I was forced to use my brand new QLED TV as a home theater hub, rather that an expensive all inclusive amplifier input switching box such as the $1500 NHT "Controller", rendered a paperweight as of 2011 due to the advent of HDMI 1.1 incompatibility, or my current amplifier the $2300 NAD T777 which promised absolutely pure HDMI pass thru with no modification of the video signal, only Audio manipulation.
The TV promptly dropped my PC's Radeon HD Video/Audio HDMI 4K output signal down to 1024 and the OTA part of my 4k TiVo disappeared entirely. only the TiVo menus showed.So much for the T777's pass-thru capability.
OK I'd have to do with only 4 inputs(- 1) for ARC instead of 7 and shut down the tiny TV speakers and ARC the sound out to my audiophile sound system. This TV has only HDMI and digital sound outputs. I always shut off the TV speakers
I wasn't able to receive ARC sound from every device connected to the TV to my $2500 NAD T777 home theater setup. So I took a stab at the upgrade knowing full well that there was NO possibility of a reset to original "Factory" settings (read- FIRMWARE). The TiVo is a 2020 model set top box with 2Tb of 4K HD OTA memory, no slouch of a device. the only workaround was to dig out an old, too short, Toslink (optical) cable for the TiVo sound which , miraculously, the T777 handled beautifully thanks to it's AUTO-ARC setting which turns ARC off if it ''hears" another input. I'd hoped (I know better now), that this horrible downgrade would resolve what I thought were Dolby ATMOS conflicts,which can interrupt sound throughput.
So now there are really only 2 choices. the TV speakers, or the optical output. (or a bluetooth soundbar) These photos of the sound troubleshooting advice from their own online manual, and scant, remaining sound settings prove that they have PURPOSELY removed ARC functionality and only output e-ARC rendering the T777 virtually obsolete save for the optical cable which I stretched over to the TV optical output (their only suggestion).
Now one cable/one remote functionality is gone; the optical cable is too short and fragile to stuff down the wall to the T777 along with the now useless HDMI cable. The QN85's "smart" remote no longer controls the sound volume anymore(they warned of that in troubleshooting.) It was not smart enough to include codes for the NAD. Thank god the TiVo actually has a "smart" remote that CAN control some on-off, volume and mute functions on the Samsung.
Why on earth did they purposely mess up the firmware? Was it to get more bandwidth out of the memory chip for all the steaming and upsell added to the TV's in house display? I'll tell you what. Since I only use the TiVo remote now. I won't see or buy any of that stuff.
Maybe I'm missing something here - some quick e-ARC fix. Anybody out there get their ARC to work again? I've got 3 small Vizios all with ARC capability.
