ARC FIRMWARE TO UPGRADE TO EARC

[D-Law81]

I have got the 43xg8396 and looks and sounds great but say it does Atmos with Dolby Digital Plus but I have been reading and seeing that the ARC for HDMI can be upgraded via firmware to Earc. This firmware UPDATE  allows this to work. I have read that it is meant to be a simple thing to do. Anyone know if this is true. Because I have also bought the Sony HT-XF9000 Sound Bar which sounds Great. But needs the TV to allow eARC to run TrueHD audio. Ideas. 

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[LightFoot · Accepted solution]

Hi @D-Law81 

You keep asking the same question 😀  The article you are quoting is for Samsung and not Sony. As your TV doesn’t have the HDMI 2.1 chipset you are going to have to accept that your TV will never be upgraded to support eARC. You are going to have to treat yourself to a new Master Series TV starting from about £2000 if you want eARC.

Out of interest, what source are you using on your TV that has Dolby TrueHD coding? ARC is fine for DD+ which is probably the best you will get for Netflix etc. If you have a high end Blu-ray player outputting Dolby TrueHD then you should connect it direct to your Soundbar.

[ciciban072]

That is not entirely correct. eARC does not necessarily need HDMI 2.1 to work it is just that the feature was released together with the 2.1 version of the protocol. HDMI 2.0b can support eARC if the manufacturer of the equipment in question is willing to apply firmware update to their chipset. The thing is it is not always in their best interest though, they want to sell you their next product that has some "new" features instead of improving the current one.