My bad. I guess you can adjust volume to a soundbar via HDMI-ARC. I thought ARC just stripped off the audio data and sent to another component.
According to a user review on Amazon...
By m.pi on July 9, 2021 "I was hoping to get me Cable Box remote to program for the sound-bar, but could not find a code. Ended up using the ARC HDMI port on my TV to connect to the sound-bar and set my TV to control receiver volume, now I am back to using just 1 remote."
Also, according to an article on Reliance Digital...
"Using HDMI-ARC, you can also control the volume of HDMI-ARC connected devices using your TV remote. You not only cut down on the number of wires but also on remotes which de-clutters a lot of things."
My bad. I guess you can adjust volume to a soundbar via HDMI-ARC. I thought ARC just stripped off the audio data and sent to another component.
Yes, that is what I'm counting on. Let the HDTV (that supports HDMI-ARC) just use the SB as an extension of itself. So when I use the XR-11 to adjust the volume or press the mute feature, the TV will know to relay that info to the SB. And when I power off the TV, it should also turn off the SB.
The only downside of using HDMI-ARC is that most new TVs only offer that to a single HDMI jack. Unlike CEC, its available to all the HDMI jacks -- as long as the device knows that lingo. ;-) -- So it would only be used for the SB and nothing else -- from what it seems.
A TV only needs 1 HDMI-ARC port.
If all your AV components...cable-box, Blu-ray player, game console, streamer, media server, VCR...are connected to the TV, the TV controls all AV signals. If the TV controls all AV signals, the TV only needs 1 port to send audio to 1 higher-end audio component, such as an AVR or SB. Most AV setups only have 1 higher-end audio component. I don't know why a TV would need another ARC.
HDMI-CEC is another animal. If a CEC component detects an input...such as inserting a disc into a DVD player...CEC would automatically power the TV. If you change HDMI Input on the TV, the TV would power the selected component. It's just HDMI ports communicating with each other.
CEC is okay and it's supposed to be a standardized protocol, but sometimes all this cross-talking between different brands creates more problems than it's worth. Most cable-boxes...if any...don't support it.
There is a newer, better version of HDMI-ARC: HDMI-eARC. Instead of the TV processing the audio signal, eARC keeps the signal raw to allow the higher-end audio component to decode the audio, such as TrueHD, Atmos, DTS-HD, etc.
