Not working: Q90R TV + Q70R Soundbar

[Matt_Q90R]

I have recently purchased a Q90R TV with a Q70R soundbar, as have many people on this forum it seems in the UK with the recent attractive promotion.

Since I first plugged it in I have had nothing but problems with setting up the TV and getting it to recognise the soundbar.

Before I go further, set up is as follows:

HDMI 1, Virgin Media V6 box

HDMI 2, Playstation 4

HDMI 3 (ARC), Q70R Soundbar

HDMI 4, Now TV 4K

Issue 1: Recognising the soundbar

You would think that both being Samsung items - of the same model year - they would talk to each other very well. Wrong. The TV flatly doesnt understand that it has a soundbar plugged into the ARC connection, either completely omitting that something is there or thinking it is an audio receiver (either way - no sound).

This was not the case when first plugged in, but everytime the set up is turned off it forgets everything. I had to do a factory restore last time to get it to remember which lasted until I turned it off for the night.

Issue 2: Lip Sync

The second problem is severe lip sync issues on any input other than apps built into the TV, with even these not being quite perfect. I have adjusted the audio lag option to 0 on both the soundbar itself and the TV but this issue still persists.

All HDMI cables used are pretty new and I believe to be of the latest spec. I have bought two more from Amazon (Amazon Basics cables, confirmed on various places to be HDMI 2.0 compliant) to verify this anyway and eliminate it as a possibility.

Overall I am very disappointed and this whole escapade has massively taken the shine off a purchase which I have been saving up for and looking forward to for some time. Hopefully a fix can be found... any help more than welcome.

Matt

[MrTest]

Hey Matt, I myself have also been caught up in the discounts and have had the same issues with Q80 TV and soundbar.

Separately I find both of these units excellent, however they don't seem to play well. My setup is almost exactly the same as yours and detailed some findings and workarounds with folks on another post in these forums here. See from my first entry on P10 onwards. Hopefully this can help

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/TV/Lip-sync-on-Q90R-with-5-1-input/td-p/1165111/highlight/false/...

[Ian57]

Hi Matt,

Have you (or anyone else reading this) had any success in resolving the problem whereby the TV stops recognising the soundbar and reverts to the TV speakers?  I am experiencing the same issue with my Q90 TV and soundbar.  With a Sky Q box (via an HDMI splitter) connected into the TV OCB the system is stable and I have no problem.  However, as soon as I try to connect a Panasonic Ultra Blu-Ray player via either the TV OCB or into the soundbar, I get the problem.  The Blu-Ray works fine when first connected and the soundbar recognises Dolby Atmos content, but the next day when I power on the TV doesn't recognise the soundbar, reverts to TV speaker output and does not have an option to select the Soundbar Q90R(HDMI).  Need to power cycle the TV and Soundbar which is a real pain etc etc.

Ive read about a workaround using remote powered power sockets but Id rather not have to use that option.  There is a lot of discussion wrt e-ARC and whether Samsung will implement a firmware upgrade, however, to me this specific issue is more fundamental HDMI interface/control problem and should just work properly on 2019 models, it's not rocket science!

[ranger01]

I think the problem (for me at least) is a compatability issue between the panasonic bluray player and the TV causing it to not recognise the soundbar. As soon as I remove the hdmi lead from the bluray the soundbar will start working again

[Ian57]

Yes I was thinking the same re the Blu-Ray player and have thought about introducing an HDMI switch between the external devices and the soundbar to see if that alleviated the problem.  Not ideal and shouldn't be needed but maybe a reasonable workaround.

Do you disconnect the HDMI cable at the Blu-Ray player or at the TV (or soundbar)?

[Ian57]

And having said that, there are a lot of us experiencing problems and probably with lots of different devices from various manufacturers.