Will SONY provide firmware update to support eARC?

[nucleoXXI]

Hello,

I've been trying to find further information, but so far no luck. Perhaps someone here knows?

Do you know or is it feasible to think that SONY will provide a firmware update to i.e. A1 OLED sets to support eARC?

What I've been told is that the competition, SAMSUNG will support it later for  i.e. KS8000.

Reason why I would like to know is that I would like to update my home theather setup with a new A/V receiver. The model that I'm interested in (2016 line-up) will not support eARC and will not be updated via firmware (but better news is that the price will drop). The new model (2017) which is set to be released any week now will however support eARC onboard, but for much higher cost.

[Jecht_Sin]

I doubt either the A1 Oled and KS8000 can support eARC via an OS update. For it to work they need an HDMI 2.1 port. Both have only up to HDMI 2.0, or so I read in rtings.com.

[nucleoXXI]

Marantz SR7012 and Denon X4400H are two A/V receivers which won't have HDMI 2.1 and will support eARC. I guess that feature does not need the super bandwith which will be available via HDMI 2.1.

Scroll down to specifications >> HDMI and you can see it foryourself.

https://usa.denon.com/us/product/hometheater/receivers/avrx4400h

[Kuschelmonschter]

HDMI consortium indeed states that some new stuff like dynamic HDR and eARC might be possible with just a firmware update, see here. You might not be able to do it with any hardware though.

[nucleoXXI]

Exactly!

So the question is if any of Sony's 2016 and 2017 will have the necessary h/w and if a f/w update will be presentet? I asked Sony Nordic (Sweden) branch of Sony Europe Limited (UK) and did not get more than the answer that they don't know anything about future updates.

Hope some news will come up sooner or later.

[Jecht_Sin]

Oh, all right then. My bad. A couple of days ago I was investigating exactly about that (actually more about the HDMI/ARC bandwidth because it makes little sense to me indeed that 2.0 doesn't have enough bandwidth for ARC to have at least DTS-HD/Dolby Trued HD 7.1. What is it? Few Mbps top?) but all I could find was that HDMI 2.1 is needed. It is a nightmare to find any throughput number.

So, should it be impemented first by Google in Android? Still it doesn't matter, because even if Mediatek will implement it, it will sure be broken... I would be happy  if I could get just the DTS passthrough. 

[Kuschelmonschter]

I think that it is limited to PCM 2.0 24-Bit 192kHz, which translates to 9.2mbps. That's probably why it is good enough for DD+ (and DD+ Dolby Atmos), but not for True HD which specifies up to 18mbps.

Google and Android support any audio format already. You can use it with SHIELD for example. It does not need any changes for eARC. That's a driver and hardware only thing.

[nucleoXXI]

Have I understood you correct by giving the following example:

Netflix starts presenting DTS HD-MA or Dolby Atmos (lets say 5.1). Then a Sony Android TV connected to a AV Receiver which has support for the mentioned audio formats can get the signal through regular HDMI ARC port, thus not needing eARC?  

[Kuschelmonschter]

As for lossy Atmos (as DD+ bistream), yes.

No lossless Atmos (as True HD) though. Should also be true for DTS-HD.

At least that is what I think. AVR also has to support DD+ over ARC though.

[Jecht_Sin]

That's what I don't understand. HDMI 2.0 supports up to 18Gbps. ARC uses the wires of HEAC  (ethenet and audio over channel). The ethernet max bandwidth via HDMI 1.4 is 100Mbps. Since that channel is used as ethernet only or ARC only I am not really sure why ARC has to be limited to 9.2 Mbps.

Sure I understand things are quite more complex than that. An ethernet channel is allowed to loose few packets, they just get retransmitted again. While it would be quite bad if it happens with an audio signal. But I do believe the ARC channel would be perfectly able to substain at least 20-25Mbps, especially on HDMI 2.0. It really makes me wonder what they were thinking when they defined the HDMI 2.0 standard. Also because, as we have seen now, some devices can support eARC via HDMI 2.0.

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Kuschelmonschter wrote:

Google and Android support any audio format already. You can use it with SHIELD for example. It does not need any changes for eARC. That's a driver only thing.

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Sorry, why would the Nvidia Shield use ARC/eARC? I don't think it needs to, it sends the audio together with the video. Like the PS4. Or I am missing something?

Still my point was that Mediatek is perfectly capable to mess up the eARC driver, if potentially our TVs can support it. They can't even make the USB working.