of my Onkyo.

The question is this OK? or should I now connect ALL HDMI Sources to the TV and hopefully all sound will then go to amp via the HDMI ARC 3 output because the TV is much more up to date to my amp? Or does this mean I now need to also upgrade my amp?

The TV has 4 HDMI's with 2&3 saying they are enhanced and 1 & 4 are not (not sure why) - 3 is being already used for sound from the TVs direct content currently.

Any assistance on this would be much appreciated, thank you.

Ben.

 

[newlash09]

Hello all, 

With a new addtion this weekend the Sony 55XE90 I need a little help.  First I was surprised to find on my Onkyo 4K upscaling, but this amp is quite old and from reading HDMI versions have imporved since.

Currently I have the set up as follows;

Main HDMI in the HDMI ARC 3 Input of the TV leading to the main monitor out output of the Onkyo.

Then I have the Chromecast Ultra & TV Box connected to the HDMI inputs of my Onkyo.

The question is this OK? or should I now connect ALL HDMI Sources to the TV and hopefully all sound will then go to amp via the HDMI ARC 3 output because the TV is much more up to date to my amp? Or does this mean I now need to also upgrade my amp?

The TV has 4 HDMI's with 2&3 saying they are enhanced and 1 & 4 are not (not sure why) - 3 is being already used for sound from the TVs direct content currently. 

Any assistance on this would be much appreciated, thank you.

Ben.

 

4k video + audio on the same cable needs a lot of bandwidth. Not sure how old your onkyo is.

Do you have a 4k disc player with Dolby or dts decoding on board the disc player.

How many speakers do you have setup.

Ideally if you have upto max 7 speakers. This is the best configuration in my opinion.

Choose Dolby or DTS decoding on your 4k disc player. And choose output on your disc player to pcm via HDMI. This will spare the onkyo from decoding duties. And it only has to do the sound steering and amplification duties.

Next i would disable 4k upscaling on the onkyo. And only choose video pass through in its native format. Since your TV is relatively newer, it will do a much better job of upscaling the video than the onkyo.

Next I would connect both the Chromecast and TV box to onkyo. And switch between inputs here. As iam not sure if the onkyo can accept more than 5.1 channel audio on the it's HDMI ARC. But I could be wrong.

 

[XSnPX]

Hi there, Thanks for replying and helping.

My Onkyo is I believe a few years old - maybe 2011 ish time.

I do not have any DVD/BR disc player. After playing with it a few times I am still having underwhelming SD to 4k results which is a shame on this TV.

First Source is my cable TV here in Spain and the box outputs only 1080i max - but quality is ok for this.

The second source mostly used is via the Chromecast Ultra - since the new TV obvisouly my old files seems very bad now, oh well, I do have many rips, most of them being of this resolution: 720x400ish with a 1,500 Kbps output file size more or less 1.4Gb for movies - TV series similar as Movies. The TV seems to struggle to upsale these to 4k resolution which is a shame and i use PLEX as delivery. (If any one has options for this to help except re-converting all my files again to a higher converting codec like H.264 720p or 1080p or the debated H.265 one :/)

I tried both sources via Onkyo and direct via TV - with HDMI3ARC as main Sound source to my amp.

After seeing that my cable box is 1080i it may make sense to "through it" to the Onkyo now, however the ChromeCast Ultra may be best connected to the TV directly?

Still going to do tests on this as need to find the best set up with my streaming media of older conversions to the new TV which is much newer than my files...

I have researched 4K standalone upscalers, but not sure how it will cope with SD 720x400 resoltuons to 4K is it would do any quality enhancements.

Again any assistance welcomed for my situation ;-)

Thx

Ben

 

[newlash09]

I am afraid normal SD can't be improved better than what your TV is already doing now. We just don't have the tech to fill up the missing pixels so far. I have been through similar with my DVD rips on my 4TB hard drive looking smudgy on my 4k TV. Was not unbearable, but no where as good as the tv's ability.

So I have completely chucked my hard drive now. Bought a roku ultra HD and use it to stream Netflix mostly. Very similar to chrome cast ultra. Except that roku seems to have more content. I don't miss my own rips one bit now.

Can you upgrade your sat box to a HD version of the same network. Should give better quality visuals.

Last, I would recommend leaving the chrome cast ultra plugged into your TV. Even better to plug your sat box into the TV. And in your TV setting , under sound settings. Disable TV 's inbuilt speakers and choose external via hdmi ARC.

 

[XSnPX]

Hi, again thanks! Happy Easter!

Well yes I think this is what I am gong to do, love the new tech but everything else has to be upgraded now to enjoy the full array of technology today.

I have since tuned the TV in settings to smooth the background pixels which has given me a more pleasurable experience thanks to Avforum recommended settings for everyday use for this TV.

For anyone else with a similar problem where the TV is 2017 standards with an old AV amp, the best connections are;

Chromecast Ultra connected to HDMI 2 of the TV

Cable TV Box connected to HDMI 1 of the TV (I tried via the amp - both through settings and upscale to 1080p and (24p) - no difference whatsoever. (Unfortunately here in Spain they still have not got an upgraded box to real HD let alone 4K lol (time to complain I guess to Movistar!)

HDMI 3 ARC all for sound from the TV to the AMP. no complaints about sound - it actually sounds better now.

Will let you all know if i find any other options as I still play with it all!

Many thanks again

Ben

 

[newlash09]

Glad you got that sorted out and getting to enjoy your new set

 

[bigboss]

Many TVs dumb down audio signals from surround sound to basic 2-channel audio before passing them down an HDMI cable (ARC). And some don't support HD audio. I'm not sure about your TV, whether it's able to passthrough audio without involving any TV processing.

 

[XSnPX]

Thanks BigBoss,

The TV i have is a sony 55XE90(05) - been looking around Google to see how it processes the sound however, all I get are "dropped sound from ARC" which I am not experiencing...

As far as I know, all sound sources register properly on my Onkyo amp - majority being DD and DD+, have not tried a DTS sound source yet.

Ben