Vero 4K has been disconnecting my ARC connection and it somehow manages to disable the Viera Link function of my Panasonic TV, so the ARC between my TV and Soundbar gets “broken”
It always happens after I power off the Vero.
I cannot keep Vero on 24/7 for various reasons and have been looking for a solution for almost 11 months now.
Various updates/fixes have been promised by Sam but none have worked.
None of my other devices break ARC, only VERO 4K does it so I’m wondering if there will ever be a fix to this issue to stop Vero from messing with the Arc/Viera Link.
I have tried different HDMI cables, I have also tried to see if other connected devices cause this issue, but it seems only Vero breaks the “link”
Edit: Here is my setup
TV - Panasonic VIERA TH-50CX740A
Soundbar - Yamaha YSP-2500
HDMI/ARc cable is going out of the soundbar into the TV.
Vero is connected into one of the HDMI ports of the soundbar.
Other connected devices are Blu-Ray player, Satellite TV Box, sometimes Xbox.
@Ringu2000 Please, provide a full detailed layout what devices are connected to TV/AVR/soundbar using what type HDMI/SPDIF/analog of link. Also brand and model of TV/AVR/soundbar/devices should be given.
I had problems getting my YSP-2500 working properly with my LG TV. In the end I put all my HDMI connections into the TV and controlled the selection of them with the TV remote and just put the HDMI ARC connection to the sound bar. The problem I had was that it was flipping to TV-ARC all the time but of course there was no sound coming down that connection so I would have to manually select a connection again after I had changed it to get the sound back.
Maybe try connection your devices to the HDMI connections on the TV and just have the one cable going from the TV to the sound bar?
There seems to be some confusion here, so I want to clarify some things.
ARC will not function if you remove power to the Vero 4K / Vero 4K +.
My understanding is that around January you opened a chargeback stating that ARC did not work. We made some changes to ARC and you then confirmed that this worked when the device is on. Further to this, I also added a suspend mode, so you can keep the device on with ARC functioning, but put it in to a cooler, low power state.
Others on this forum have experienced ARC issues. We can fix them. But we can’t fix the fact that the device needs power for this to function. This cannot be fixed in software – no software is running when the device is off.
I have tried to explain this before, so hopefully it is clearer now. The Vero 4K / Vero 4K + is designed to be an always-on device. The temperatures you report when you say that the device is overheating are normal idling temperatures (60c). The device has good thermal governing and hard trip points that can prevent it from overheating in a critical way. I have explained this in more detail in our emails.
We have proposed some other solutions, such as using an optical cable, but my recommendation is to keep the unit powered.
Why removing power from VERO would disable the ARC function of my other devices? Removing power from Xbox or Blu-Ray player doesn’t do that. I’m confused here…
Again, I don’t understand why turning off VERO would affect and disable the VIERA Link feature of my TV? VERO has nothign to do with my ARC, VERO is just one of the connected devices, so I don’t understand why and how it can affect the TV feature?
You can use an optical cable to your sound bar as previously suggested; keep the unit powered; or use a HDMI CEC Less Adapter, Female to Male.
The Vero 4K / Vero 4K + is meant to be always on.
This can’t be fixed in software. The improvements in January added support for suspending (low power and cooler state) and fixed some ARC issues when the device is on
I can’t use optical because in order to use it I will need to disable the HDMI/ARC on my TV; unfortunately i can’t keep it powered on as mentioned before many times; not sure what HDMI CEC Less Adapter is, i will look that up.
And as a side note, I have never come across any device that cannot be powered off or it breaks ARC connections when powered off, if I knew that VERO is like this I would have never bought it in the first place. So apologies if i’m being a pain, but you did say the “next update” will fix that, but it never really did…
The optical out of your TV is basically the same as HDMI-ARC. What’s the problem about substituting ARC from TV to soundbar with an optical connection between TV and soundbar? If you substitute it, there’s no issue disabling ARC.
Viera Link (HDMI CEC) and ARC can be configured independently in the Panasonic setup menu normally…
AVRs can be configured to know which input is the “TV” input - whether it’s the HDMI-out ARC channel or an optical input. Your soundbar can’t be configured that way?
If you set it up like I suggested then the soundbar will always get the sound of the source on the TV. It will also turn on and turn off with the TV. If you want photos or videos of my setup then let me know and I can provide those for you.
No worries I hope it works for you. I rarely have to touch the soundbar remote now because the volume is controlled by the TV and source selection. It felt more natural doing it this way round. I can’t remember what it was exactly but I think some sound formats can’t be transmitted down optical but can down HDMI which is why I decided not to use optical. I’ve also wired up the sub so that I don’t get that tinny sound for ten seconds before the sub wakes up!
@Ringu2000 Most tv TV boxes with the Amlogic chips and some others like early generation Raspberry PIs have a hardware design flaw (feature) where by they interfere with HDMI ARC when they are not powered on. Most consumer devices don’t have this issue. @sam_nazarko has been at strains to avoid stating this and always insists that the device should be always on without explicitly acknowledging this flaw.
For a long time I thought that it was an issue with my AV receiver or TV and was frustrated for a long time. This resulted in unnecessary purchases
My understanding is that AMLogic’s choice of HDMI PHY intentionally prevents ARC passthrough when the device is off, as I stated before.
Do you have any documentation to support that it is indeed a design flaw? My understanding is that even the new GXL2 chips with a refreshed HDMI 2.1 PHY still observe this behaviour
@sam_nazarko I’m sure you’ve looked at this in more detail than I have. Based on your response on the thread linked below, I take it the Uboot fix is not straight forward as I’m sure you’d have fixed by now, if only to avoid the all the grief.
