ARC got me confused! I need help understanding.

[Rawrstler]

Hello.

 

Ok so I just ordered the new TCL r625 as a bedroom tv for my wife and I, seeing how tv speakers are pretty horrible. I figured I would use an older Samsung sound bar I have laying around. The sound bar allows me to plug an HDMI in and out. I don't want to plug anything in because it's older and I'm pretty sure it's going to degrade video quality. So do tvs that support arc allow you to use the HDMI only for audio out to a sound system and still use your other HDMI ports as normal?

[TensorVortex]

Donno if tv can do that.

u should try use the hdmi pass through sound bar, it’s just a passthrough shouldn’t degrade video especially it is digital.

[Dujith]

ARC should always be active. So if ARC HDMI is 4 and you use HDMI 1 for your 4K bluray it should output the sound on HDMI 4 (where your soundbar is connected)

 

[Rawrstler]

It definitely down grades my video. My xbox 1 x won't run on the same settings when it's passed though. I'm thinking the sound bar being older is just HDMI 1.4 or 2.0a. Plus then I only can use the bar with that one device that is plugged into it. I watched a tv review and I might have misunderstood stood but I thought in the video he was only using the arc HDMI port for his audio and still using the other ports.

[TensorVortex]

Ah i c

[Rawrstler]

Ahh thank you @Dujith that's what I needed to know!