We have four devices that each have crippling firmware issues, and our audio setup is missing crucial features

[makinbacon21]

Let's start with some background. My school's computer club was granted money to purchase a TV, current-gen consoles, and a new AV receiver. We went with a Samsung Q80 something--4K, 65", 120Hz, the whole package. Alongside that, we purchased an Xbox Series X and a PS5, and followed the purchases up with a new Yamaha RX-A4A receiver. All incredibly expensive equipment by reputable manufacturers, so we assumed the setup would "just work." It did not. Let's dive in.

 

RX-A4A

The A4A is a 7.1-channel audio receiver marketed as being able to do full 4K120 HDR passthrough with ALLM, Dolby Vision, and other protocols being preserved via its many HDMI inputs and 2+1 (zone 2) outputs. Unfortunately, it does not properly broadcast this fact to the devices hooked up to it. This is likely due, as far as I can tell, to the functionality being added in a firmware update--it would appear that either whatever EDID database each connected device is looking at shows the A4A as not supporting higher bitrate content, or that the device itself broadcasts the wrong capabilities. It also completely disables video out whenever the screen blanks from a client device--i.e. when you load into a game on either console. God of War Ragnarok blanks till the end of the Santa Monica Studios logo segment, for example. This is similar to an older bug on 2020-era Samsung TVs where Game Mode would spam-toggle on and off during the early loading/splash screen segments of games. The A4A has less issues with EDID recognition on its second HDMI output, where it seems to pass through the host's information--the TV recognizes the input as the host device (i.e. the Xbox Series X tile shows up on the awful Samung game menu), and the device recognizes the display out as the TV. The HDMI out 1 is still needed, as it supports eARC and the second does not. These points likely related. However, the audio input gets automagically mapped back to the TV via CEC or some other detection protocol. Output over HDMI out 2 --> turn on console --> tv makes the game mode enabled high pitched awful noise --> audio input goes to TV and console cannot output audio. Trying to change the input blanks the screen, and then the TV gets some CEC input to switch back to HDMI out 1 carrying the eARC signal. This remains true even if you disable HDMI video output over the first port.

 

Samsung Q80

I will not count the absolutely terrible interface (2021+) as a bug, but it should be noted that this is the single worst interface I have ever used on a TV, including the Panasonic Viera Link interface from 2010. I am talking ultra-bad. Anyway, the first issue I'll talk about is the broken audio passthrough interface. While the TV is perfectly capable of doing eARC audio, it will flat-out REFUSE to broadcast the ability to play anything above stereo, including on passthrough mode. Dolby is of course the exception here, but I would like 5.1/7.1 uncompressed to be available, and for some reason it is not. Using the PS5 or a PC, it is possible and easy to override the advertised capability. In Windows, you can just hit Configure in sound settings to select the configuration, and the PS5 has a nice, easy to interact with menu that lets you select the type of output device manually. With passthrough, it works flawlessly. However, the Xbox lack this capability, and will only give options for what the TV explicitly identifies as being capable of. The next issue is also with this so-called "passthrough." If the signal were being "passed through," there wouldn't be a second-long delay when using Atmos. Hooking the Xbox directly up to the A4A with HDMI output 1 (despite the incapability to do anything above 4K60/1080p120) yields perfect audio, with all options being enabled, and essentially zero audio latency. The TV should not add that much time and clearly, since it monkeys with the broadcasted capability, it is not actually passing through. This prevents me from using passthrough on the TV to circumvent the other issues. The TV has one last crippling issue that breaks key functionality: it reports different capabilities based on a predefined input list. Companies other than Sony have special tile icons for their devices on the TV menu, and each one goes along with a specific profile. This results in interesting behavior, where devices capable of more are restricted to what Samsung's profile thinks they can do. A great example comes from Switchroot Android. The latest update for the Android 10 version uses a device tree that identifies the Switch to other devices as in a Nintendo Switch (the previous versions showed as NVIDIA Shields). The Switch's stock firmware locks it to 1080p60, but the v1 is actually capable of outputting up to 4K30, and this capability is unlocked in Android and Linux. However, the TV sees a "Nintendo Switch" and assigns it the Switch profile. The Switch is then informed that the TV only supports up to 1080p60.  Absolutely hilarious, and this bug has existed since at least the 2018ish models when Game Mode was new (haven't tested before that). That seems to be part of the issue with the first HDMI output on the A4A-that output is the only one that registers as the A4A and not the original host, and it likely is assuming the A4A is incapable of outputting anything better than 4K60/1080p120. It's also possible that the aforementioned A4A self-reporting issue is causing this behavior, but given I've seen this before I figured I'd mention it.

 

Xbox Series X

The big issue on this device is just that it takes whatever the output device says as law. On Windows, you can force your way over HDMI, be this by virtue of the GPU driver or some capability Windows has that Xbox doesn't expose. The audio passthrough issue seems to be worse on Xbox than other devices, but it's possible that it's just because my other devices don't support Dolby.

 

PS5

The PS5 is able to override most of the bugs of the other devices, but has one weird quirk-when put through the A4A, while it seemingly can do proper video passthrough, We are prompted to redo HDR calibration every single time the device turns back on/is reconnected, even though the display information should be exactly the same. Additionally, though this isn't much of a bug and more of a missing feature, you can't properly control color space etc. for HDMI outputs on the PS5.

 

Anyway, not sure if there's much I can do about this, but I highly doubt any of these companies care enough to help, so at least I get to rant. If anyone has found a solution, I'd love to hear it.

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by makinbacon21
bad title

[makinbacon21]

OK so for anyone with this issue, we found a solution: use the 2nd (non-ARC) HDMI output only, disable ARC for kicks, hook up to TV via optical, and let the consoles run right through the receiver. Works like a charm.

[MartyS]

So it was an ARC issue?  Not surprising, I've done multiple upgrades to my components since ARC came out and have never had it work, always having to resort to optical cable to get sound from the TV back to the receiver.  Luckily I have a drawer full of those fiber optics from the days before HDMI.

[makinbacon21]

It is entirely samsung TV fw bugs. I have to basically disable CEC to get it to cooperate. So annoying. They seem to *generate fake EDIDs* per device based on its guess of what the device is capable of.