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Advice on hooking up B&W Panorama 2

post #1 of 33
11/12/12 at 12:40pm
Thread Starter 
I was hoping to get a bit of advice from folks far more knowledgeable than me, sorry if this seems like an overly simplistic question. I am buying a B&W Panorama 2, due to the setup of the family room in our new house and my wife's orders to get rid of my towers. I will be wall mounting the panorama on a rock wall, which has a "smurf tube" running down to a shelf (I mention the tube because I am concerned about having sufficient space to run multiple cables). Here is what I am trying to figure out:

From a sound perspective, would I be better off hooking components (DirecTV, BluRay, AppleTV, XBOX) through my AVR receiver, then running an HDMI cable up to the soundbar (and another to the TV), or would I be better off running all four components to the TV (have to find one with 4 HDMI inputs) and then an optical cable to the soundbar? The problem is that I have four boxes to hook up, and the Panorama only has three inputs. I am trying to find the most simple solution, but if switching everything through my mediocre AV receiver (which is how I currently have it set up) is going to cost me on sound - or make it difficult to hook up TV, I will do whatever would optimize the sound (which I am concerned will already be compromised using a soundbar).

Sorry if this question is too simple, but i'm trying to piece together everything now and need to know if I need to find a TV with four HDMI inputs (most I am looking at have 3).

Thanks!
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post #2 of 33
11/12/12 at 10:13pm
I just setup a Panorama2 and it seems to only have on screen display for setup and volume. If you only pass audio to it via optical, I don't think you will be able to run setup and will not see the volume level indicator as none of this info shows up on the soundbar display like it did with the original Panorama. This won't be an issue if you pass everything through your AVR and run HDMI to the Panorama2 and another HDMI to the TV. I can't comment on the sound doing it this way but imagine it wouldn't be an issue. If you wanted to pass audio through the TV, you could also consider the original Panorama which you can get at a better price and has the display for setup and sound on the speaker itself. I'm assuming you're wall mounting your tv as well so maybe the deciding factor is whether it's easier to run the 4 input cables to the receiver or tv.
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post #3 of 33
11/15/12 at 6:46am
I have a related question. I want to get an Apple TV along with the Panorma 2. I will use the Apple TV to play music through Itunes without the need for my TV to be on. Does anyone know if the optical connection on the Apple TV will pair with the optical connection on the Panorama 2? The HDMI connection on the Apple TV will be used with my TV.
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post #4 of 33
11/30/12 at 11:45am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the reply! I had not thought about the setup issue, that complicates matters further. I had envisioned exactly what you said, running everything through AVR (via HDMI), then running HDMI to both the Panorama and the TV - but that would not get the setup video signal to the TV unless my AVR has a bi-directional HDMI port (can't recall what that is called), but my AVR is a few years old so I am guessing I am out of luck on that front. I am wall mounting both, access to the components will be through a "smurf tube". Wow, I am even more confused now, I may have to *shudder* pay an expert to install the soundbar and TV, just so they can figure out the hookup!
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post #5 of 33
12/14/12 at 5:57am
Hi,
I am awaiting delivery of my new Panorama 2 and while speaking to the Dealer he told me to connect my Sat box my Blue Ray and my Apple TV direct to the Panorama via HDMI cables, do I need to connect to my TV as well, thanks in advance.
PaddyandPoppy
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post #6 of 33
12/14/12 at 8:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaddyandPoppy View Post

Hi,
I am awaiting delivery of my new Panorama 2 and while speaking to the Dealer he told me to connect my Sat box my Blue Ray and my Apple TV direct to the Panorama via HDMI cables, do I need to connect to my TV as well, thanks in advance.
PaddyandPoppy

Only if you want video. biggrin.gif Connect HDMI from the Panorama to your TV.
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post #7 of 33
12/15/12 at 11:01am
Hi Possumgirl,
I should have been clearer, what I meant was do I also connect the Appletv DVD and Sat to the TV as well as the sound bar.
Regards
PaddyandPoppy
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post #8 of 33
12/15/12 at 11:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaddyandPoppy View Post

Hi Possumgirl,
I should have been clearer, what I meant was do I also connect the Appletv DVD and Sat to the TV as well as the sound bar.
Regards
PaddyandPoppy

Actually I knew what you meant, but I couldn't resist. smile.gif No, you just connect your source devices to the Panorama and the Panorama to your TV. That should be it unless you run into any issues, which I would not expect you would.
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post #9 of 33
12/27/12 at 12:16am
Hi

Can you (or anyone else here) tell me exactly where on the unit the inputs and outputs are located? I'm in Australia, and planning on buying one, but they haven't arrived here yet - and my builders need to wire the walls now.

Thanks, and sorry to hijack the thread.

Jon
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post #10 of 33
12/27/12 at 8:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonInOz View Post

Hi
Can you (or anyone else here) tell me exactly where on the unit the inputs and outputs are located? I'm in Australia, and planning on buying one, but they haven't arrived here yet - and my builders need to wire the walls now.
Thanks, and sorry to hijack the thread.
Jon

Link to the quick start guide which shows diagram of unit.

You can also download the manual from the B&W website.
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post #11 of 33
12/27/12 at 10:43am
Thanks for that - I'd downloaded the manual already, but it didn't show as much information as the QSG does.

I can make a guesstimate from that - does anyone have the exact measurements of the inputs and the power plug from the sides and the top/bottom?

Thanks in advance!

Jonathan
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post #12 of 33
12/29/12 at 11:58am
Thanks for that - I hadn't seen the quick start guide, that's helpful. I'd still be keen for measurements if anyone has them - just so my electrician gets it exactly right.
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post #13 of 33
12/30/12 at 5:55pm
Hi,
Happy new year to you all,
What are the best cables I can buy to give me the best sound and picture when I hook up my B&W Pan 2 with Apple TV Blue Ray and Sat, my TV is a Loewe.
Also I live in the UK.
Thanks for all the tips on here so far.
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post #14 of 33
12/31/12 at 8:16am
Just purchase high-speed HDMI cables. You do NOT need to buy expensive ones.
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post #15 of 33
1/2/13 at 10:19pm
I've had the Panorama2 for a month or so now. Highly recommended if you have the budget and want to go the soundbar route. I went from a 5.1 system for movies/television and decided to go with a high-end 2-channel system for music. My question is similar to the one that started this thread. I'd like to have all my Tivo, BR, Xbox and HTPC run through my former 5.1 pre/pro (Integra DTC-9.8) to the soundbar and then my TV. Basically use it as a glorified HDMI switcher and have the use of my headphone jack. I set it all up but I think there are HDMI handshake issues - the pre/pro isn't detecting the source and/or not passing it through to the soundbar and TV.

Thoughts?
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post #16 of 33
1/3/13 at 11:54am
The easiest and cheapest solution for everyone with more then 3 HDMI components might be to simply get a simple 4x1 HDMI switcher:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10110&cs_id=1011002&p_id=4088&seq=1&format=2

Send the output HDMI cable from the switcher to the B&W then send the output HDMI from B&W to tv.
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post #17 of 33
1/11/13 at 2:37pm
I've had 2 Panorama 2 units installed for about 6 weeks now and I'm getting pretty frustrated. The audio quality is great just to get that out of the way, but the HDMI switching problems are rampant! Every single day there is some problem where the HDMI does not sync properly and either the audio will be dead or both audio and video will be dead. The latter usually cures itself in about 60 seconds if I flip inputs back and forth between different HDMI signals enough. The no-audio issue usually can only be cured by powering the soundbar off and then on. These are the kinds of issues I experienced when HDMI was a brand new standard perhaps a decade ago and haven't seen in so long that I'd almost forgotten them. Is anyone else seeing these issues? Given that I'm having versions of these problems on two different units, it's clearly a bug/firmware problem. I'm hoping that they can issue firmware updates for these things somehow because I'm pretty much ready to throw these out the window.
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post #18 of 33
1/17/13 at 8:36pm
Hi All,

Need help in the set up of Panorama 2 (P2) and hope gurus here can help.

1. Set up my P2 to cable TV set top box and also Marantz M-ER803 all using HDMI cable, then HDMI out to TV.

2. Cable TV set top box to TV via P2 works well, except when switch off TV. The cable set top box is still hook up to P2, unless I switch off cable set top box power. Is this normal??????

3. Completely no sound or video reproduction from my Marantz. Don't know why............. can anyone advice?

Thanks in advance.
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post #19 of 33
1/19/13 at 3:21pm
Hi again,
Took delivery of my B&W Panorama and it looks great but sound is out of sync . I connected Sat, Apple and Blue ray DVD to my Loewe TV via HDMI connections on the sound bar and a HDMI from the Audio out to HDMI 1 on my TV as I don't have a specific HDMI for sound in on theTV. The sound is out of sync on everything. On the DVD it comes on and off.
Regards
PaddyandPoppy.
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post #20 of 33
1/27/13 at 6:52pm
I have a couple of these and am not getting any audio dropouts / sync issues at all. Are those of you with the problem connecting everything to the TV and relying upon ARC to output sound?

I've set it up the other way, using the P2 as my HDMI switcher - every device is connected to the P2, and there is only a single HDMI cable running from the P2 to a non ARC HDMI input on my TV.
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post #21 of 33
1/29/13 at 3:02am
Hi,
I have connected everything to my P2 and all with high speed HDMI cables, my only thought is the connection from the P2 to my Loewe tv, my tv doesn't have a designated input for HDMI so I used HDMI 1 on my tv.
Regards,
PaddyandPoppy
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post #22 of 33
1/29/13 at 5:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaddyandPoppy View Post

Hi again,
Took delivery of my B&W Panorama and it looks great but sound is out of sync . I connected Sat, Apple and Blue ray DVD to my Loewe TV via HDMI connections on the sound bar and a HDMI from the Audio out to HDMI 1 on my TV as I don't have a specific HDMI for sound in on theTV. The sound is out of sync on everything. On the DVD it comes on and off.
Regards
PaddyandPoppy.

What exactly do you mean when you say the sound is out of sync?
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaddyandPoppy View Post

Hi,
I have connected everything to my P2 and all with high speed HDMI cables, my only thought is the connection from the P2 to my Loewe tv, my tv doesn't have a designated input for HDMI so I used HDMI 1 on my tv.
Regards,
PaddyandPoppy

Please clarify this as well. You say that your TV doesn't have a designated HDMI input and then you say that you used HDMI 1 on your TV.

If I am understanding your setup correctly, you can connect all 3 of your sources to your soundbar via HDMI and then connect HDMI OUT from your soundbar to your TV via HDMI. There won't be a specific input on your TV that says something like HDMI AUDIO. In this setup, you are using the soundbar to process audio directly from the sources and passing the video through to your TV.
Edited by Doctego - 1/29/13 at 6:06am
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post #23 of 33
1/29/13 at 8:03pm
Also, how much of audio out-of-sync are you experiencing - there is a menu setting to introduce timing delays to tune minor out of sync issues.
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post #24 of 33
1/30/13 at 12:14am
H,
What I mean is that the HDMI coming from the P2 to the Loewe TV doesn't have a named place on the TV i.e. Audio in or Audio out so I put it in HDMI 1 on the TV.
Regards,
PaddyandPoppy.
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post #25 of 33
1/30/13 at 12:17am
I couldn't find a menu for the Sound sync on the P2 but I have one for the sound Sync using the TV's sound but even using this method wasnt enough, it was way off the scale. It has settled down now and seems to be behaving its self. When its working ok it sounds great.
Regards.
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post #26 of 33
2/19/13 at 9:17pm
Hi,
I have a danon 3313ci and panorama 2 with sub. Unfortunately my danon doesn't have hdmi audio out I hooked my P2 to zone 2 hdmi out but that doesn't solve the issue, BR is working in this configuration but as soon as I switch to Main 1 to watch my sat/cable I'm getting video of sat but audio from BR.
Thanks for any help
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post #27 of 33
2/20/13 at 10:56am
Hi, don't know where to post this but here goes, I have a Loewe 3d TV but am confused about which glasses to buy, any advice would be appreciated.
Regards
PaddyandPoppy.
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post #28 of 33
2/20/13 at 11:12am
^^^
That's really not a soundbar question. Suggest you contact the retailer where you bought the TV or check the Loewe website.
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post #29 of 33
2/20/13 at 9:21pm
Hi Possumgirl, that's why I said "I don't really know where to post this" but thanks for pointing it out to me, I dare say most of the questions on here could be answered by contacting the Retailer or checking Websites, but then what would be the point of a forum.
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post #30 of 33
2/21/13 at 3:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaddyandPoppy View Post

Hi Possumgirl, that's why I said "I don't really know where to post this" but thanks for pointing it out to me, I dare say most of the questions on here could be answered by contacting the Retailer or checking Websites, but then what would be the point of a forum.

I understand your general point but, in the least, I would probably look to the 3D forum here if you didn't feel like contacting the seller or manufacturer. I don't see how this is even remotely a soundbar issue. I can't help you as I have no experience with 3D TV's.
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