HDfury starts production of "world’s first eARC adapter"

[breiti]

Summary

HDfury releases a device, that seperates the (e)ARC stream in HDMI and forwards this directly to the audio source. This eliminates the lip-sync issues a lot TV manufatures have and also enables users to get the latest sound standards on older TVs that don't support the new eARC standard, only offer very limited audio transcoding possiblities or no ARC feature at all.

 

Quotes

Quote

 World First eARC HDMI2.1 adapter!
Arcana allows ANY HDMI source audio to ANY ARC sound system and ANY HDMI source FULL AUDIO to ANY eARC sound system for up to Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby MAT Atmos, DTS-X, DTS-HD Master Audio and older formats.
Production of the smartest converter solution for interoperability between any HDMI sources and eARC or ARC sound systems has now started.

 

My thoughts

This will reduce e-waste from people upgrading their fine TVs just because they want to get the latest sound standards and it also promises to get rid of many other issues for example the lip-sync problem many TVs have that are basically unsolveable (the adjustment in the TV usually only let you more delay, which only exaggerates the problem).

It also gets rid of issues from TVs that don't send correct EDID information (for example no lip-sync delay adjustments, wrong audio format support, etc.) and also lets the last device in the chain do the sound decoding, which is the best practice.

 

All in all, this device ensures that TVs can be future-proofed sound wise.

This is especially relevant for users of the Sonos Arc, as the Arc only has one HDMI port, which means you currently can't route audio+video through the soundbar to circument the issues like you can do with older/other soundbars).

 

I really like this, it's a must-have in my opinion for people that want to use the latest standards (in audio).

 

Also, this is a one-of a kind product. Currently, no product like this exists, even though other companies like Feintech promised to work on a simliar product (source: https://feintech.eu/homecinema-hdmi-matrix-switch-vsw04202#comment-4889)

 

Sources

• https://www.hdfury.com/product/4k-arcana-18gbps/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/hisg4n/hdfury_arcana_preorder_open_outputs_earc_to_sonos/

[SansVarnic]

If I remember correctly something like this came out for DVI a long while ago and it never caught on since the ability to combine/carry sound with the cable was more or less unstable. This was corrected with HDMI and DP. I doubt it will "revolutionize" or "Future-proof" (there is that ridiculous term again) much. This is going to be another product that will hit a certain small-medium demographic and eventually fall to the wayside in a few years or be used 3 times and tossed in the electronics bin. Increasing not decreasing electronic waste.

 

Not being a party pooper here just being realistic and going with how things play out normally.

[Cronbo]

9 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

If I remember correctly something like this came out for DVI a long while ago and it never caught on since the ability to combine/carry sound with the cable was more or less unstable. This was corrected with HDMI and DP. I doubt it will "revolutionize" or "Future-proof" (there is that ridiculous term again) much. This is going to be another product that will hit a certain small-medium demographic and eventually fall to the wayside in a few years or be used 3 times and tossed in the electronics bin. Increasing not decreasing electronic waste.

 

Not being a party pooper here just being realistic and going with how things play out normally.

I don’t know what that guy is trying to say. Arcana isn’t a product that HDfury dreamed up but one our community came begging to be invented. I’m not exactly sure all of the features but I do know it’s exactly what I need or my setup doesn’t work correctly.  It’s going to be around until eARC is obsolete and then can be used to pass on audio to older eARC devices. I guess I could put my tv in the landfill and buy a new one but chances are I’d have lip sync issues and I’d still need it.  Revolutionary? It’s a game changer for me!

[Kisai]

7 hours ago, Cronbo said:

I don’t know what that guy is trying to say. Arcana isn’t a product that HDfury dreamed up but one our community came begging to be invented. I’m not exactly sure all of the features but I do know it’s exactly what I need or my setup doesn’t work correctly.  It’s going to be around until eARC is obsolete and then can be used to pass on audio to older eARC devices. I guess I could put my tv in the landfill and buy a new one but chances are I’d have lip sync issues and I’d still need it.  Revolutionary? It’s a game changer for me!

The problem is that eARC (ARC = Audio Return Channel) is typically only setup to go to one device. So when you use your TV as the input switcher and not the Digital Theater (eg a surround receiver) you lose the surround audio when it filters through the TV unless you have the TV set to dump it to another audio source back to the reciever.

 

So you end up with convoluted setups (like my mom's) which are like this:

Wii (Analog) ANALOG1

IPTV (no ARC, CEC) HDMI 1

BD player (no ARC, CEC) HDMI 2

Surround box (ARC, CEC) HDMI 3

 

She can watch Netflix on the IPTV box, the BD player or the TV, but generally uses the TV, the BD player has no WiFi, and the IPTV is WiFi only.

 

Since the surround box does not actually output a picture unless something else is plugged into it, and you need the audio to come FROM the HDMI port to the surround box on an input, it makes it absolutely convoluted (and yet somehow I managed to make this work.) So in order to get both 4K HDR and surround sound, the TV itself must be used to play the content, and the ARC must be used to send the Surround signal to the box, again the catch being the TV doesn't always send the signal to the box. It took a while to adjust the lip sync delay, and eventually it got there.

 

What does this device do? Presumably? Presumably you plug this into the HDMI port designated eARC on the TV and plug the HDMI output or optical output to the input on the surround box. Thus skipping the step where the TV transcodes the audio to another format, and just letting it output it pass-through mode.

 

As far as practical use goes, I don't know, if I were to buy a new , let's say 8K TV I probably would buy a new surround system to go with whatever audio system goes with that upgrade. But let's be honest, setting up a home theater's audio is a pain in the ass and unless you have a large living room, chances are you already made a compromise to the speaker positions (eg my mom's setup there has most of the speakers right beside each other) and can't really justify upgrading the surround system unless it completely dies.

 

[Samsonite71]

Considering that HDFury has some of the best quality switches out there and understand the HDMI implementations better than most I honestly don’t worry at all that they will not be successful. HDMI is a mess and there are a lot of tv’s that are buggy as hell in their implementation of eARC. You should probably test these type of issues when testing new TV sets.

[Ronald1]

Hdfury products are Amazing also amazing support.  I just buy my Hdfury Arcana on Www.Hdfury.eu They deliver fast in Europe The delivery time of the second batch is in November.  I can not wait to get this amazing device.