Xbox Series X connecting to surround sound. • Gaming • General Gaming • Eurogamer.net

Akumamon 9 Nov 2020 22:12:20 96 posts
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Was hoping someone could clear this up for me. I've got a Sony XH92 4K TV and an old Pioneer VSX 321 home theatre receiver. Currently have my Xbox One and PS4 connected to it no problems with surround sound 5.1 working fine on it. When I get the Series X, will surround sound work fine by just connecting it to it or will I have to connect the Series X to the TV, then the TV via optical out to the surround sound? Or would I have to get a fancy pantsy new hdmi 2.1 enabled receiver for everything to work... that route just seems a bit annoying... and expensive. Any advice/insight would be appreciated.

BigOrkWaaagh 9 Nov 2020 22:18:04 10,554 posts
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@phAge

dai_bonehead 9 Nov 2020 22:20:11 555 posts
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I have an old spherex 5.1, optical only. I guess I'll have Xbox to TV over HDMI, and then optical out from the TV to the Spherex. Same for you, I'd imagine.

Malek86 9 Nov 2020 22:29:41 12,331 posts
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I have the same problem as you, and yeah, the only solution is going optical out from the TV. Not expensive at all (you just need an optical cable and you're set), but in my case the audio output from the TV has some slight lag.

The lag is reduced when I select PCM Stereo rather than Dolby or DTS, but that means giving up on surround sound.

DIfferent TVs might not have the same problem, so I hope you are luckier than me.

Edited by Malek86 at 22:30:48 09-11-2020

Akumamon 9 Nov 2020 22:43:50 96 posts
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@Malek86 Yeah in my research there really wasn't much info for how it would all work out seeing the Series X has no optical out. I mean if I didn't want to take advantage of 4K on my TV, I guess I could just connect it how I have the Xbox One but then what a waste of the TV. Hopefully optical via the TV will somehow work out fine or there may be a way to change some setting to fix the audio lag.

Armoured_Bear 9 Nov 2020 23:09:46 31,233 posts
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We used to have an expert around here, called PhAge, sadly he no longer posts, he'd have sorted you right out.

Psiloc 9 Nov 2020 23:24:32 6,366 posts
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BigOrkWaaagh wrote:
@phAge

And this made me laugh out loud

Edited by Psiloc at 23:24:56 09-11-2020

PatrickEwing 9 Nov 2020 23:34:53 2,553 posts
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Having read the title I fully expected first reply to be a reference to component cables, thread delivers.

Akumamon 10 Nov 2020 04:51:02 96 posts
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Thanks for the insights and advice. I was expecting flippant replies but was pleasantly surprised with actual help. Shame about PhAge but I guess I'll see how it goes later today when the Series X gets delivered.

Dougs 10 Nov 2020 06:08:49 100,414 posts
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Why wouldn't it work,out of interest? What am I missing?

Fake_Blood 10 Nov 2020 06:50:50 11,093 posts
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@Dougs most receivers can�t pass through hdmi 2.1.

Dougs 10 Nov 2020 07:08:26 100,414 posts
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Post deleted

Dougs 10 Nov 2020 07:10:37 100,414 posts
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Ah,I just assumed there would be workarounds for that.

Hiphopopotamus 10 Nov 2020 08:27:49 274 posts
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Most TVs don't pass 5.1 just stereo

dai_bonehead 17 Nov 2020 17:05:02 555 posts
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Hiphopopotamus wrote:
Most TVs don't pass 5.1 just stereo

Not in this decade, surely?

rock27gr 17 Nov 2020 18:45:44 6,439 posts
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In all decades unfortunately

rock27gr 17 Nov 2020 18:45:45 6,439 posts
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Post deleted

TheyreAllDeadDave 17 Nov 2020 18:51:25 97 posts
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No ARC on the receiver?

mikew1985 17 Nov 2020 19:25:38 15,598 posts
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Unless it's relatively recent I'd imagine no ARC. Still a fair amount of lag with arc unfortunately as I've discovered since last week.

Hdmi 2.1 receiver next year me thinks.

Also don't buy any of the current hdmi 2.1 receiver's, the hdmi 2.1 chipset doesn't actually work and isn't fixable by firmware update.

Edited by mikew1985 at 19:30:31 17-11-2020

Deleted user 17 November 2020 19:35:27

@mikew1985 have they actually confirmed it isn't fixable with firmware? I know it was rumoured to be the case, and the fact that they haven't already announced it will be, suggests it's probably not, but there's been pretty much no communication for 4 weeks now. I'm currently in the process of trying to return mine under warranty.

mikew1985 18 Nov 2020 00:12:12 15,598 posts
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Well I believe those in the know have confirmed it but the companies are yet to do so.

HDTV test was taking about it as fact a week or so back.

TheyreAllDeadDave 18 Nov 2020 07:26:44 97 posts
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mikew1985 wrote:
Unless it's relatively recent I'd imagine no ARC. Still a fair amount of lag with arc unfortunately as I've discovered since last week.

Hdmi 2.1 receiver next year me thinks.

Also don't buy any of the current hdmi 2.1 receiver's, the hdmi 2.1 chipset doesn't actually work and isn't fixable by firmware update.

I've got a Freesat box and a PS4 using arc through an Onkyo amp and there's no lag whatsoever. No lag when viewing from Nas drive either. Can you not sort the delay in the settings?

mikew1985 18 Nov 2020 07:53:11 15,598 posts
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TheyreAllDeadDave wrote:

mikew1985 wrote:
Unless it's relatively recent I'd imagine no ARC. Still a fair amount of lag with arc unfortunately as I've discovered since last week.

Hdmi 2.1 receiver next year me thinks.

Also don't buy any of the current hdmi 2.1 receiver's, the hdmi 2.1 chipset doesn't actually work and isn't fixable by firmware update.
I've got a Freesat box and a PS4 using arc through an Onkyo amp and there's no lag whatsoever. No lag when viewing from Nas drive either. Can you not sort the delay in the settings?

For a game? No.

It's OK, I figured out the settings to minimise the lag but there's certainly some there. My TV is an LG oled so whatever tech can do to reduce lag is likely to be in this. The audio is making two hops rather than 1 so there's likely to be delay. If you set the TV to do PCM it reduces the lag further however ARC cannot carry uncompressed 5.1, only stereo so I'm not prepared to forgo surround.

Malek86 18 Nov 2020 08:16:27 12,331 posts
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The problem is likely in the receiver doing the audio decoding only when it receives the audio signal from the TV, compared to doing it immediately when you connect the console directly to it.

See if you can find some kind of audio processing feature on HDMI ARC and disable it. That might speed up the decoding. Otherwise, you are stuck on PCM.

Edited by Malek86 at 08:19:48 18-11-2020

HairyArse 18 Nov 2020 08:20:57 1,476 posts
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I believe this issue can be fixed with something like this. I�ve got the same issue with my Sonos Playbar

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Audio-Stereo-Extractor-Converter/dp/B07KRWYN4R

Malek86 18 Nov 2020 08:35:31 12,331 posts
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I'm not convinced there would be no lag with one of those things. It's still processing the signal. It's even possible that you'd get no lag to the audio because it's creating lag on the picture instead. So much for game mode then.

I've never tried though, so it might be worth a shot. Better make sure you are picking one that supports at least HDMI 2.0 however.

mikew1985 18 Nov 2020 08:52:49 15,598 posts
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Also it mentions only doing stereo which you can get lag free over ARC using PCM.

Edited by mikew1985 at 08:53:04 18-11-2020

You-can-call-me-kal 18 Nov 2020 09:01:46 23,013 posts
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HairyArse wrote:
I believe this issue can be fixed with something like this. I�ve got the same issue with my Sonos Playbar

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-Audio-Stereo-Extractor-Converter/dp/B07KRWYN4R

There�s a setting in the Sonos app to sort sound lag. You don�t need a separate device.

Fake_Blood 18 Nov 2020 09:16:39 11,093 posts
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They just have to enable negative delay.

HairyArse 18 Nov 2020 09:17:12 1,476 posts
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Yeah I remember trying to use this previously but it seemed to only let me delay in one direction and for some reason I needed to delay the other way. I ended up having to get an optical switch and connecting all my surround devices through that instead.