Adding eARC
If your TV or projector is quite new, you might immediately benefit from the eARC setup.
You can use your AppleTV (4K gen2) that behaves like a soundbar (read more about the theater mode).
If your TV or projector does not have eARC HDMI port but you really would like to use it to pass sound into a soundbar or a smart-speaker based “theater-mode”, this section is for you.
Requirements
You need to have:
- TV or projector
- an external media source
- sound system (eARC capable AVR, soundbar or smart-speaker setup)
- and a special “man-in-the-middle” HDMI eARC device
Man-in-the-middle HDMI
Feintech produces these two devices:
- VAX04101 HDMI eARC Switch (single HDMI output)
- VAX04201 HDMI eARC Matrix (two HDMI outputs)
OREI also offers a device
- OREI eARC Audio Extractor that reportedly works and might be a good alternative for customers in US
Any of these devices should be connected between your sources and receivers (this scenario is also described on the Feintech’s Blog)
This special HDMI device performs two operations on the HDMI signal:
- passes it to TV as a video source directly
- additionally creates and passes the eARC signal as if it came out from TV
I will focus on the switch with a single HDMI output to simplify my diagrams.
It will obviously work with your projector too because it is the same case.
Limitations
It is not a perfect solution:
- You will still not be able to extract audio from your TV as a source of audio (because your TV/projector is not capable of doing so)
- There are still some compatibility issues (Fire TV 4K Max does NOT pass audio from external sources when used with Feintech’s switch/matrix).