HDMI ARC and eARC Explained | Simplify Your System!

hdmi arc and earc what do they do what's the difference and what's the best way to use them i've got the answers for you right here [Music] welcome back everyone i'm caleb denison and even though hdmi arc and earc have been around for a while now i know a lot of folks still aren't clear on the differences between the two what they can and can't do and how they can make your home entertainment setup easier to use and more enjoyable so in this video i'll take you through all of that so you can master your system like a boss also if you're new around here welcome i hope you find this video helpful and if you do please do me a favor and slap that like button and consider subscribing for more helpful tech videos as well as some awesome tv reviews coming up in the next few weeks thanks so much now let's talk about arc so for the rest of this video i'm just going to call them arc and e-arc because it's easier for me i hope you don't mind now for those who don't yet know arc stands for audio return channel and e-r stands for enhanced audio return channel i'll get to the enhancement stuff in a moment but first let's talk about what arc does and how it works so when hdmi first came out it was a great new way to get your digital audio and video signals from point a to point b with a single cable but in the early days of hdmi it was like most audio video cables a one-way street it would carry your audio and video signal from a source like a cable box or game console to a destination like your tv av receiver or sound bar signals only went in one direction with arc the hdmi cable becomes a two-way street well actually it's more like a one-way street with a bike lane that goes the opposite direction arc allows an audio signal to go the opposite direction down an hdmi cable from your tv to an audio device like a sound bar or a v receiver all you have to do is make sure you plug an hdmi cable into the hdmi port on your tv marked arc or e-arc and make sure that's the one that goes back to your sound bar or av receivers matching arc port and that ability means that instead of connecting all your source devices to the sound bar or av receiver first and then running one cable up to your tv you can connect all of your devices directly to your tv and just one cable back down to your audio device and this comes with some advantages which i'll talk about in a moment it also means that if you just want to get sound from your tv's built-in apps like netflix or hbo max or maybe the tv's built-in tuner you can send all that built-in audio down to the soundbar or av receiver for better sound arc also includes some other conveniences through something separate but related called hdmi cec which stands for consumer electronics control this allows control signals to go back and forth between your components in your system so that your tv remote can operate your blu-ray player or streaming stick and it can also allow you to adjust the volume of your audio system using just the volume buttons on your tvs remote it can even let you set things up so that when you press the power button on one remote it turns a bunch of other components on or off the idea is that you can put a bunch of remotes away and just use your tv remote that's the idea anyway hdmi cec isn't always reliable but i'll get back to that now earlier i mentioned that connecting all your devices to your tv and then just running audio down to your sound system with arc had some advantages one of them is that i think it's easier for most people since you just tune into what you want to watch on your tv and the sound goes where it needs to without a bunch of fuss the other is specific to gamers who want the lowest input lag possible connect the consoles directly to the tv and there's nothing adding delay to the system and speaking of delays and lip sync problems now that we have a good understanding of what arc does let's talk about e-arc and the enhancements that e comes with first e-arc is relatively new so if your tv or audio device is more than a few years old you probably don't have e-arc the good news is that even if one of your devices has e-arc and the other only has arc there's no compatibility problems you can use them all together e-arc does come with some pretty big advantages though earlier i mentioned arc was like a one-way street with a bike lane coming in the opposite direction well e-arc is more like a full-on two-way street there's way more room for lots more traffic er candles much more bandwidth so it introduces virtually no lag if you're a competitive gamer er lets you set up your system however you want without introducing a bunch of input lag e-arc also automatically eliminates lip sync problems so already we're off to a great start but that much higher bandwidth also allows for better sound quality standard arc handles up to dolby digital plus or standard dts audio codecs and these both sound very good but technically they are lossy compressed audio formats e-arc allows dolby's best signal dolby true hd and dts's best signal dts-x which are uncompressed lossless formats that do indeed sound a bit better now i want to be really clear about something here dolby atmos which is the latest object-based surround format with height channels built in is available with standard arc though it's through a signal called dolby digital plus but again it's the lossy compressed version of that unfortunately though dtsx is not available with standard arc so if you want the best dolby atmos sound or dtsx at all which by the way is also an object-based audio format you need to be using e-arc but as usual there are some catches getting dolby atmos or dtsx from your tv to your audio system requires that your tv supports it just because you have arc or e-arc on your tv doesn't mean that it will send a dolby atmos signal down the hdmi cable and the best way for you to know if it does or doesn't is to go look at the spec sheet for your tv and see if it does or doesn't support dolby atmos or dtsx via arc or e-arc if your tv doesn't support that then that's a really good reason to go ahead and connect all your gear to your audio device first and then just the one arc hdmi cable between your tv and that audio device one final note to help you get arc and e-arc running on your system not all tvs have it enabled by default sometimes you need to go into your tv's audio menu to turn it on and making matters a little more confusing sometimes you have to find where hdmi cec is and turn that on first before arc or e-arc even becomes an option for you to turn it on thankfully the latest most advanced tvs do a good job of automating most of this so you may not necessarily have to go digging for these settings and turning them on but it's always a good idea to check just in case and that goes back to what i said about hdmi cec earlier it's not a perfect technology sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't it's frustrating i know but somehow in this day and age it is still not totally reliable for instance at home i have cec up and running and when i turn off my tv the av receiver turns off too for a moment and then it turns back on and i still don't know why i'm working on that anyway if your system has a few hiccups along the way know that you aren't alone but i still think that arc and e-arc are one of the best features to use in a home entertainment system and i hope you can now enjoy getting the best picture and sound with the least hassle possible thanks as always for watching everyone don't forget to like and subscribe leave me a comment down below and say hi and here's two other videos i think you'll like

Channel: Digital Trends

Views: 774,971

Keywords: hdmi arc explained, hdmi arc vs earc, arc and earc explained, what is hdmi earc, hdmi earc, what is hdmi arc, hdmi arc, what is earc, audio return channel (earc), connect hdmi arc, hdmi arc for tv, audio return channel explained, audio return channel, enhanced audio return channel, how to use audio return channel, audio return channel not working, audio return channel (arc), hdmi arc setup, what is arc, hdmi cec, hdmi arc vs optical, home theater, sound bar

Id: _CFNbzHYNJc

Length: 7min 43sec (463 seconds)

Published: Fri May 13 2022