Folks,
My first post in the Xbox area, though I've been a board member for years and years. I recently decided to grab an Xbox One S to do 4K -- I finally joined Amazon Prime so I could watch The Grand Tour, and I might as well go ahead and start moving to 4K Blu-rays. However, the rest of my system is a bit old -- an older LG 4K TV set that lacks HDR, and an older Yamaha receiver that lacks HDCP 2.2 compatibility.
It took me quite a bit of work to get any kind of 4K working -- mainly because I had the 4K set and three other non-4K sets attached to the receiver. The non-4K sets go through an HDMI splitter, attached to the Yamaha via one of the two HDMI outputs -- the 4K set goes through the other HDMI output. Simple solution was to turn off the second HDMI output, which I can actually do via the remote control. And needless to say, I had to update the Yamaha's firmware before I could get any kind of 4K to work.
So, that got me to 4K video with Amazon Prime, but 4K Blu-rays certainly didn't work. That's when my searching around got me into understanding a bit about HDCP 2.2 compatibility. Which my receiver absolutely didn't have. I confirmed that it all worked if I attached the Xbox One S directly to the TV, but I was a bit hesitant to toss away a $1,500 receiver, just to get 4K Blu-ray playback. But, I wasn't done trying, yet.
Without entirely thinking through the connections, I decided to try a two-way HDMI splitter, finding one that was "HDCP 2.2 compliant." I figured I'd just send one output directly to the TV, and the other to the Yamaha receiver, figuring that I could at least bypass the receiver. However, to my great satisfaction, I discovered that the HDMI splitter apparently reported back to the Xbox One S that I now had a HDCP 2.2-compliant signal path, and indeed, I now can play 4K Blu-rays through the Xbox One S, through the Yamaha receiver, and then the 4K TV set.
I used a KanexPro HDMI splitter -- I imagine plenty of others might work as well. Here's a link to mine:
http://www.kanexpro.com/item/?id=SP-HD20-1X24K
I actually tried replacing my TV set with a new Samsung high-end set in order to get HDR, but I certainly couldn't get HDR to work with anything I tried. And worse than that, for some odd reason, whenever I had the Samsung attached to the Yamaha receiver, the receiver would not output anything through its attached speakers. So, I know when to give up, so I returned that, and I'm otherwise doing fine with everything except HDR. When the TV and the receiver get to the end of their useful lives, then perhaps I'll throw more money at trying to get HDR again.
And I hope this might help anyone else who can't get their Xbox One S consoles to play 4K Blu-rays -- this certainly worked for me!
My first post in the Xbox area, though I've been a board member for years and years. I recently decided to grab an Xbox One S to do 4K -- I finally joined Amazon Prime so I could watch The Grand Tour, and I might as well go ahead and start moving to 4K Blu-rays. However, the rest of my system is a bit old -- an older LG 4K TV set that lacks HDR, and an older Yamaha receiver that lacks HDCP 2.2 compatibility.
It took me quite a bit of work to get any kind of 4K working -- mainly because I had the 4K set and three other non-4K sets attached to the receiver. The non-4K sets go through an HDMI splitter, attached to the Yamaha via one of the two HDMI outputs -- the 4K set goes through the other HDMI output. Simple solution was to turn off the second HDMI output, which I can actually do via the remote control. And needless to say, I had to update the Yamaha's firmware before I could get any kind of 4K to work.
So, that got me to 4K video with Amazon Prime, but 4K Blu-rays certainly didn't work. That's when my searching around got me into understanding a bit about HDCP 2.2 compatibility. Which my receiver absolutely didn't have. I confirmed that it all worked if I attached the Xbox One S directly to the TV, but I was a bit hesitant to toss away a $1,500 receiver, just to get 4K Blu-ray playback. But, I wasn't done trying, yet.
Without entirely thinking through the connections, I decided to try a two-way HDMI splitter, finding one that was "HDCP 2.2 compliant." I figured I'd just send one output directly to the TV, and the other to the Yamaha receiver, figuring that I could at least bypass the receiver. However, to my great satisfaction, I discovered that the HDMI splitter apparently reported back to the Xbox One S that I now had a HDCP 2.2-compliant signal path, and indeed, I now can play 4K Blu-rays through the Xbox One S, through the Yamaha receiver, and then the 4K TV set.
I used a KanexPro HDMI splitter -- I imagine plenty of others might work as well. Here's a link to mine:
http://www.kanexpro.com/item/?id=SP-HD20-1X24K
I actually tried replacing my TV set with a new Samsung high-end set in order to get HDR, but I certainly couldn't get HDR to work with anything I tried. And worse than that, for some odd reason, whenever I had the Samsung attached to the Yamaha receiver, the receiver would not output anything through its attached speakers. So, I know when to give up, so I returned that, and I'm otherwise doing fine with everything except HDR. When the TV and the receiver get to the end of their useful lives, then perhaps I'll throw more money at trying to get HDR again.
And I hope this might help anyone else who can't get their Xbox One S consoles to play 4K Blu-rays -- this certainly worked for me!