EE Tv box and AV receiver

[Mike_9T]

I currently have my EE tv box connected to my Denon av receiver using the hdmi in port with the receiver output connected to my Samsung tv using an hdmi cable. I also have a fire cube connected to the receiver. I can control the tv and receiver using Alexa on the fire cube but because the EE box goes through the receiver, the fire cube can’t see it.

I’m wondering whether I should connect the hdmi port on the EE box straight into an hdmi port on the tv for the video output and using the spdif port on the EE box to connect the audio output to the receiver which will allow it to upscale the audio to the speakers and subwoofer. I’ll have to buy a suitable cable to do this but if it works ok ,the EE box should be seen by the fire cube. What do you think?

[Minkey1]

@Mike_9T 

Hi Mike, can’t speak to your Fire thingy, but your set up is exactly what I have, and is standard practice in the home cinema world. My sources in sig all go to my AVR, with 1 HDMI cable up to the telly’s eARC input socket. 

With previous kit I did more or less what you’re proposing - inputs direct to the TV, then TV out to the amp over optical. The drawback is, optical can’t handle the higher quality audio in today’s content. Whether that’s a worthwhile trade off for you to get the control back, only you can decide.

With my set up I can get up to Atmos and the various flavours of HDR, but the telly control centre labelling suffers where it only sees 1 HDMI input. It thinks my Panasonic 820 UHD box is a DVD player. Oh, the horror, the shame of it 😱

I’m prepared to put up with it 😉

Let us know what you decide. I’d be interested.

[Richardr66]

If your TV and your Denon are fairly recent, the amp will get the sound from any box connected to the TV via e-arc, you won't need a lower quality connexion.

It depends what you want to achieve. I have a mixture of boxes attached to my TV and my Denon AV amp, in part down to which way the TV remote will control them, so my EE TV box goes into the TV and the LG remote can control it, but the sound to the amp is the same, it just goes via the TV first.

[Minkey1]

@Richardr66 

I’ve no problem - aside from the telly’s Home Hub labelling.

The OP can maintain the quality side if his TV & amp support eARC and that’s what he’s using, but seems whatever flavour he’s got now, he can’t get the control he wants 🤷🏼

Any “TV” output I want to amp up does go down to my Denon over eARC as you say. But there’s no HQ surround audio anyway over terrestrial. Even the Beeb’s iPlayer UHD stuff only supplies 2.0.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Mike_9T 

Just unplug the EETV box from the AV Receiver, and plug it into an HDMI port on the TV.

Then play about, possibly still using the standard remote(s), until you get the results you want.

Then see what the Firecube thinks.

[CaptT]

I have had an EE TV box for a couple of years since it replaced the BT one. It has never worked correctly despite being replaced a couple of times and two visits by an engineer. The box is connected to a Toshiba AVR along with a DVD player and an Apple mini. After the second engineers visit and quite a bit of unplugging of cables and re-plugging of cables it worked in that pressing the EE button ion the remote turned on the TV (a 65" Samsung) and the AVR. Brilliant - for two days. The engineer and I had no idea why the thing would not work nor why it eventually did and his parting words were, "See you in two weeks!"

Every evening the wife wants this TV on so I am called to do the good deed. I unplug the TV box from the mains , plug it back in  and power up. First the EE logo appears followed by the "Loading" logo. After that all is fine depending on what was on before the restart as I sometimes have to switch the AVR on and select the correct option for "Set Top Box" to control the audio by the AVR.

I did at one time try connecting the box directly to the TV instead of the AVR but that appeared to make no difference except there was no connection at all as I recall.

I do not want to call EE again if I can help it as all they can do is a reset or send me another box - and it takes most of the day.

Any ideas much appreciated!

[Richardr66]

What happened when you connect directly to the TV?  When you say "no connection", what do you mean?

It is usually worth trying the simplest method first and then expanding to the method that works best for you.

In theory the EE TV box should work fine connected to a spare HDMI socket on the TV, and if the amp is connected to the HDMI socket with ARC, the Amp will receive the sound, but worth trying direct connexion as a first step and seeing if you get picture and sound via the TV.

[Minkey1]

@CaptT 

I’ve more or less given up, and do everything manually- old school.

HDMI is brilliant at handling high quality A & V, but in my experience can be very iffy at auto switching between brands. They don’t even use the same descriptions.

It worked OK with previous kit I had - 1 external source, a Sony BD player with 2 HDMI outs, 1 to the then Yamaha AVR, 1 to the then Samsung TV. Put a disc in, the amp turned on at that source, as did the telly at that input. Brilliant.

But the amp wasn’t 4k ready, so I started an upgrade cycle. And ended up with 3 separate sources, plus TV output. Now auto switching is like the Curate’s Egg - good in parts.

So I’m back to the 80’s and my then Kenwood Pro Logic amp. Start the source; choose the input. Away yer go. Keeps my brain active 🤷🏼

Good luck.

[CaptT]

Hi Richardr66

Thanks for your reply. As far as I can remember that was it - nothing came up either video or sound. Anyway I tried it again. Same result. This time I had a think about it and switched everything off. Switched it all on and bingo! Yes, all working - sort of. I realised that what I had been doing in unplugging the EE box to get it working was re-booting it so in effect that is what I did in switching everything off. Well you might know that something would go wrong.

My wife had been watching a film on Netflix. So the one thing that is playing up is Netflix. I got it connected by using Chrome Cast. My daughter informed me there is some connection problem with Netflix (obviously) so I'll have a look at that when I get the chance.

So thanks very much for your advice which at the end of the day solved the problem although why the EE box cannot connect via the AVR is probably an EE Box problem and not an AVR one.

T.