[rsonnens]

I read that thread, but the answer to my original question is still unclear.

If I get a new TV with eARC, and I feed the eARC to the 4300's ARC input, and the content on, say, Netflix or Disney+ is listed as being ATMOS, will it light up the ATMOS display on the front panel of the 4300, and will it then properly drive my height channels with ATMOS content?

I don't care (for now) if the ATMOS/height channels are compressed or pristine. I just want to know if I'll be able to use my 4300 with the new TV's internal apps and get the height channels properly driven without having to spend money on a new "eARC compatible" AVR. I don't want to buy a new AVR right now.

OK I just ran a test streaming Netflix Atmos (altered carbon) and the AVR will display “Dolby Digital +” which as I mentioned IS Atmos.

If you want it to say Atmos then you may need eARC AVR but it won’t sound any different when playing lossy Atmos from a streaming service. It will however make a difference if you use a higher bitrate audio format from say a Bluray disk connect via your TV.


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[Rich 63]

The answer is that you will get atmos in the dd+ container weather over arc or earc because thats the only way the streaming services package it. Bandwidth. I see dd/atmos on my avr (Denon 4300) when running from streamers. I see atmos only when it's uncompressed such as Blu-ray. Because I have only arc on devices I run all my devices through avr to get the best sound from each device. This sacrifices preset picture settings because all video comes to 1 hdmi port, but Im good with that. So given that the best I can get from any streaming service is atmos over dd+ I saw no reason to get an external streamer and instead use tv apps which work fine for us.
Long winded way to say you will see something that says atmos.
Rich

 

[rsonnens]

OK I just ran a test streaming Netflix Atmos (altered carbon) and the AVR will display “Dolby Digital +” which as I mentioned IS Atmos.

If you want it to say Atmos then you may need eARC AVR but it won’t sound any different when playing lossy Atmos from a streaming service. It will however make a difference if you use a higher bitrate audio format from say a Bluray disk connect via your TV.


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I will add that I think Netflix actually streams DD+ as it’s Atmos format so even upgrading the AVR may still result in it showing DD+.

(On your ATV if you directly connect to the AVR you will see Atmos on the display for Netflix but remember that Apple decodes and encodes the source and does not bitstream directly to the output.)

Finally of course you need to actually have Atmos height speakers to get Atmos in the first place regardless of the source.


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[bobknavs]

I currently own four external streamers (ATV4K, Shield Pro, two Firestick4K), am looking to expand my options as I consider shedding cable and my TiVo.

I can't stand the Amazon devices - they get 'updates' seemingly hourly, and I believe Amazon deliberately introduces short term format problems with competing streaming services so their Prime offering looks better. The two FS4K's are currently not hooked up.

In order to keep the peace at home, there has to be some consistency in things like remotes and how many need to be used to just get an image going. I can deal with all sorts of techy and interface issues, but others living here cannot or just don't like to. And I'm currently looking at replacing my 2016 65E6 LG OLED when the new C1 models ship, so I'm just doing some research.

I'm using an Amazon FireTV Cube. (I use it only occasionally - I'm a shiny disk fan.) I haven't had similar negative experiences with it. I have used it with Disney + more often than with Prime.

I also live alone, so I don't have to accomodate different likes and abilities with remotes.

My main controller is a Logitech Harmony remote (a model that uses a hub). Unfortunately, I can't recommend it as a work-around for people who have trouble juggling multiple remotes and devices. Too easy to get it in an undesired mode, and too difficult to recover from that. I also find it necessary to keep the original remotes to hand. I find picking one of those up can be more convenient than switching devices in the Harmony. The Harmony also doesn't do voice commands.

 

[ianfretwell]

It is Atmos even when DD+ (just in a different container. Read this thread:

Question - DD+ & Atmos

Hi, some content I download on skyQ says it is Atmos, however when I play them some switch my amp to DD+ and some to Atmos. I have googled to try to find out the difference but the search results are just to complicated for me to understand. Can someone kindly explain in layman terms what the...

www.avforums.com

But I can’t remember what the AVR shows as I never use my LGs streaming apps and all video goes thru my AVR first. It use to say DD+ but I though it changed with some update but I may be confused.

You need an eArc if you want lossless bitstreams processed by the AVR. No streaming apps currently stream in a lossless Atmos or other format AFAIK.

The LG streaming apps (all of them...) don't use any eARC capabilities at all - so you're essentially using just ARC anyway.

So in my case - LG B7 to Marantz SR7011 (sister model to your 4300) - I see Atmos on the display, as long as the show is being delivered as such. As will you.

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[Rich 63]

I'm using an Amazon FireTV Cube. (I use it only occasionally - I'm a shiny disk fan.) I haven't had similar negative experiences with it. I have used it with Disney + more often than with Prime.

I also live alone, so I don't have to accomodate different likes and abilities with remotes.

My main controller is a Logitech Harmony remote (a model that uses a hub). Unfortunately, I can't recommend it as a work-around for people who have trouble juggling multiple remotes and devices. Too easy to get it in an undesired mode, and too difficult to recover from that. I also find it necessary to keep the original remotes to hand. I find picking one of those up can be more convenient than switching devices in the Harmony. The Harmony also doesn't do voice commands.

Do you not set activities. My hub based harmony finally works flawlessly. After I disconnected every device and wiped all activities and did the proper hand shake indroduction. But you are right that having the device remotes handy is good for deep diving into settings. I had a seamstress friend make me a nice color matched suade pouch that drapes over my couch arm between couch and end table. Hold my 3 remotes and has a WAF too.
Rich

 

[bobknavs]

Do you not set activities.

(snip)

Is that a question?

Of course I defined activities. I find it hard to imagine a Harmony owner not doing that.

I'm on my second Harmony. My first was a 700, an IR (only) unit with no hub. Its requirement to be held pointed at the rack while it took 15-20 seconds to complete an "activity" was annoying for me. I doubt that I could have persuaded a non-techie to keep it pointed long enough. The newer hub model gets rid of that issue.

I wish that I had only 3 remotes. I have 5, not counting the Harmony.

 

[rsonnens]

Do you not set activities. My hub based harmony finally works flawlessly. After I disconnected every device and wiped all activities and did the proper hand shake indroduction. But you are right that having the device remotes handy is good for deep diving into settings. I had a seamstress friend make me a nice color matched suade pouch that drapes over my couch arm between couch and end table. Hold my 3 remotes and has a WAF too.
Rich

Yea, but you either have to go all in and use Harmony remotes with activities to power on/off devices and never intermix use with non Harmony remotes or not use a Harmony remote at all (also need to disable CEC.)

The reason is that Harmony tries to track the state of all the devices and bypassing the remote to power on/off results in unexpected behaviors.

I use one, and my wife has no problem controlling our system with just the Harmony remote.

 

[rsonnens]

The LG streaming apps (all of them...) don't use any eARC capabilities at all - so you're essentially using just ARC anyway.

So in my case - LG B7 to Marantz SR7011 (sister model to your 4300) - I see Atmos on the display, as long as the show is being delivered as such. As will you.

Sent from my SM-T590 using Tapatalk

I see DD+ on the display of my 4300 with my C7 and Netflix Atmos titles and a quick Google says this is the format that is delivered from Netflix. I’m not sure why the 6300 is different. But devices are running the latest firmware. But I never stream from the TV so this was just a test for the op.

 

[DougDingle]

OK I just ran a test streaming Netflix Atmos (altered carbon) and the AVR will display “Dolby Digital +” which as I mentioned IS Atmos.

If you want it to say Atmos then you may need eARC AVR but it won’t sound any different when playing lossy Atmos from a streaming service. It will however make a difference if you use a higher bitrate audio format from say a Bluray disk connect via your TV.

Thanks for taking the time to run the test.

I'm less interested in what the AVR displays and more interested that if the source has actual ATMOS content, the 4300 routs it to the height speakers appropriately without my having to turn on any of the 'upmixers' on the 4300 to make some sound come out of them.

BluRay UHD disks go through the 4300, so that's not an issue. I was curious about the LG's built-in apps and ARC. The 2016 LG I have can't go above DD5.1 on ARC out, so I don't use its apps at all.

 

[DougDingle]

The answer is that you will get atmos in the dd+ container weather over arc or earc because thats the only way the streaming services package it. Bandwidth. I see dd/atmos on my avr (Denon 4300) when running from streamers. I see atmos only when it's uncompressed such as Blu-ray. Because I have only arc on devices I run all my devices through avr to get the best sound from each device. This sacrifices preset picture settings because all video comes to 1 hdmi port, but Im good with that. So given that the best I can get from any streaming service is atmos over dd+ I saw no reason to get an external streamer and instead use tv apps which work fine for us.
Long winded way to say you will see something that says atmos.
Rich

If I use the AppleTV4K, the 4300 front panel (as well as its "Info" display) only say ATMOS if the source says it's ATMOS. No DD+ displayed anywhere.

Thanks for the response. I'm now reasonably confident that a new LG's apps will work fine with the 4300's ARC channel if I decide to go that way.

 

[DougDingle]

I will add that I think Netflix actually streams DD+ as it’s Atmos format so even upgrading the AVR may still result in it showing DD+.

(On your ATV if you directly connect to the AVR you will see Atmos on the display for Netflix but remember that Apple decodes and encodes the source and does not bitstream directly to the output.)

Yes, I know the ATV4K does unusual things to both video and audio.

In my bedroom, I have a 2019 Shield Pro and Marantz 1608 AVR set up as 5.1.2, and AFAIK, the Shield doesn't do anything to the audio but the Marantz shows ATMOS on the front panel if that is what is claimed by the streaming source.

Things are both better and worse than they were five years ago.

 

[bobknavs]

Yea, but you either have to go all in and use Harmony remotes with activities to power on/off devices and never intermix use with non Harmony remotes or not use a Harmony remote at all (also need to disable CEC.)

The reason is that Harmony tries to track the state of all the devices and bypassing the remote to power on/off results in unexpected behaviors.

I use one, and my wife has no problem controlling our system with just the Harmony remote.

Yes. The Harmony doesn't handshake with the device it controls. It just assumes that they are in the last state commanded. I presume that everyone with a Harmony knows that.

I haven't tried to figure out whether the Harmony is capable of switching audio modes on my AVR, or displaying movie run times on my UHD BD player. I nearly never change controls on the Harmony away from the activity to specialized controls for a particular device. And, I find the touchscreen too nonresponsive; I have old, dry hands.

 

[Rich 63]

Is that a question?

Of course I defined activities. I find it hard to imagine a Harmony owner not doing that.

I'm on my second Harmony. My first was a 700, an IR (only) unit with no hub. Its requirement to be held pointed at the rack while it took 15-20 seconds to complete an "activity" was annoying for me. I doubt that I could have persuaded a non-techie to keep it pointed long enough. The newer hub model gets rid of that issue.

I wish that I had only 3 remotes. I have 5, not counting the Harmony.

I meant no disrespect to you or anybody. And it did seem inconceivable that a harmony owner didn't know how to use it. But stranger things can be found on this forum you must admit.
I know harmony/CEC intergration is a common problem. Been there, especially once I got the 4300h/Sony tv. Like they were locked in a battle.
Our harmony worked great for a time until we started upgrading but once we did we would have incredible problems with it to the point my wife wouldn't touch our system unless I was in the house.
I fixed it after starting from scratch. I took the time to clean up the wiring and did resets for everything. As in factory resets and unplugging as needed, resetting passwords, network connections, redoing activities, etc. We can now change activities with one touch and do all the normal commands with the harmony. Each time I upgraded, rather then wiping everything clean I just subbed out the old avr model or whatever for the new in the harmony activity. This plus a likely handshake issue when going from old gear to new in my opinion contributed to the harmony being useless. So now that I no longer have these issues I always wonder if it's the gear or how we use it. Again. No disrespect.
Rich

 

[rsonnens]

And, I find the touchscreen too nonresponsive; I have old, dry hands.

I use the hub-based Harmony Companion remote. No touch screen and the battery for me last almost 18 months and does not have/need a charging cradle. Only downside is that the keys are not backlit.

It can handle 6 activities between long and short presses on the 3 physical activity keys. It’s also fairly inexpensive and comes with the hub.

 

[DougDingle]

Yes. The Harmony doesn't handshake with the device it controls. It just assumes that they are in the last state commanded. I presume that everyone with a Harmony knows that.

Yes. Although it's not relevant when doing things like changing AVR inputs, the power functions can quickly get out of sync. The problem with power controls and universal remotes is that fewer and fewer components support discreet 'power on' and 'power off' commands. If they did things would go more smoothly. Instead we have 'power toggle' that changes the current state to the other state, and that's where problems of sync arise. Even if the Harmony setup indicates there are discreet power commands for a component, more often than not it sends the 'toggle' command because that's all there actually is available for that device.

I have a Harmony remote here, and just gave up on having it control power after lots of miscues - my wife would use the TiVo remote to turn off the TV, and the Harmony thought it was still on, for example. I use a 'smart' power strip instead. The LG TV is plugged into the control socket, and when I turn it on it turns on the rest of the sockets for my AVR and other components. The only exception is my LG BluRay player, which does get its power controlled with the 'Watch DVD' activity.

I haven't tried to figure out whether the Harmony is capable of switching audio modes on my AVR, or displaying movie run times on my UHD BD player. I nearly never change controls on the Harmony away from the activity to specialized controls for a particular device. And, I find the touchscreen too nonresponsive; I have old, dry hands.

I'm sure you know this, but most Harmony remotes have learning modes, so even if a particular function is unavailable, it can be taught and then assigned to an activity or button. One of the things I do regularly with my old and venerable Harmony 700 is hit the Device button to control some aspect of some device.

I like the remote, but I do have to say that I would accept a 10-15% bigger remote for 10-15% bigger buttons. 😁

 

[bobknavs]

(snip)

I'm sure you know this, but most Harmony remotes have learning modes, so even if a particular function is unavailable, it can be taught and then assigned to an activity or button. One of the things I do regularly with my old and venerable Harmony 700 is hit the Device button to control some aspect of some device.

(snip)

I'd pretty much forgotten about that. Never used the capability, on either Harmony remote.

I also have never tried the smartphone app. Not really an app fan. Guess I'm too much of a 20th century guy.

 

[rsonnens]

Yes. Although it's not relevant when doing things like changing AVR inputs, the power functions can quickly get out of sync. The problem with power controls and universal remotes is that fewer and fewer components support discreet 'power on' and 'power off' commands. If they did things would go more smoothly. Instead we have 'power toggle' that changes the current state to the other state, and that's where problems of sync arise. Even if the Harmony setup indicates there are discreet power commands for a component, more often than not it sends the 'toggle' command because that's all there actually is available for that device.

I have a Harmony remote here, and just gave up on having it control power after lots of miscues - my wife would use the TiVo remote to turn off the TV, and the Harmony thought it was still on, for example. I use a 'smart' power strip instead. The LG TV is plugged into the control socket, and when I turn it on it turns on the rest of the sockets for my AVR and other components. The only exception is my LG BluRay player, which does get its power controlled with the 'Watch DVD' activity.



I'm sure you know this, but most Harmony remotes have learning modes, so even if a particular function is unavailable, it can be taught and then assigned to an activity or button. One of the things I do regularly with my old and venerable Harmony 700 is hit the Device button to control some aspect of some device.

I like the remote, but I do have to say that I would accept a 10-15% bigger remote for 10-15% bigger buttons.

In addition to power management syncing state it is CEC changing video inputs that also get out of sync that is just as big a problem (more so imho.) It is really the CEC issue that is the root of the power sync issues as well. Turning off CEC on the AVR solves both (leave AVR audio CEC commands enabled on Denon works fine however.)


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[DougDingle]

In addition to power management syncing state it is CEC changing video inputs that also get out of sync that is just as big a problem (more so imho.) It is really the CEC issue that is the root of the power sync issues as well. Turning off CEC on the AVR solves both (leave AVR audio CEC commands enabled on Denon works fine however.)

While CEC works surprisingly well on my bedroom setup (Sony 900E TV, Marantz 1608 AVR, TiVo Roamio, Shield Pro streamer), it was a massive failure in my main setup with the LG OLED and Denon 4300.

No matter what I did, the moment the LG 65E6 OLED turned on, the 4300 would switch to TV Audio (the ARC return). And if I changed it to the input I actually wanted, within 10 seconds it would change right back to TV Audio. I tried all kinds of stuff, including just having everything else powered down, and it just wouldn't work. Gave up, went in a different direction. Perhaps it's the age of the LG (it was very early days for CEC back in 2016). If I do get a new C1 series OLED, maybe I'll try again.

The other problem is that if you have a device that doesn't recognize CEC as existing, like my TiVo Roamio, no matter what you have to have a way to remotely change the 4300's input if that's the device you want to use.

 

[rsonnens]

While CEC works surprisingly well on my bedroom setup (Sony 900E TV, Marantz 1608 AVR, TiVo Roamio, Shield Pro streamer), it was a massive failure in my main setup with the LG OLED and Denon 4300.

No matter what I did, the moment the LG 65E6 OLED turned on, the 4300 would switch to TV Audio (the ARC return). And if I changed it to the input I actually wanted, within 10 seconds it would change right back to TV Audio. I tried all kinds of stuff, including just having everything else powered down, and it just wouldn't work. Gave up, went in a different direction. Perhaps it's the age of the LG (it was very early days for CEC back in 2016). If I do get a new C1 series OLED, maybe I'll try again.

The other problem is that if you have a device that doesn't recognize CEC as existing, like my TiVo Roamio, no matter what you have to have a way to remotely change the 4300's input if that's the device you want to use.

Exactly. I had similar experience with my older Sony (working fine with it on) and my LG were you have to turn off CEC which was my point. The only way to make sure a harmony works as intended is to turn off CEC because mileage varies between CEC implementations between devices and manufactures. The spec is just to loosely designed.

The issues are independent of a harmony remote but you can’t get the remote to work correct if it’s on in many configurations and it’s not just LG. I’ve seen the same CEC issues with Samsung TVs and other devices.


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