Rpi2 w/ OSMC , HDMI-ARC, HifiBerry, Sonos Playbar

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

Maybe not the right forum but I’ll give it a try.

Here’s my setup:
Rpi2 w/ OSMC
TV Panasonic P55ST50
Sonos Playbar

I’m of course having the problem of getting AC3 (5.1) delivered to my Sonos Playbar.

  • TV converts every external source (i.e. HDMI) into 2 channel PCM via TV’s TOSLINK or HDMI-ARC.
  • Air broadcasts and files played via TV’s built in media player can output AC3 5.1 audio via TOSLINK or HDMI-ARC. But using built in media player is not an option for me.

So I was thinking if this would be possible

  • Rpi2 with HiFiBerry and OSMC -> TV (HDMI-ARC)
  • TOSLINK between HiFiBerry -> Playbar. I hope this would resolve getting AC3 passed to Playbar

But with this setup I’m not getting sound from the normal TV channels. I was hoping that the RPi2 / OSMC would be able to handle audio return via HDMI-ARC and pass it via HiFiBerry TOSLINK to my Playbar if sound is present on ARC or if any other source that Rpi2 HDMI is selected. I’m okay with this being 2 channels PCM.

Thoughts on this? Is Rpi2 w/ OSMC able to handle audio coming in via HDMI-ARC?

Ps. Of course if someone knows a way to get this TV to passthrough AC3 from external sources I’ll be more than happy to know how. I don’t fully understand EDID but what I’ve tried hasn’t helped.

2

ok, so I found out that Rpi (1,2 or 3) doesn’t have hdmi pin 14 connected which means no go for hdmi-arc anyway. bummer.

3

Maybe you want to take a look at the new Vero when it becomes available

4

I will. Do you mean Vero2 or is there a newer Vero in the making?

5

Vero2 is “sold out”, something new is just lurking around the corner