HDMI/SPDIF Separation and Passthrough to Denon AVR

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

Hi,

I just bought my Vero 4K+.
I used to be an enthusiast spending alot of time tweaking and tailoring things to my taste.
But by age, I appreciate finished solutions more and more. Life don’t give me alot of time for contributing in forums like this anymore.

Been a long time Samsung telly-owner and all flat screens I’ve owned have been Samsungs.
To my disappointment, I discovered my last purchase (UE65MU7105) did’nt have DTS-support, only Stereo, Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital+. I won’t be buying anymore Samsungs after this.
But now I did, and I have tons of DTS-coded files in my library which I cannot play with the client (upnp) built into the SmartTV. Bummer…

Very well… I have a Denon AVR-2400H with all surround tweaks I can think of so I figured I only needed a good media player as a shortcut to HDMI in my SmartTV, instead of a shortcut to the Samsung UPnP-client.

Having run Kodi from time to time (Popcorn Hour, MiniX & Raspberry Pi), I decided to walk the whole nine yards and get the best. Of course 4K and Gigabit where needed. Since I were planning on passing audio through to my Denon (since the telly cannot decode DTS), SPDIF/Toslink where most important.
Instead of looking at the cheap Chinese ones, it fell on Vero 4K+.

But I must say it’s been a nightmare getting this to run. It seems worse than any Kodi-player apart from 4K-support, stability and gigabit. Audio-setup does not work for me.

My objective is this:

system
system611×919 65.3 KB

As can be seen, I need to wire the video to the TV, but the audio to the AVR.
Problem is, I cannot get HDMI and SPDIF separated. Of course, I want to do all decoding in the AVR so pass-through is also desired.

In best case, I wire everything to the AVR, but that involved a second remote control which is highly unwanted. But even then, all I get is full stereo sound (displayed in the AVR as “Stereo”) or Digital Dolby (displayed in AVR display as “DD+DD”) but without dialogue (missing channel), no matter what configuration I use.
Never DTS, and never with all channels.

I thought I bought myself some time buying the Vero 4K+, but as too many of the gizmos I buy, it seems like an unfinished product still in development, missing key features ending up costing me endless hours just to get up and running.

Of course, I might be wrong and it might be lack of knowledge that is the case. If so, I apologize, but still Vero 4K+ has not met up with my expectations. Hopefully: yet…

Hopefully, someone here can set me straight and let me know how to accomplice the setup pictured above.

2

why not put vero4k+ with hdmi in avr and via avr-tv connection play video, sound is then into AVR and DTS etc will work, why split up HDMI, or is this because AVR is not capable of transmit 4K HDMI?

1 Like
3

Have you read these wiki entries?
In your setup you can not use HDMI directly to the AVR (actually why not?) you would disable sound on HDMI and configure passthrough for the SPDIF supported codecs.

5

Because two reasons:

  1. I already have setup HDMI between TV/AVR and configured it to be optimized for PS4. Both in terms of display and sound. If I choose to plug the Vero 4K+ along side the PS4, I need to manually switch between Game/Movie-setup on the TV.
  2. I need to find a second remote, which I rarely use, and therefore always misplaced…

The AVR support 4K HDMI passthrough. DTS is no problem whatsoever with the PS4, but that one is a finished consumer product and all AVR-side operated.

6

Why? CEC should be passthrough from AVR to Vero

7

Thanks for the quick replies. I’ll look into those wikis and see what I can find. I’ve spent hours already searching for info but there’s too much making it hard to find :slight_smile: This post were a last resort really…

I want to control the Vero 4K+ from my TV. It’s just more simple and more hands on than going to my AVR which is a step away from the interface (TV).
Also, my goal is to create a substitute for the built-in SmartTV app (UPnP-client), so going to HDMI2 instead of HDMI1/ARC>AVR>HDMI5 is a few steps to much.

Not for being lazy, but to make it more easy for the kids starting a movie.

8

CEC works but the only common buttons on three remotes are directionals, OK and Back.
I can only switch between AVR-HDMI’s from the Denon-remote for example, and only access TV-specific things from the Samsung.

If I connect everything to the telly, everything will be accessed from the SmartTV-interface using one remote. The AVR must sometimes be accessed for adjustment from it’s remote but it’s rare.

If I connect everything to the AVR, some will be accessed from the SmartTV-interface using it’s remote, and everything on the AVR will be switched to using the AVR-remote.

9

You have obviously thought this through and that’s fine. Most users with a decent AVR don’t want to give up HD audio which cannot be sent through S/PDIF or ARC.

10

Sure have given this much though, but I don’t think I’m through just yet :wink:
I get the feeling there are some fundamentals missing in my knowledge.

Of course I don’t want to give up HD Audio but should I be able to send “regular” DTS through SPDIF or ARC? Is the only option for me to connect directly to the AVR then?
My previous TV had DTS (also Samsung), and there where no issues getting DTS to the AVR.

11

Yes. Turn off DTS-HD passthrough in settings->system->audio.

12

for the use of 1 remote, you might think about logitech harmony hub, selecting all devices. even a nice instruction here about connect them all together with your vero, creating activities like watch TV, play games, watch movie etc etc and within those activities you select the devices you want to use. You configure it on pc-app and synchronize them to hub and connecting tablet/mobile with harmony app. Even you can select commands to devices (game mode when using ps4, selecting normal mode when on movie etc etc.

for connecting the Vero to this, follow below, worked perfectly.

i use this harmony hub for many years, just to get ride off the many diff remotes. Just if you want to do something else, harmony app also offer possibility to adjust this as per device mode, instead of activity.

I have no experience with spdif as i want all decoders within AVR are selectable. Later when EARC is full available within AVR and TV, then it would be an option i guess to get it via HDMI.

13

If CEC is configured correctly on your TV, AVR and Vero, you can connect the Vero to your AVR and still perform most operations from the single TV remote. The Vero would appear as one of the simplink devices on your Samsung TV.

You can also map other retativley unused buttons to perform the functions that are not passed on via CEC

In my experience if found that Samsung made more remote buttons avaialble on CEC compared to other TVs e.g. LG.

14

Does not work. Still no regular DTS coming through the SPDIF.

15

Yeah, I did also try the Logitech some years back. It nearly caused me a stroke due to the awful configuration interface, online, with buggy software. I will never by a Logitech product again except if it’s a mouse or a keyboard…

16

“Most” operations is not good enough, I think.
I want to configure the AVR to auto mode and never touch that remote.
As it is now, I have to switch to Vero with the AVR-remote. I want to do that from the TV-menu, but then I need to plug the Vero to the TV-HDMI where my main problem is: The TV does not support DTS (in which I though the Vero 4K+ were the solution).

17

I tested your setup here and couldn’t reproduce this with my equipment. Please post debug logs with your attempt to play a DTS clip.

To get a better understanding of the problem you are experiencing we need more information from you. The best way to get this information is for you to upload logs that demonstrate your problem. You can learn more about how to submit a useful support request here.

Depending on the used skin you have to set the settings-level to standard or higher, in summary:

  • enable debug logging at settings->system->logging

  • reboot the OSMC device

  • reproduce the issue

  • upload the log set either using the Log Uploader method within the My OSMC menu in the GUI or the ssh method invoking command grab-logs -A

  • publish the provided URL from the log set upload, here

Thanks for your understanding. We hope that we can help you get up and running again shortly.

OSMC skin screenshot:

normal_logging
normal_logging1920×1080 764 KB

18

With CEC setup correctly, all the CEC devices connected to your AVR (including the Vero) should appear on your Samsung TV as Anynet+ devices and you should be able to switch directly to any of them without accessing the AVR. Once selected, the remote control functions should pass through to the selected device.
The UP, Down, Left Right, OK, Guide, Colour buttons, Volume (routed to AVR), playback controls should work ok.
The reason I said “most” is that

  • There are some TVs that don’t make all remote control functions available on CEC. E.g. My LG TV does not pass through the Number keys on the remote. This is not an issue with Samsung TV.
  • If you use your TV remote as a mouse, I’ve not yet encountered TVs that pass the cursor through to CEC to other devices.
  • There are some functions on the AVR remote that are not available on the TV remote e.g directly selecting the various sound fields. These can be changed by selecting the AVR from the list of Anynet+ devices and navigating the AVR menus using the TV Remote.

In my case, I only use my TV remote for my setup. I cannot recall when I had to use the AVR , DVD player remote. I use the Vero remote rarely, only when troubleshooting.

19

This may be another of those situations where it’s helpful to use either an HDFury AVRKey or an Egreat H10. They’re devices designed to split an HDMI signal into audio and video components, so you can send the audio to an AVR and video to the TV. That way you have a single HDMI output from the Vero 4K - no S/PDIF - and you retain HD audio.

20

If OP is happy without HD audio formats, i.e. DTS and DD, then an optical cable will suffice.

21

Do the videos you’re trying to play contain regular DTS soundtracks or DTS HD ones?
If its the latter I used to have problems getting even the DTS core to play until I enabled “Keep audio device alive” in Kodi’s system settings, after that all formats played correctly.
However that problem was when connected via HDMI so I have no idea if that setting will effect S/PDIF.

If all else fails I have a HD Fury AVRKey which I’m no longer using and am willing to part with at a reasonable price.