Remote with a sound bar

[Boxproquo]

Can anyone help, please? We have a new setup (moved from BT) . The remote does everything fine on the box APART from volume which turns up the TV. We need the TV to stay mute as we use a sound bar. Currently using 3 remotes! Any pointers welcome…

[Midnight_Voice]

@Davipon 

My bad, I should have asked how they are wired together 😢

And Samsung and JVC have made an awful lot of different models of TVs and soundbars respectively. Knowing the models affects whether we are talking about ARC, eARC, or Optical, all of which makes a difference.

And whether I should ask where ‘Audio Out’ is appearing, which is a silly question if the soundbar hasn’t got a display, but a sensible one if it does, which just knowing it is made by JVC doesn’t tell me 😢

New EE box - the Apple TV one then, I take it?

[Davipon]

The message comes up on the tv screen only when trying to adjust the volume.

My point is that the set up worked before with the BT box. BT box remote controlled he volume of the sound bar.

The EE tv pro box has the same cable config and is as per instructions.

Sound from sound bar is direct to tv via new optical cable.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Davipon 

Optical is pants. Try ARC.

[Davipon]

The sound works fine, it's just not controllable from the new remote.

I gave up trying to talk to EE technical help as the wait was at least 45 minutes. Hence coming here to get some info.

My tv settings menu doesn't have the options in the previous solution.

That the set up is exactly the same as before leads me to suspect a box setting.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Davipon 

You said:

“The sound works fine, it's just not controllable from the new remote.”

and this is exactly why Optical is pants; very few TVs allow you to control the volume of a soundbar connected by optical, you have to use the soundbar remote.

And it will likely be impossible to persuade the Box Pro remote to pair with the soundbar; that would first need the soundbar to have an HDMI input, and secondly for the remote to recognise the soundbar as something it could control.

Obviously the model number of the Samsung TV and of the JVC soundbar are State secrets, or you would tell me them, and then I would be able to look up the manuals for these devices online, and tell you precisely what they can and can’t do.

You have a couple of ‘New’s there now, though. A new box; what’s the new one, and what’s the old one? And a new optical cable. How were you connected before?

Either, and for all I know, both, of these things could be at the root of your problem 😢

[Davipon]

The new EE TV pro box has the hdmi connected to the tv exactly as the previous BT box was, the optic cable is from the sound bar to the tv too.

No state secret on ID of other components, just no manuals handy to check models, all built in so a little awkward to check.

The message showing on the screen says "Audio out" and has a crossed out speaker symbol so I'm fairly sure it's not the sound bar or tv but when I get a chance I'll find out the model numbers.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Davipon 

You shouldn’t have to scrabble for manuals, or the back of the equipment.

My Samsung TV tells me, on Menu/Network/Device Name, that it’s a UE55JS9000. It’s there, or thereabouts, in the Samsung Menu system, though not necessarily under Network on yours. But a poke about under Menu with the Samsung remote should find it in there. The soundbar might be trickier, though, depending if it has a display or not.

I see that various replies about optical on Samsung Communities don’t hold out much hope for you; somebody saying you can’t control the optical volume on any devices at all (which is wrong, because Sony Android TVs can do it, on any make of soundbar) but may well be true of all Samsung TVs..

Though even (some?) Samsung TVs connected by optical to Samsung soundbars can do it; though they ‘cheat’ by using Samsung-proprietary control codes over the optical, which mean nothing to third-party soundbars.

Other Samsung owners are reporting similar messages to your ‘Audio Out’ - this is apparently the Samsung TV responding to the volume change request by saying it can’t do it over optical.

Are you absolutely sure you were using optical previously? As I can’t see how, if it worked then, it would have stopped now. And more fundamentally, I can’t see how it could ever have worked before 😢

But I do have a test for you. Set it all up, Box Pro playing on TV, optical going to soundbar. Now, instead of trying to control the TV volume with the Box Pro remote, try controlling it with the Samsung TV remote. What happens?

[Davipon]

No, same message with tv remote. Sorry, the symbol is a speaker and 3 horizontal bars.

Samsung tv  model is T32E390SX.

JVC soundbar TH-WL315B.

The soundbar doesn't have an HDMI socket. 

The BT box set up didn't need any adjustments to settings and work ax described. I expected the new EE one to do the same.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Davipon 

Now we are cooking with gas…

Disconnect the Box Pro completely from the TV, and play something else on the TV; a broadcast programme perhaps, or an app, anything that produces audio. Now try to control the volume with the Samsung TV remote.

My guess is that it won’t. But here we have a setup that isn’t working, but there is no EETV box or remote involved!
So clearly, nothing from EETV is the culprit here.

But having read the manuals, here’s the fix. The TV has a headphone output, and there’s a suitable double-ended 3.5mm jack cable included with the soundbar to make a connection between that headphone output and the Aux input on the soundbar. (If you can’t find that cable in your house any more, it’s bog standard, so you can buy one from any decent electrical store. Or even Curry’s).

So set this up, pick a suitable volume level for the soundbar such that you get the range of volume that you are comfortable with when adjusting the TV volume on the Samsung TV remote. And then leave the soundbar at that volume setting, and only ever adjust the TV volume.

Which, if this is all set up correctly, will also now be controllable from the Box Pro remote.

Of course, this setup will be purely stereo, but that’s all the soundbar does anyway; no surround from your soundbar, however you use it.

Try this out, and do please come back with any queries.

[Davipon]

Thanks for this. Will try tonight when back from work.