The "official" Yamaha RX-V673 thread. 7.2-Channel Network AVR - Page 9

Wow, now I am really confused. I have a V673 arriving on Wed from EE. I got looking at the manual for the V673 figuring I would get ahead of the game and when I looked at the TV connection apparently I need to hook up an optical cable between the TV and the receiver since my Sony 46XBR2 is not ARC capable. I thought that everything went into the receiver from the DVD, XBox, Cable Box via HDMI and I just needed an HDMI from the receiver to the TV. What is the optical cable for? I thought that the HDMI carried both video and audio. I can hook it up the way it says in the manual but I have no idea why it needs to be so. My guess would be that if I wanted to play music from a CD player or Apple Airplay through the TV speakers??? Why would I do that when I have a receiver with surround speakers? Any quick words of wisdom/explanation?

Not sure what it says in the manual (which is hardly a stellar example of clarity in technical writing) But the optical cable is only necessary to receive sound that ORIGINATES from the TV. For example, if you have a Smart TV that has the ability to connect to Netflix or Pandora, the sound from those applications can be 1) played through the TV's speakers (obviously inferior if you have a surround system) 2) sent back, via HDMI return channel, if both your TV and Receiver are ARC capable, 3) output from the optical out (assuming your tv has such an output) to the receiver, or, lastly, if your TV has plain old (red and white stereo) outputs, those can be connected up to one of the two audio input jacks on the Yamaha. The same is true if you receive your TV signal over the air.

All your input devices (Cable Box, DVR, DVD player, Bluray player etc) should be hooked up directly to the receiver and sent along from the Receiver HDMI out to the HDMI in on your TV.

Hope that helps.

Thank you for the clarity. The connection section does not explain that nearly as well as you did. Maybe you should be a consultant to Yamaha It may be further explained later in the manual but I have not gotten that far. My TV does in fact have an optical out but is not an internet capable TV. I think that the rest of it should be straight forward on the connections. I am a little concerned about getting the Airplay and internet connection going but I will take that on when it comes. I have an iMac an am crossing my fingers that it will make the Airplay setup simple. Based on what you said, I think that I am going to pass on hooking up the optical cable as I do not intend to connect anything to the TV directly. It will all go through the V673. Thanks again for the advice/help.

Looks like someone caught on because there is no longer a Buy New From option. Only Used and Refurb... Dangit... Im always a day late and a dollar short!

Sorry to hear that Frack77. I will feel good only when it arrives on Wednesday and is a V673 and my charge card is for $430. Question to anyone: I am looking to purchase a new programable remote to control all of my stuff. Has anyone had any experience with the Logitech Harmony One with the RX-V673? If so, any shortcomings?

Ditto...

While I received both the upgrade offer and confirmation (Saturday)... I'm still waiting on the shipment info. I'd hate to have to return a 671, should it arrive instead of a 673.

Also...

Thanks gajdwe & hwilker... I had a similar question regarding the optical line between the receiver & TV. The last thing I wanted to do was pull the TV off the wall only to try and locate an optical out plug. Since I use my TV (essentially) as a monitor... I'm guessing I'll be fine with the HMDI only connection.

Dear all,
I got recently my Yamaha 673 and connected my TV (Philips 52PFL9606) to the receiver: Philips HDMI1-ARC - Yamaha HDMI Out

Then I turned on EasyLink (HDMI-CEC) on the TV and set ARC to On (via HDMI Control On) on the receiver. The pairing was successful and I enjoyed getting the TV sound on the amplifier - I played the music both from external HDD connected to the TV via USB and from my PC (by running the files on TV via WiFi). But next day ARC stopped working even all the settings both on TV and amplifier stayed unchanged. From then I get the sound only on TV, while Yamaha shows "AV4" and "HDMI out"

The same happened when I connected my second TV (Philips 40PFL5507) to the receiver - first day the ARC connection worked successfully, next day it got lost.

All the attempts like replacing HDMI cables, turning the devices in different order on and off, did not help.

Philips tech support says that the issue should be on Yamaha side. I did not get Yamaha tech support answer yet, but I'm afraid that the problem is with Yamaha 673. At least while reading Yamaha 671 thread I realized that people faced the same problem there as well with different TV sets (Samsung, Panasonic, Philips).

Did anybody face similar problem? Is there a magic that will cure this issue and return the stable ARC connection back?

Of course, I can buy optical audio cable. I even think to buy HD Player in the feature and connect it to Yamaha. But at this point of time my purpose was to stream the audio to Yamaha from TV while running audio and video files on TV from connected to it external hard disk. So, I hoped the ARC should serve this aim...

Thank you in advance!

Was there also an "external speakers" or "home theater" setting on the TV that needed to be changed as it seems the setting reverted back to the TV speakers if that's where you're now hearing the audio? Although note that if you end up using an optical cable from the TV (which is what the Yamaha is expecting at this point), there is no loss in audio quality and in some cases actually better quality as some TVs limit HDMI(ARC) to only PCM 2.0 while the optical audio out can pass both PCM 2.0 and DD 5.1.

There are no "external speakers"/"home theater" or similar settings on TV. Moreover, while playing audio-video file on TV there is an option to switch between TV Speakers and Amplifier on TV. But the attempt to select Amplifier permanently fails followed by the message like "Connection to amplifier failed".

Well, looks like the most optimal way is to use the optical cable. Still I'm curious to know if my problem has solution

So then that would be a yes, there is a such a setting and it currently is set to the "TV speakers".

Disconnect the HDMI cable from the AVR to the TV, power off and unplug the AVR and TV for a few minutes, reconnect the HDMI cable, and power on the TV first then the AVR. Cycle Easy-Link OFF/ON and see if the speaker setting can be set to Amplifier.

Thank you for the advice! I tried this several times, but... The same as before this exercise - audio is not streaming by ARC.

I noticed that as well. However, if you go directly to the EE website and search for rx-v671, you will see it listed for $364.
Good luck!

I noticed that on Amazon. But go to EE website directly and they have the rx-671 listed for $364.

UPDATE........UPDATE....UPDATE!!!!
The local Video Only store here says they received a fax memo (to dealers) from Yamaha that PANDORA will be added with a firmware update sometime in 3rd week of August 2012..............
SO ANY DAY NOW!

Wooooooooooooo Hooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Last question for awhile, promise. For my front speakers, I am using Infinity IL50's which have built in powered subs. I have it set up so that the speaker itself filters the signal and sends the lows to the sub for amplification. There are line in jacks (RCA type) on the back of each front speaker if I want to run an RCA cable from the V673 to each speaker for the built in subs. Is this really any better than just letting he speaker do the separation? I would have to spend the $$ for 2 RCA cables to try it out and hoped you guys could save me the expense if there is really no difference. I see that the V673 has 2 sub jacks which would work perfectly for my two fronts.

Did anyone do this and get the free upgrade?

I just checked EE's page and the 671 is not listed. Only the 571 and 371.

Scratch that, just found it

Just placed my order directly from EE. Hopefully I get the upgrade!

This is the reply I received from Yamaha support...

So it seems that the issue is TV specific & the issue is known to the Yamaha tech folks.

You will, there is no alternative as they don't have the RX-V671 in stock anymore. Expect a complimentary upgrade and enjoy!

I am upgrading from Denon AVR-2309CI to this Yamaha RX-V673, I am very happy with it so far. Now my question is my old Denon used to come up on the screen if it detects DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD but I don't see that happening with this Yamaha. Is that normal?

Still no email from them, but this does make me feel better!!!

FYI this approach worked - EE upgraded me to the RX-A720 for the cost of last year's model.

Got the V673 today from EE, and box invoice confirms the $400 V671 price. Woohoo! Now if only I weren't returning the TV I intended to hook it up to.

Just got my V673 delivered by UPS about 10 min ago.

Starting to sweat a little bit, its been just shy of 24 hours since i placed my order and still no email about the upgrade...

Can this receiver convert component video inputs and output them as HDMI?

Edit: Nevermind, answered my own question:

The conversion from component IN to HDMI OUT accepts only 480i input and converts up to 4K.
- This is true, only 480i component input is converted/scaled to HDMI out.

This is really annoying. How hard could it be to take ANY component input resolution any convert it to anything?!

Now I have to run component to my TV for my old Xbox 1, and pray the Wii 480i to 1080p conversion looks decent. Wii U can't come fast enough for this reason alone.

And no HD radio tuner on the thing either. Jeez!

Is there a receiver that has HD Radio AND can convert any component resolution to HDMI??
Edited by Flavius - 8/22/12 at 11:12pm

Not sure what you mean by HD Radio really. The 671 has Net Radio (V Tuner), Pandora, Sirius and Rhapsody built in. It also converts component to HDMI.

EE Showing that they have 16 671s in stock as of now. That may be useless info though. All very confusing.