I’ve got a super low-end TV in the bedroom which I’m hoping to add a super low-end soundbar to for marginally better dialog.
What I’m wondering is, does the Kodi volume control vary the volume on all the Vero 4k outputs (HDMI, TOSLINK, Bluetooth)? Probably a dumb question but I’ve never used the volume control or anything but HDMI out to a device which would itself be used for volume control.
Ideally, I would pair the soundbar with the Vero over Bluetooth, turn off the TV speakers and remap the TV remotes volume buttons to Kodi’ s volume control (FLIRC).
Pardon the ignorance…
Cheers,
Robert
It would control volume on a Bluetooth sink. But I’d not recommend using Bluetooth / A2DP for streaming to soundbar if possible.
Sam
Thanks Sam. Bluetooth sink is an unfamiliar term to me but it sounds like the approach is best avoided, so I won’t bother reading up on that!
The sound bar has an optical input - is the volume controled on that Vero output?
RLW
Sink just means where the audio is going.
Use optical if you can.
Volume is not controlled directly by the Vero if passthrough is enabled, but you could then use CEC to adjust the volume on the soundbar.
A soundbar with an optical input normally comes with the ability to learn the volume and mute buttons of a third party remote. The way it is normally done (with optical) is that the optical cable goes from the TV to the soundbar and then you disable the speaker output on the TV, and then you program the soundbar to your TV remote.
Couldn’t help myself, I Googled. Destination, Recipient…Ack.
You guys may have missed my term “low-end”. Lol… The CEC implementation is abysmal on this TV and doesn’t exist on this soundbar. CEC does work for the basic navigation of the Vero using the TV remote, and I don’t need to employ the Vero remote at all. However I don’t particularly want to use the soundbar remote either. So I was thinking of having the TV speakers off, program the TV remote volume buttons to vary the Vero output via optical out (connected directly to the soundbar) and set the soundbar at some mid-volume level forevermore.
Shockingly, the TV does have an optical output and an HDMI-ARC port, along with a non-ARC one. I don’t think the TV remote varies the volume on either of these outputs though - I think it’s meant for the sink device to do that. He-he, probably used that term wrong.
There is no mention of learning capabilities with the soundbar remote either. Gotta think rudimentary here. The soundbar has an HDMI, TOSLINK, RCA-Pair and Bluetooth input. Period.
Cheers,
Robert
Allowing Kodi to control volume is going to result in diminished sound quality and should be a very last resort. Finding a way to control volume with the sounds is your best bet.
OK, so to the original question: yes, but not recommended. Got it.
Thank you all.
Cheers,
Robert
I’d suggest trying the optical output from the TV. You should be able to control the volume with the TV remote then. I had a cheap TV and this worked fine. It was even able to control the volume when set to ‘passthrough’ the audio so I got DD (and surprisingly DTS) on my old Yamaha amp.
It’s worth trying at least. It’s easy enough to experiment with different setup to find out what works best with your equipment.
Only if not done via CEC. With CEC volume can be controlled even when passthrough is active.
Thanks Bill. Yes, at the end of the day I’ll just have to experiment with this TV and soundbar. I was just wanting to better understand the options from a Vero perspective. The TV is mounted on a wall, blocking access to the various ports and I’m wanting to mount the soundbar, hide cables etc… All directly above a 200kg tall dresser. Not wanting to make a career of this, so having the options clear in my head saves some frustration.
Cheers,
Robert
That would be highly unusual. What soundbar do you have?
Ah, jeez, I was hoping someone wouldn’t be too curious about just how low-budget this bedroom system is… all the kids will point and jeer… OK, this one:
Fityou LP-1807
Cheers,
Name With-held due to embarrassment
It doesn’t look that bad. You said that the TV has an HDMI ARC port, so I’d think the best hookup would be: Vero > HDMI > TV > HDMI (ARC) > Soundbar
Yes, Bill. That’s exactly what I first thought also and I have no doubt that will work. But I really don’t believe the volume controls on the TV remote will control the volume then and I’ll end up using the remote for the soundbar to do that. In the end, I’ll just have to set it all up and try it. I guess worst case is that I’ll have to search out a cheap basic learning remote as I don’t think any typical universal remote would have the codes for this off-brand soundbar.
Thanks,
Robert
BTW, it’s Brian, not Bill 
I think that if it supports ARC that it will also support CEC. I have a cheap 32" Sanyo, and the option to turn on ARC also allows turning on CEC. (That drove me crazy for a while, CEC had suddenly stopped working and I could not find a CEC option. Digging through the menus I finally found CEC under the ARC menu…)
Don’t be ashamed, i got on for 40Eur, doesn’t even have optical. But i’m using it with the headless pi3 to play spotify connect
@bmillham I think I knew that from earlier threads, sorry Brian. Yes, I won’t write it off without trying.
@joakim_s Yeah, it should actually be fine. My hearing is getting worse and understanding dialog from the abysmal TV speakers is frustrating. The soundbar won’t have to perform particularly well to be an improvement.
Cheers,
Robert
I was hoping there would be an online manual but I wasn’t seeing one. I didn’t see a mention anywhere of supporting a learning function either so likely it is missing that feature. I agree with the above comment that if your TV supports ARC then that is the way it would optimally be connected. I don’t know why you wouldn’t believe it would work. That is the whole point of ARC.
It’s not that I don’t believe the ARC port on the TV will work or that the soundbar will output sound from it’s HDMI input. What I suspect won’t work is controlling the volume of the soundbar with the TV remote volume buttons. I expect that I’ll only be able to control the soundbar volume using the remote that came with it.
I would be pleased and delighted to find out otherwise though!
Cheers,
Robert