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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable
FatherOfCurses wrote 3 hours 27 min ago:
I have what I believe is an acceptable setup at home (Denon AVR-X1700H
and Apple TV like the OP, a decent Sony display, 7.1 speaker setup, but
the plethora of audio coding options completely mystify me. I know this
is a me problem. I'm hoping in the new year to watch more movies with
the family and would like to make better use of the surround system for
sci-fi and action movies but for whatever reason I have no idea where
to start.
kimos wrote 5 hours 11 min ago:
Iâve tried getting CEC working with my pretty average setup: Samsung
Frame, Marantz receiver, couple of console games.
It has been worse than doing all the remote juggling switching mysel
because it is non-deterministic. This article will help me debug it,
but itâs a toss up which audio device the screen will pick, if game
mode activates or not, and if some device waking in the wrong order
will put another one right back to sleep. Even if I follow the same
steps every time.
InterlooperX wrote 8 hours 28 min ago:
Agreed that CEC is weird. Never thought about adding yet another device
like the Pi into the mix to help control everything, though...
I have accepted that I am apparently in the minority with my setup.
In fact I was actually surprised to read that OP has a Denon as, just
by what I have read about the topic of home theater", everyone else
seems to be doing just fine with a simple soundbar which has one! hdmi
socket.
So, here is my setup:
-Dumb TV (Panasonic. So old it doesn't have a CI+ module built in, it
is "just" a CI module)
-Denon AV Receiver
-Nintendo Wii
-Nintendo Switch Dock
-Original Xbox
-Blueray Player
-HTPC
-Satellite Receiver
-AppleTV
Excessive? Maybe but I still own all that stuff, have room for it in my
cabinet so I like to convenience of powering each of these on when I
feel like it without having to unearth them from a storage room and
then fiddle with cables to connect everything for just a short time of
usage.
Basically everything is plugged into the Denon. And then a single HDMI
cable goes from the Denon to the TV. So the TV stays on one HDMI
channel and everything else happens on the Denon. Switch Inputs on
there and you get the corresponding Audio/video signal from the chosen
device.
So far I have been lucky that in order to switch everything on, I could
use a Harmony One. I could simply program the power on command for the
TV, then switch to HDMI1 and turn on the Satellite receiver. This was
the default. Put it on a news station and you got yourself some
background noise. If you want to switch, you just had to tell the
Harmony to switch its input to any other device listed above.
It really irks me that the Harmony line is dead and I don't know what I
will do should the remote, one day, stop to function.
Now I wonder if I would have to go the Pi route to have that switch
things around depending on devices announcing themself when turned on.
sandos wrote 9 hours 35 min ago:
I really need this in my life. Once upon a time, things were good and
our Chromecast with Google TV knew _exactly_ how to turn on our
soundbar, set our TV to output sound to said soundbar, control the
volume on that soundbar using IR.
Now absolutely nothing of that works. The audio output on the TV is set
seemingly semi-randomly depending on content!?. The volume controls
just stopped working, and I can not FIND THE SETTINGS in the menus? I
suspect it is required to completely redo the remote setup to see those
settings, OR as I rather suspect: they broke this shit in purpose to
get us to buy a new Google TV Streamer.
retsyx wrote 14 hours 23 min ago:
In a similar vein, I created a project, Amity, that uses HDMI-CEC to
control the whole home theater with one remote. Using a simple streamer
remote you can select an activity (watch Apple TV, play on the
PlayStation) navigate interfaces, control the system's volume, and
power it off. One of several fairly common streamer or TV remotes can
be used.
Amity, too, is based on a Raspberry Pi but also uses a very simple
custom PCB to hook into the HDMI-CEC bus between the TV and the
receiver. One of the most common problems encountered with HDMI-CEC is
that different components will often compete to be displayed by the TV
(for example, turning on your Apple TV, turns on the TV, which turns on
the PlayStation, which requests to be displayed, which switches the TV
to displaying the PlayStation. So you end up viewing the PlayStation
when you wanted to stream Netflix on your Apple TV). I found that the
only way to fix this problem is to sit between the receiver and the TV
to break the cycle. Hence, the PCB.
Amity is available here:
HTML [1]: https://github.com/retsyx/amity
VerifiedReports wrote 14 hours 39 min ago:
Well, from the article I learned about Homebridge, which integrates
non-Homekit products into Homekit.
Yay!
rogerallen wrote 15 hours 20 min ago:
This is the content I come here for.
nullhole wrote 15 hours 27 min ago:
I used a similar setup to translate CEC user commands
(volume/fwd/reverse/etc), that travelled from my TV remote to the TV to
the CEC bus to a pi that was plugged into the TV via HDMI. The pi was
running jukebox software (moode audio). Similar to the article, the pi
had a shell script that reads all the loglines coming from cec-client
and acted on them when appropriate, in my case translating a subset of
the CEC user commands to moode commands.
Worked pretty well, was nice to CEC-ify a pi program and eliminate the
need for special-purpose hw/sw to interact with the audio player.
The CEC spec has all of the user control codes on the 2nd last page[1],
in table 27.
HTML [1]: https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v...
sho_hn wrote 15 hours 24 min ago:
I made myself a little HDMI dongle (about half the size of a classic
Fire Stick) with a WiFi modem that I use to remote control my TV from
Home Assistant. My remote is the HA app.
Why? Because Google Home's TV remote stuff can do a lot, but not turn
on the TV. CEC can.
nfriedly wrote 15 hours 44 min ago:
My TV and soundbar have the same issue: CEC works for everything except
the "turn on" command. I ended up fixing it with an arduino-ish IR
blaster that's powered by the TVs USB port - so as soon as the TV
powers on, the Arduino boots up and tells the soundbar to turn on too.
[1] I also had a NUC that I installed a Pulse Eight CEC module into,
but I never ended up using it, so it got passed on to someone else.
HTML [1]: https://www.nfriedly.com/techblog/2015/01/samsung-tv-turn-on-s...
pier25 wrote 15 hours 53 min ago:
I have an Apple TV and Nvidia Shield connected to a home theater
receiver which is connected to the LG TV.
Sometimes when turning any of the set top boxes, the other one would
turn on and its HDMI would become the active one. I couldn't simply
turn off the box I didn't want to use because all the system would turn
off.
The solution was to disable CEC on the TV. I still get CEC between the
boxes and the receiver (for volume and HDMI active input) but I need to
manually turn the tv on and off.
hackernudes wrote 16 hours 17 min ago:
I wrote a program in Golang to control my a/v setup. Included within
are small pkgs to control Linux CEC and LIRC devices (ioctl/read/write)
as well a pkg for LG TV commands over serial port. Link here: [1] One
really useful thing when getting started was to use `cec-ctl -M` to
monitor the CEC traffic live. Like the author, I used the v4l-utils
commands to interact with CEC but eventually got frustrated with them
and rewrote my program in in Go!
I have found CEC to be flaky and hard to work with. I had to turn off
CEC on my TV because it breaks everything, almost randomly switching
inputs and turning on and off devices.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/EBADBEEF/tvman
deepspace wrote 17 hours 12 min ago:
I am not sure why the author specifically mentions a $7 cable when the
Raspberry Pi and accessories are going to set you back close to $100.
That is by far the most expensive component. The money is possibly
better spent buying a programmable remote.
ihaveone wrote 17 hours 3 min ago:
I'm assuming he could have used a Pi zero instead
neuroelectron wrote 17 hours 36 min ago:
"Media closet tour"
Just looks like a Rube Goldberg server to me. This is really
illustrative of the nonsense that media copyright has manufactured. I'm
not going to solve "HDMI-CEC weirdness with a XYX" I'm going to
download the movie from a torrent or run an emulator.
bijant wrote 14 hours 0 min ago:
As if the sight of this dystopian thread wasn't depressing enough,
there is your one gold nugget of a comment, downvoted into oblivion,
grayed out at the bottom of the comment section.
A hundred comments of people reverse-engineering vendor handshakes,
writing Python daemons, and debating the finer points of CEC frame
injection - and not one of them asking why this is necessary. The
answer is in three letters: DRM.
Your PlayStation is a computer. Your Xbox is a computer. Your Apple
TV is a computer. Your "smart TV" is a computer. You already own a
computer. The reason you can't just... use it... is that the
entertainment industry spent two decades making sure the bits know
who owns them at every step of the pipeline. HDCP, HDMI licensing,
CEC's vendor-specific "quirks".I see no interoperability failure,
it's interoperability prevention.
Meanwhile, a $200 mini-PC running VLC, connected via DisplayPort to a
monitor and 3.5mm to powered speakers, plays anything in any format
at any bitrate with zero handshake failures. One "remote": a wireless
keyboard. This solution has existed since before some commenters here
were born.
What you're all debugging isn't technology. It's compliance.
rcarmo wrote 17 hours 54 min ago:
Genius. I might have a pretty good use for this, since I have constant
issues with my consoles fighting for the TV.
theLegionWithin wrote 18 hours 6 min ago:
that was an interesting read. glad I do all of my video watching &
games playing on a computer instead of consumer grade hardware!
ghm2199 wrote 18 hours 7 min ago:
An analogous audio binding issue used to happen with my Jabra Bt
headphones. It was generally connected to my phone and my computer.
After finishing a phone call â if previously the computer was playing
some music â the music would turn back on but it would be a very poor
quality, I suspect the audio "mode" was stuck at "transmitting" phone
call audio quality even though the BT software on the headset detected
devices being switched from phone -> computer. Toggling the BT sound
output on the mac to and fro between Computer and Headphones, fixed it.
I suspect it was probably a vendor â jabra â software issue when
sending a signal to apple's BT stack when switching between types of
devices? But probably not worth fixing on my own.
davidczech wrote 18 hours 11 min ago:
A side note: I am very sad that HDMI-CEC apparently can only support
like 3 "console-like" devices. I have an Apple TV, Nintendo Switch 2,
Sound Bar (eARC) and PS5 hooked up, but only 3 can really interact with
CEC.
It took me a long time to diagnose why it seemingly wouldn't work with
my Nintendo Switch 2.
I ended up disabling it on my PS5 because I never use the darn thing,
but it kind of stinks since most TV's have 4 HDMI inputs.
Terretta wrote 11 hours 46 min ago:
AppleTV, Hisense 75" U7, Hisense sound bar, and Xbox Series X,
tapping the Xbox logo on controller switches from Apple TV input to
console input. Great!
But long press on Xbox logo button to e.g. accept a party invite --
switches to Apple TV. Not great.
The consoles are indeed awkward, but so are soundbars. And really,
it seems like the TVs are the worst.
All can be solved with the boxes from HD Fury like VRRoom.
hackernudes wrote 14 hours 22 min ago:
Yes, the three playback limit is so annoying. Just... why?! CEC is so
stupid. Way overengineered yet completely undercooked. I'm imagining
some day soon TVs/receivers will start proxying the CEC bus instead
of sharing it globally.
dwood_dev wrote 15 hours 37 min ago:
This is my exact setup. Maybe I don't have many issues because I
literally only have the NS2/PS5Pro turn on the TV/change input. I
still use the AppleTV remote to adjust volume no matter the input.
askvictor wrote 18 hours 19 min ago:
I wrote related kind of thing a while back: [1] . Though I haven't used
it since upgrading most of my AV gear.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/askvictor/ChromecastControls
rgovostes wrote 18 hours 25 min ago:
This is the lordâs work. Itâs ridiculous that in 2025 my $500
gaming PC GPU cannot tell the receiver to change inputs. Even my Apple
TV, which is considered a model citizen here, steals the receiverâs
input every few hours if I have another device active.
avidiax wrote 16 hours 45 min ago:
Yeah, the Apple TV isn't better so much as it is very aggressive. I
usually have to long press the power button on the Apple TV remote to
get it to power off and let go of my receiver.
Other devices like an nVidia Shield or the XBOX require that you
press power/home a couple of times to take control of the receiver
and switch inputs.
Arbortheus wrote 18 hours 30 min ago:
In my home media setup (LG UQ81 TV, WiiM Amp via ARC, Xbox Series X,
Chromecast with Google TV), the CEC setup _almost_ works perfectly.
* I can use the LG TVâs remote alone to control everything including
the Chromecast and ampâs volume controls.
* The amp automatically switches on and off with the TV.
* Turning the Xbox on/off via its controller also turns on/off the TV
and the amplifier together.
Mostly good, except sometimes when I have my Chromecast on and switch
the Xbox on via the controller it gets stuck in an endless loop of
flicking back and forth between HDMI 1 and HDMI 2, between Chromecast
and Xbox. Nothing I can do will stop it except to power cycle the TV.
If anyone has experienced anything similar or has any tips on how to
debug this that would be much appreciated!
pottertheotter wrote 18 hours 38 min ago:
âevery console behaves like it missed the last week of CEC school.
They wake the TV, switch the input, then leave the Denon asleep so
Iâm back to toggling audio outputs manually.â
My Roku does this! It will turn on the TV but not the soundbar, which
is so frustrating. Guess itâs somewhat normal.
davidmurdoch wrote 16 hours 27 min ago:
My shield turns my receiver on, sets it to the right input (then the
wrong input, then back to the right input), then... disables the
decoder so there is no sound. Then sometimes enables the decoder
about 20 seconds later.
kayson wrote 18 hours 52 min ago:
Would love to know more about the magic Apple bytes and why the Denon
is behaving differently with consoles.
bsimpson wrote 18 hours 53 min ago:
I saw the Steam Machine bragging about CEC and being able to turn the
TV on when it does, which made me wonder why my setup doesn't do that.
Turns out that there's a special pin on your APU that has to be wired
up, and AMD didn't bother for the Z1 Extreme chips. I wish "wake on
signal" was a universal option.
extraduder_ire wrote 18 hours 30 min ago:
For some reason, GPU makers don't usually expose the CEC interface
for the HDMI ports on their cards. Even the raspberry pi's ability to
support it wasn't standard/default for years.
The common workaround if you had a kodi PC or something was to buy
one of these things: [1] and run a HDMI cable through it. Because CEC
is open drain like i2c is, connecting to it anywhere in your network
of devices should work. (the HDMI spec mandated that the CEC pin
needs to be connected, even if you aren't using it, from the first
version) Just connect it to a spare HDMI port anywhere and you're off
to the races.
HTML [1]: https://www.pulse-eight.com/p/104/usb-hdmi-cec-adapter
bsimpson wrote 10 hours 48 min ago:
It's cool that that exists, and also feels silly to spend $50 +
need to buy/run an extra HDMI cable just to make your TV turn on
when your device does.
Real shame these gaming-tailored devices don't support it natively.
I wonder if the DP vs HDMI licensing battle is involved.
sedatk wrote 18 hours 47 min ago:
Huh, is that why my Steam Deck won't wake up my TV?
jonah-archive wrote 18 hours 53 min ago:
A long time ago I used one of these HDMI-CEC-to-USB/serial bridges: [1]
(I'd gotten a large LG monitor instead of a flatscreen tv, and it
didn't talk HDMI-CEC but it had a serial-over-TRRS control interface,
so I listened for messages on the bus and my media PC translated and
relayed them to the monitor.)
HTML [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110219131237/http://rainshadowte...
recursive wrote 18 hours 56 min ago:
Modern AV stuff is insane. I have no interest in taking it up as a
hobby. I have an xbox, a TV, and a pair of bookshelf speakers. How am
I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive
receiver box? Luckily, I have one of the last remaining TVs with a
headphone jack. I don't use a remote for any of it.
Side note: Sometimes the TV doesn't come on when you press its power
button. After a tremendous amount of experimentation, I determined
this was because the "brain" was on, but the backlight was not. Power
cycling it blind usually fixes it. That's harder than it sounds though
because you have to navigate the menu blind using short and long button
presses with the one button. But I'm scared to try a new TV, because
then I'm going to have to figure out how to get audio out of the TV.
It seems like AV stuff used to be so simple. Now the simplest
scenarios seem to require more and more knowledge about arcane
connection standard interactions and network topology. Ugh.
k4rli wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
I've seen new cheap LG tv-s with horrible port selection while their
premium OLEDs have everything necessary (except Displayport).
I had my LG C9 audio via the headphone jack going to amp and it
worked fine. On one of the cheaper LGs I set it up similarly with
optical cable and a tiny optical->rca converter.
nottorp wrote 7 hours 44 min ago:
I've solved the problem by slapping myself whenever I catch myself
looking at sound bars, receivers etc for the living room.
ssl-3 wrote 15 hours 34 min ago:
The audio part can still be made to be simple.
Others have mentioned toslink and I'd like to expand upon that.
When you get a new TV and no longer have a headphone jack to plug
your powered speakers into, then you can just add a DAC that converts
the toslink digital audio that your new TV outputs into the
bog-standard line-level analog audio that your speakers understand.
DACs like this are available at all price points.
At the low end of the scale, some are less than $15 -- and they're
tiny. If you can't hide it somehow then I might insist that you're
not really trying.
And that's it. That's the entire missing link for where we are in
2025, wherein: A new TV will still have a toslink output, and your
powered speakers still have an analog input.
(Tomorrow? Who knows, man. We aren't there yet.)
hebejebelus wrote 5 hours 55 min ago:
It's quite hard to know if the DAC is actually decent quality
though. I've bought two from Amazon (admittedly at the low price
point) and both of them have line noise - one of them even has a
ground loop buzz, which surprised me, since it's powered by USB-C.
I'm unconvinced that any of the higher price points (that are still
within my budget) aren't just these cheapo ones in slightly fancier
cases.
My old TV had real analogue out for speakers and it really did
sound a lot better than what I've been getting through TOSLink and
this cheapo DAC. Same Hi-Fi and speakers. I'm sure the problem
could be solved with a more expensive DAC, but which one? How could
I know?
I find this is one of those things where it's quite hard for the
uninitiated to see through the cloud of 'audiophiles' saying that
you must buy gold cables or your audio will sound like garbage, and
still getting decent quality audio.
recursive wrote 8 hours 55 min ago:
Thanks. Those are some helpful search terms.
dontlaugh wrote 10 hours 53 min ago:
But youâd be left without volume control, or at least from the
same remote you control the TV with.
ssl-3 wrote 10 hours 35 min ago:
I've successfully set up sound bars with toslink and used the
TV's remote to run the volume up and down. Toslink doesn't have
to be a fixed level.
If future-TV lacks this functionality: DACs that have remote
volume controls are very nearly as inexpensive as those that
don't.
da768 wrote 16 hours 5 min ago:
You can get a WiiM Amp or Ultra with HDMI eARC, but you can go
cheaper if optical out is good enough. Many TVs still have that one
kevin_thibedeau wrote 16 hours 6 min ago:
It seems you have amplified speakers. The low friction solution is to
use a Toslink to RCA/TRS adapter. That will be a bulletproof digital
output readily available on many TVs.
kristianp wrote 16 hours 19 min ago:
TVs seem to expect you to use HDMI-ARC to return sound to the
receiver or soundbar. I wonder if there's any HDMI-ARC to audio
dongles out there?
p1necone wrote 17 hours 53 min ago:
A receiver has always been a pretty standard part of even really
simple AV setups - you can get half decent ones pretty cheap, and
then you just run either the HDMI ARC port or the optical/coax
digital audio out from your tv to the receiver so that everything you
plug into your tv has it's audio go out to the speakers.
recursive wrote 17 hours 45 min ago:
I know I could do this. But I don't really have space for a box.
And I'd rather not have it.
justinsaccount wrote 18 hours 10 min ago:
> It seems like AV stuff used to be so simple.
> without a bulky expensive receiver box
A "receiver" has been one of the standard options for making
bookshelf speakers work for more than 50 years. A receiver is also
not expensive. You can get a basic used one for under $100. I paid
$30 for a perfectly working 5.1 Denon receiver with HDMI.
Your problem is that you aren't even using "Modern" AV stuff. If you
were, your speakers and TV would both have HDMI Arc ports. Arc has
been a thing since 2009.
> That's harder than it sounds though because you have to navigate
the menu blind using short and long button presses with the one
button.
Or you could unplug it and plug it back in.
recursive wrote 17 hours 41 min ago:
Why are receivers so big? It's not exactly a money issue. I just
don't want the big box.
ianburrell wrote 12 hours 59 min ago:
Receivers are big because of the amplifiers. AV receivers have to
drive lots of channels. They are all 5.1 or 7.1. But stereo
receivers are also huge.
I suspect that some of this is tradition because there are small
solid state amplifiers. I'm surprised no one has made a small
receiver for 2.1 system cause would be pretty common.
kenhwang wrote 11 hours 8 min ago:
If you open a standard sized receiver up, you'll probably see
that 50% the space is empty for airflow, 25% of the space is
for a large heatsink because they're passively cooled to
minimize noise (thus the need for airflow), and 20% of the
space is really big capacitors.
They do make half size receivers, but they typically only have
half the power output. The space savings comes from removing
space for airflow and the heatsink, and using smaller
capacitors for less heat and smaller power output.
If you only need 2.1 output and a quarter of the power, there
are offerings that are basically the size of the minimum amount
of ports: 2 pairs of speaker terminals, a pair of RCA terminals
for subwoofer out, a HDMI port, a optical port, and power. But
then it's not really a receiver and more just of an
amplifier+DAC because they only have one HDMI input/output,
having space for multiple HDMI ports or speaker terminals
basically increases the size to the offering above.
They're big mostly because consumers demand a lot of big
connectors on them.
adamweld wrote 16 hours 52 min ago:
HDMI Audio Extractor is what you need. Look at OREI.
recursive wrote 16 hours 20 min ago:
Perfect! This looks like the one.
rhinoceraptor wrote 18 hours 12 min ago:
Another infuriating issue is TVs with so few HDMI inputs. I have
tried many different HDMI switchers and none of them work reliably,
so it kind of puts me off of buying a receiver which would also have
that function.
jonhohle wrote 18 hours 6 min ago:
Iâve mostly had no issues with HDMI through Yamaha receivers and
that includes weird things like an OSSC and Framemeister.
On the other hand, HDMI switchers havenât fared as well. I built
a mini console rack with a switch and it doesnât recognize
several devices, even when manually selected.
exmadscientist wrote 17 hours 48 min ago:
> Yamaha receivers
In my limited experience, Yamaha handles HDMI-CEC significantly
better than Denon/Marantz. As evidenced by the fact that I
currently own a Marantz receiver and am reading this page, but
back when I owned a Yamaha receiver, I had no need to care about
all of this crud. Things somehow worked on the first try! I did
not expect that. However, it conditioned me to expect that again
with a different receiver (the sources and sinks are the
problems, right? the receivers are super well tested because
sitting in the middle and passing these commands around is their
entire job, right? right?) which was a mistake.
(The actual issue with the Marantz is that it seems to be eating
some kind of power-on command from the source, and not passing it
on, so the TV never turns on if you try to turn on the receiver
or the source. I have no idea how to fix this, short of following
in the path of this article.)
mschuster91 wrote 18 hours 9 min ago:
Personally, I run a Yinker 4x4 matrix (in: nintendo switch 1,
chromecast, mac pro 4.1 I use as a gaming rig, raspberry pi 5, out:
projector, TV, pi 5) and am quite happy with it - no outages so far
in half a year of uptime.
I desperately need to work with CEC though lol, never had the time
to actually test that.
HTML [1]: https://www.amazon.de/Yinker-hintergrundbeleuchteter-Unter...
monster_truck wrote 18 hours 24 min ago:
It's still very simple and you have never needed anything expensive
to do so. Stop with the learned helplessness and "being afraid to try
a new TV"
recursive wrote 17 hours 31 min ago:
I'm not going to buy a TV just to "try" to figure out how to get
audio out of it. I mean, I'm sure there must be a way to do this.
I've seen a few options in this thread. If I were to buy a TV, I
would want to avoid making it more difficult than I have to. To
that end, I'd want to figure out specifically how to get audio to
the speakers. In my case, they're active bookshelf speakers
without HDMI input.
If the only possible way of doing this is with a bulky receiver,
I'd feel justified in complaining about modern AV stuff. Not
because of the cost, but because of the size.
Anyway, thanks for your input.
moduspol wrote 16 hours 43 min ago:
Nah man I'm with you. I've gone chest-deep into this pool and
still get issues 5-10% of the time with pretty simple use cases.
And I've got a top-of-the-line TV and a pretty good receiver.
It's maddening that such conceptually simple use cases don't
"just work" even when you DO sink hundreds or thousands of
dollars on the stuff you're supposed to.
amluto wrote 18 hours 36 min ago:
> How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky
expensive receiver box?
You can get a small ARC/eARC audio extractor with RCA or S/PDIF
output and use your favorite amplifier or DAC with it.
adamweld wrote 16 hours 53 min ago:
Correct answer, HDMI audio extractor.
Personally I use an eARC extractor to run S/PDIF to an audio
interface (MOTU Ultralite Mk5) and an RPi running camilladsp
handles room correction and active crossovers. Overkill at the
moment for just a few studio monitors and a sub, but it'll be a
great solution when I get around to building some custom speakers.
ewoodrich wrote 18 hours 6 min ago:
Yep, I have a bunch of those audio extractors, they're awesome. In
my home office setup I even have an HDMI output that's mirrored to
several screens and extract audio at various points along the same
path (two using the dedicated mini extractor boxes, one just using
the headphone out on a monitor).
lysace wrote 18 hours 37 min ago:
Your quest is thankfully unrelated to ARC/CEC.
Find a tiny TPA3255- or TPA3116-based amp. These are class D
amplifier chips made by TI. [1] Buy one of these from e.g. Amazon.
Optionally: Throw away/recycle away the supplied chinese noname power
supply. Buy a used laptop PSU from a reputable brand locally for
cheap instead. I scored a Lenovo 135W/20V laptop PSU for $5 at my
local Goodwill equivalent. Solder on a 5.5mm barrel jack connector.
My fav for your use case: Fosi Audio TB10D.
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class-D_amplifier
jtbayly wrote 17 hours 37 min ago:
1. His speakers are powered already. He doesn't need an amp.
2. Even if they weren't, how is he supposed to connect to the Fosi
without a headphone jack coming out from the TV? The Fosi only has
RCA input.
lysace wrote 17 hours 31 min ago:
1. That information just arrived as a reply to my comment.
2. "Luckily, I have one of the last remaining TVs with a
headphone jack."
recursive wrote 17 hours 39 min ago:
I'm using active bookshelf speakers with integrated amps. They are
working fine.
lysace wrote 17 hours 36 min ago:
I really dislike this behavior. You presented a problem, but you
didn't want a solution. You wanted attention.
recursive wrote 16 hours 19 min ago:
I do want a solution. You haven't provided one.
You suggested an amp. The fact that I'm able to use a
headphone jack to connect my speakers should tell you I don't
need an amplifier.
The question posed is how to connect those speakers if I no
longer had access to a headphone jack. Currently the headphone
jack is working fine.
For what it's worth, here's a comment that seems like it's get
a perfect solution for me.
Sorry if I was unclear.
jimmaswell wrote 18 hours 39 min ago:
That little headphone jack is seriously driving bookshelf speakers to
a reasonable volume? If it works it works but that doesn't sound
right, unless these are actually self-powered speakers with their own
amplifiers inside. I'd really like to know the details because this
sounds crazy.
Also, I collect a lot of old receivers and speakers. It's really not
that complicated and the basics have been the same since the 70s and
80s. Any flatscreen TV made in the past 20 years typically has a
TOSLINK output which will be compatible with receivers stretching
back to the 80s - I have my LG C1 connected to some 90s Marantz
receiver this way. Any old receiver you find on Facebook Marketplace
for $20 will typically suffice here as long as you check for the
TOSLINK port first, but you do need a separate actual amplifier
somewhere along the line to drive a speaker larger than a pair of
headphones unless the speaker has its own amp built-in.
I find all this stuff fun so my own setup has that chained to a
series of other receivers acting as subwoofer amplifiers as well as
using the pre-amp output to drive a Mesa Baron tube
amplifier/Acoustat electrostats I was gifted, but most people don't
need anything so complex.
LargoLasskhyfv wrote 10 hours 40 min ago:
Depends on what he means by 'bookshelf'. I've still got these
collecting dust in a condo in Germany, where I rarely visit
anymore. [1] Clear and distortion-free. Probably depending on how
you drive your line-out, but mine just worked.
Stereo 2.0! (Giggle..)
The room isn't that large, but they really could fill it with
sound, or the nearest neighborhood, if put on the balcony on summer
evenings :-)
HTML [1]: https://www.highfidelityreview.com/creative-sbs260-speaker...
recursive wrote 17 hours 43 min ago:
The jack is not driving the bookshelf speakers. They're active.
They have their own internal amps. It's simple if you use a
receiver. If someone can point me to a receiver that's more like 4
inches than 18 inches, then I'd consider that a solution.
Receivers are big boxes as far as I've seen. I don't have space.
Or maybe I don't want to make space.
Lammy wrote 16 hours 3 min ago:
> If someone can point me to a receiver that's more like 4 inches
than 18 inches
S.M.S.L. make some good ones: [1] I use their AD-18 and really
love it:
HTML [1]: https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/index
HTML [2]: https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/detail/id/566....
tmnvix wrote 16 hours 3 min ago:
Fosi ZD3 ( [1] ). Supports HDMI with CEC. I turn on my Apple TV,
it turns on the TV, which in turn turns on the Fosi DAC - all
connected with HDMI. The DAC then turns on a ZA3 amp via 12v
trigger cable. Volume control etc is via the Apple remote.
All very cheap really. Total cost I think was about $550
(refurbished TV, second hand Apple TV, new Fosi DAC and amp). All
this and I get to keep the TV in 'dumb' mode. Never even use the
TV remote.
HTML [1]: https://fosiaudio.com/products/fosi-audio-zd3-fully-bala...
jimmaswell wrote 16 hours 55 min ago:
It sounds like your speakers work for you then. On a modern TV
without a headphone jack you would probably be served perfectly
well by bluetooth speakers that sync to the TV. Though I'm
surprised if a 3.5mm output is really that uncommon, because I
just bought an LG C1 a few years ago and it has one. You can also
find a small bluetooth receiver that would output to a headphone
jack at WalMart.
tonyarkles wrote 16 hours 59 min ago:
Have a look at Fosi Audio. I'm currently using a BT30D to drive
the passive speakers from an old Samsung integrated
amplifier+receiver+2014-era "Smart TV" type system that died. It
only has 1 analog input and Bluetooth, but it looks like they
have other products in a similar form factor that can take
multiple inputs (e.g. the P4 Mini). I was skeptical but needed
something cheap to drive those speakers and am quite impressed.
mikepurvis wrote 17 hours 15 min ago:
Some of the bigness is just tradition and buyer expectation (big
= expensive). But also, modern AVRs are like 1000W devices
amplifying 7, 9, even 11 channels of passives. Thatâs a lot of
componentry and corresponding heat to shedâ if you open one of
those up, itâs not just empty space in there like an NES
cartridge or something.
mikepurvis wrote 19 min ago:
... that said, there is also a small market for "separates"
where you have a decoding-only preamp that either feeds active
speakers or another box containing just the multi-channel
amplification: [1] The output of these units is line-level
signals feeding high-impedance loads. They could definitely be
a fraction of the size they are.
HTML [1]: https://www.marantz.com/en-ca/category/av-separates/
timdorr wrote 17 hours 35 min ago:
[1] Sonos makes this specifically. Has an RCA and HDMI input,
along with being a Sonos device for streaming audio.
The only downside is the price.
HTML [1]: https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/amp
ryandrake wrote 17 hours 23 min ago:
Apart from Sonos in general being awful[1][2], their web site
seems to be pretty bad, too. Not only is there a modal
"subscribe to our newsletter" box in that link, there's also a
separate modal cookie warning which blocks the modal newsletter
box. It's like frustrating users is core to their mission.
1: [1] 2:
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683753
HTML [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21895086
s3graham wrote 17 hours 24 min ago:
And that Sonos is terrible to its users.
I had a houseful of overpriced speakers, some only 3 years old
when they decided they were too old to support in their
rewritten app, or some lazy crap like that.
For GP; I use some cheapo (sub $50) "100W mini amps" from
Amazon. They seem fine to me.
ryandrake wrote 18 hours 0 min ago:
I was kind of in OP's shoes a few months ago. My 2000-2010 era
stereo receiver crapped out and I was looking to see if I could
simplify my system a bit. Unlike OP, I didn't need anything that
could extract audio from the TV. My requirements were:
1. A decoder with at least 5.1 output since that's how many
speakers I have
2. At least 3 HDMI inputs + 1 HDMI output to my TV
3. An amplifier with a volume control
That's it! I don't need an FM tuner. I don't need multiple zones. I
don't need wild listening modes and DSP effects. I don't need an
on-TV setup display. I don't need fiber optic digital audio inputs.
I don't need fucking rows and rows of 20 RCA jack inputs, composite
video, component video, S-Video. You'd think I could find a small
cheap box the size of an AppleTV that I could just hide somewhere
that could do this, but I couldn't find anything sufficient. So I
got another $20 gigantic, ugly, old 18-inch receiver again from
Craigslist and just leave all those features and inputs unused.
aidenn0 wrote 12 hours 43 min ago:
Some googling found this, but it might be under-powered if you
have 8 ohm speakers: [1] the only way it could have a smaller
back-panel and all of your requirements would be to eliminate the
ethernet connector.
HTML [1]: https://www.snapav.com/shop/en/snapav/episode-mini-51-av...
jimmaswell wrote 17 hours 3 min ago:
I never understood the "ugly" perception. At worst some might
look boring to me, but at best some of them are absolutely
beautiful. For example, my favorite in my collection
appearance-wise has a 70s-style wooden finish on all but the
front plate with a polished silver look on the front plate:
HTML [1]: https://imgur.com/a/DAUeJJW
ryandrake wrote 15 hours 38 min ago:
This is going to sound kind of sexist, but I have never met a
woman who was OK interior design-wise with 18 inch stereo
equipment in the living room. I mean look at the OP article:
He's got all this stuff hidden away in a closet. This seems to
be the only viable way to keep an "A/V stack" full of black
boxes and a marriage.
I've got a great sounding 5.1 system with a receiver and a game
console and everything set up. You know where it is? My garage.
db48x wrote 13 hours 47 min ago:
Youâve either been meeting the wrong women or you need more
rooms. One room where people can sit and talk to each other
and a completely different room where people can sit and
listen to music or watch a screen. Ideally if you want music
in that first room you would put a piano in there, because
playing the piano (and singing along) is a social activity
that people can actually do together. Neither of these
activities should be relegated to a garage.
andersa wrote 11 hours 2 min ago:
So many problems and more money could solve every one of
them!
literallywho wrote 13 hours 51 min ago:
Is it really love if it hinges on the presence of high
quality stereo equipment? Also, I have a friend who has
similar stuff out in the open and is happily married.
systemtest wrote 18 hours 39 min ago:
> How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky
expensive receiver box?
You can have bookshelf speakers with an integrated amplifier and
HDMI-ARC. All you need is an HDMI cable between the TV and the
speakers.
recursive wrote 17 hours 15 min ago:
I'm not home at the moment, but I'm pretty sure they don't have an
HDMI input. I haven't seen speakers that do, except sound bars. I
don't like the general premise of sound bars. You either need a
subwoofer, or you're limited to too-many too-small drivers.
muti wrote 15 hours 49 min ago:
Active bookshelf speakers with HDMI Arc input are getting more
common. Kanto Ren, Kef LSX II, Klipsch The Fives, Elac Debut
ConneX
There's also the compact, simple alternatives to bulky receivers
that are becoming available: Wiim amp, Sonos amp, Eversolo play,
and the cheaper chinese makers like SMSL and Fosi. Each of those
brands has a small device the size of an apple tv that will take
an HDMI Arc input, and output an amplified signal to power some
passive bookshelf speakers.
systemtest wrote 16 hours 45 min ago:
There are a couple of brands that sell them, thatâs what I
meant. I prefer bookshelf speakers over a soundbar due to the
larger drivers and better stereo separation
jauntywundrkind wrote 18 hours 43 min ago:
Thankfully there are fun engaged hackery people.
The article here seemed to dive in, look at what was happening, and
figure out some altogether decent & not absurd flows. It wasn't
"easy", but it also wasn't totally absurd.
I get why you'd whinge & argue for a simple cable. But this was also
a wonderful study, that showed steps, that I hope can bring joy & not
just derision. That said, I also have no receiver box & rely on
headphone out... which my not that old LG C4 has. Also, if that goes
away: SPDIF decoder boxes are very cheap!
sudobash1 wrote 19 hours 3 min ago:
I am using a raspberry pi pico with a modified pico-cec program to
control my Jellyfin-client media PC. CEC is actually really fun to hack
on, and once you get a custom setup working, it is (at least in my
experience) rock solid.
Jellyfin even has a TV mode that you can enable in a normal desktop
browser. So my media PC runs the browser in kiosk mode, and it has CEC
buttons mapped to keyboard presses. Guests have used it, and I don't
think anyone could tell that it wasn't a "smart" TV.
HTML [1]: https://github.com/gkoh/pico-cec
pyrolistical wrote 19 hours 17 min ago:
Now package that into a tiny device with an hdmi plug.
Better hurry befor-, too late itâs cloned in china.
Actually it would be funny if somebody integrated this fix into a cable
mongol wrote 19 hours 2 min ago:
I think it will be a while. There is not even a Pulse-Eight clone on
Aliexpress
lawlessone wrote 19 hours 11 min ago:
Someone invent the cornucopia machine
Hackbraten wrote 19 hours 18 min ago:
Nice hack! The cat seems to be happy with the setup, too!
thebruce87m wrote 19 hours 7 min ago:
Strange place for a cat to lie - must be a hot water pipe under the
floor there or perhaps a sliver of sunshine thatâs since gone away.
jauntywundrkind wrote 19 hours 33 min ago:
I know it's called a bus, but I'm still surprised that all devices get
the HDMI-CEC stream of all other devices. Being able to watch the Apple
TV from the Pi was super cool, and I never would have guessed it was
possible to see what was going on there (short of building a man in the
middle hardware proxy)!
tylerflick wrote 19 hours 27 min ago:
CEC is just i2c which is a bus. In fact you can hook regular i2c
devices up to an HDMI port and communicate with them. Youâll need a
resistor and shouldnât draw more than 50 mA.
waerhert wrote 18 hours 16 min ago:
Isn't DDC the I2C bus? Interesting article about that here:
HTML [1]: https://mitxela.com/projects/ddc-oled
tylerflick wrote 16 hours 7 min ago:
Doh, youâre right. Iâm over here getting my protocols mixed
up. IIRC it is very similar though.
extraduder_ire wrote 18 hours 25 min ago:
It's electrically similar, but not directly compatible. (if you
know better than me, please let me know)
amluto wrote 19 hours 20 min ago:
I always assumed that it was a separate i2c bus per HDMI link and
that it was the AVRâs job to handle a request from something and
send the right requests to everything else.
extraduder_ire wrote 18 hours 21 min ago:
Much like i2c, any message put on the bus is transmitted to
everything on the bus.
Version 1.0 and later of the HDMI spec even mandate that you have
to connect those pins across all HDMI ports on your device even
if you don't do anything with them.
amluto wrote 17 hours 30 min ago:
Okay, now Iâm curious. If the pins are just connected across
all ports, how does the AVR tell which CEC-speaking device is
on which port? Chip select or similar pins?
colechristensen wrote 19 hours 34 min ago:
The first time I "discovered" CEC was when the arrow keys on my TV
remote inadvertently navigated the PS3 system menu. I thought I was
hallucinating because there was no mechanism for this magic to happen.
Crespyl wrote 16 hours 27 min ago:
I've had this happen a handful of times with my Frame TV and Steam
Deck, though it's inconsistent for some reason. It's pretty cool
when it works.
The Deck can pretty consistently turn the TV on from standby(/picture
mode) and grab the input, but if the TV is completely off (black
screen) CEC doesn't work anymore.
neilv wrote 19 hours 1 min ago:
I was thrilled when I saw a Reddit comment about this, and it
actually worked with my Sony dumb TV + PS5 + Sony RM-VZ320 universal
remote.
(I was sad at having to give up my nice PS4 universal remote, and not
finding an equivalent for the PS5.)
However, I couldn't find a button on the remote that was the
equivalent of pressing a PS5 controller's PS Button, and that's
pretty important to the messy PS5 UI. But the TV had menus that
could simulate pressing that button. So I upgraded to a Sony
RM-VLZ620, which added programmable macro buttons, which I kludged
hard to navigate the TV menus. From my notes:
### Programming PS Button
1. SET(Hold 3 seconds, for LED, then keep holding)
2. middle-circle
3. (Release SET)
4. System-Control-1
5. 9, 8, 1
6. Options
7. Up
8. Down, Down, Down, Down
9. middle-circle, middle-circle
10. SET
Note: The **Up** is a timing NOP, since otherwise
the TV usually only sees only 3 Down rather than 4.
codepoet80 wrote 19 hours 39 min ago:
Yup, my AppleTV is the only device that gets CEC right. Even my LG TV
and LG soundbar get confused. And donât get me started on the PS4
Proâs garbage implementation. Iâm sad that Logitech killed Harmony
because CEC was supposed to make universal remotes obsolete â
theyâre still the only way my full home theater can function without
juggling a dozen remotes.
crtasm wrote 18 hours 20 min ago:
Anyone know how to make a LG TV wake an AppleTV from sleep?
Once it's awake buttons presses on the LG remote are passed through
to it but I have to keep the Apple remote around for that first step.
codepoet80 wrote 16 hours 55 min ago:
I had to go the other way. The Apple TV controls the LG. It wakes
it, controls the volume and turns it off when it sleeps.
robflynn wrote 16 hours 8 min ago:
Mine will turn my LG on, control the volume, do all of that, it
just won't ever turn it off. The AppleTV will turn itself off,
but the TV itself will revert back to its screen saver display
complaining about No Input.
skunkworker wrote 11 hours 41 min ago:
I've got a Apple TV -> Denon -> LG C3. CEC on the appleTV
remote will turn all 3 on, and long pressing (power button on
appletv remote) will turn all 3 off, not just screen saver with
input.
rblatz wrote 14 hours 49 min ago:
My Samsung frame does that too, some TVs ignore the off CEC
command. It might be a setting you can control on the tv. Last
time I checked the frame did not have that option.
zimpenfish wrote 18 hours 27 min ago:
Amusingly, my AppleTV is currently the one thing that doesn't even
though it used to - for some reason, with no changes, it just stopped
turning on the TV. Switch 2 can happily turn on the TV though. Most
peculiar.
(I've tried updating the AppleTV, replugging the HDMI cable,
unplugging the HDMI cable for , etc. Nothing has worked. TV does
not have any network which means it can't have had any nefarious
updates.)
daoistmonk wrote 8 hours 58 min ago:
try rebooting the remote: [1] it always fixes problems with either
turning the tv on/off or volume issues for me
HTML [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102569
spacecrafter3d wrote 17 hours 56 min ago:
This has happened to me several times. I believe what fixes it is
power cycling my AV receiver, in case it helps you.
zimpenfish wrote 9 hours 12 min ago:
Might if I had an AV receiver. Apple TV is plugged directly into
the TV. But the TV does have a weird junction box (consolidates
all the connections into a single cable up to the TV, maybe it
counts as an AV receiver) and it might be worth unplugging
everything from that and that from the TV. Will give it a try.
jnaina wrote 17 hours 22 min ago:
this. power cycling my Marantz fixed it. Otherwise Apple TV is
rock solid.
Spoom wrote 18 hours 43 min ago:
I dread the day that Logitech kills the servers for Harmony. If they
don't release the IR code database, they're going to have a lot of
people (myself included) pretty annoyed.
(To be clear, they still work today if you can get a second hand
remote / hub.)
artificialLimbs wrote 2 hours 43 min ago:
Assuming ir means infrared, you could get one of these (or any ir
transceiver) and decode the signals and use it or whatever to send
them out if your $thing dies.
HTML [1]: https://www.athom.tech/blank-1/tasmota-ir-controller
ssl-3 wrote 12 hours 51 min ago:
I also love the Harmony remote in my living room. It's imperfect,
but it's plenty good enough. It flows well and works predictably.
It's easy to reconfigure.
And no matter what bizarro-world co-dependent cacophony of AV gear
I manage to pile up together, any person can pick up the remote and
watch TV or play a game or whatever.
I will be particularly unhappy when Logitech finally pulls the plug
on Harmony servers.
At that point, I'll definitely need something different.
But IR codes are only part of the puzzle. And that is perhaps the
easiest part to solve: We've already got lots of databases with
IR-stuff available. There's databases focused on RC5, and the
sleepy LIRC project, and some other things (all of which tend to be
very Old Web in appearance).
License-permitting, it's simple enough to use this work as a
foundation onto which newer codes can be placed.
That just leaves making the Harmony hardware interface work (hah,
hahah -- and it's a dead-end anyway), or developing a new
open-source remote to rule them all (which actually might not be
too terrible of a task).
That all covers the first 90% of the problem.
The remaining 90% of the problem is just creating software that has
a usable UI and actually works.
lsaferite wrote 16 hours 31 min ago:
Having just swapped to a new TV on my Harmony setup I was concerned
if it was still going to work. Lucky me, it did.
I really REALLY want someone to manufacture the thin harmony RF
remote with a simple receiver puck with an open firmware. That's
all we'd need because the HA crowd would be all over it and have it
doing anything you want.
tacoman wrote 16 hours 51 min ago:
As someone who works in this industry and has access to commercial
HDMI debugging equipment, I canât agree more.
I will use Harmony for my home setup until it no longer functions.
The horrors I have seen related to CEC and ARC are something else.
SchemaLoad wrote 19 hours 32 min ago:
I've had pretty good luck with the Steam Deck for CEC, at least with
the Apple USB-C hub.
baq wrote 19 hours 40 min ago:
Assuming youâre ok with connecting your receiver to the network, you
should be able to wake the receiver if you detect the tv is on without
any cables at all - if your tv is also on the network (Iâve got a
home assistant automation doing exactly that) or you can use a $10
smart plug with power metering.
That said props for actually using HDMI-CEC! And itâs cheaper than
most smart plugs (and probably safer, too)
paulbgd wrote 19 hours 40 min ago:
Super cool, I'm definitely going to have to grab a pi and set this up.
Now if we could also solve the ps5/switch/etc not turning off the TV,
my setup would be perfect!
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