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Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

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Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#91

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

recursive wrote: post #17

Modern AV stuff is insane. I have no interest in taking it up as a hobby. I have an xbox, a TV, and a pair of bookshelf speakers. How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? Luckily, I have one of the last remaining TVs with a headphone jack. I don't use a remote for any of it. Side note: Sometimes the TV doesn't come on when you press its power button. After a tremendou…

It seems you have amplified speakers. The low friction solution is to use a Toslink to RCA/TRS adapter. That will be a bulletproof digital output readily available on many TVs.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#92

Post by da768 »

recursive wrote: post #17

Modern AV stuff is insane. I have no interest in taking it up as a hobby. I have an xbox, a TV, and a pair of bookshelf speakers. How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? Luckily, I have one of the last remaining TVs with a headphone jack. I don't use a remote for any of it. Side note: Sometimes the TV doesn't come on when you press its power button. After a tremendou…

You can get a WiiM Amp or Ultra with HDMI eARC, but you can go cheaper if optical out is good enough. Many TVs still have that one

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#93

Post by tmnvix »

recursive wrote: post #54
jimmaswell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That little headphone jack is seriously driving bookshelf speakers to a reasonable volume? If it works it works but that doesn't sound right, unless these are actually self-powered speakers with their own amplifiers inside. I'd really like to know the details because this sounds crazy. Also, I collect a lot of old receivers and speakers. It's really not that complicated and the basics have been the same since the 70s…

The jack is not driving the bookshelf speakers. They're active. They have their own internal amps. It's simple if you use a receiver. If someone can point me to a receiver that's more like 4 inches than 18 inches, then I'd consider that a solution. Receivers are big boxes as far as I've seen. I don't have space. Or maybe I don't want to make space.

Fosi ZD3 (https://fosiaudio.com/products/fosi-audio-zd3-fully-balanced...). Supports HDMI with CEC. I turn on my Apple TV, it turns on the TV, which in turn turns on the Fosi DAC - all connected with HDMI. The DAC then turns on a ZA3 amp via 12v trigger cable. Volume control etc is via the Apple remote.

All very cheap really. Total cost I think was about $550 (refurbished TV, second hand Apple TV, new Fosi DAC and amp). All this and I get to keep the TV in 'dumb' mode. Never even use the TV remote.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#94

Post by Lammy »

recursive wrote: post #54
jimmaswell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That little headphone jack is seriously driving bookshelf speakers to a reasonable volume? If it works it works but that doesn't sound right, unless these are actually self-powered speakers with their own amplifiers inside. I'd really like to know the details because this sounds crazy. Also, I collect a lot of old receivers and speakers. It's really not that complicated and the basics have been the same since the 70s…

The jack is not driving the bookshelf speakers. They're active. They have their own internal amps. It's simple if you use a receiver. If someone can point me to a receiver that's more like 4 inches than 18 inches, then I'd consider that a solution. Receivers are big boxes as far as I've seen. I don't have space. Or maybe I don't want to make space.

> If someone can point me to a receiver that's more like 4 inches than 18 inches

S.M.S.L. make some good ones: https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/index

I use their AD-18 and really love it: https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/detail/id/566.html

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#95

Post by pier25 »

I have an Apple TV and Nvidia Shield connected to a home theater receiver which is connected to the LG TV.

Sometimes when turning any of the set top boxes, the other one would turn on and its HDMI would become the active one. I couldn't simply turn off the box I didn't want to use because all the system would turn off.

The solution was to disable CEC on the TV. I still get CEC between the boxes and the receiver (for volume and HDMI active input) but I need to manually turn the tv on and off.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#96

Post by muti »

recursive wrote: post #68
systemtest wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? You can have bookshelf speakers with an integrated amplifier and HDMI-ARC. All you need is an HDMI cable between the TV and the speakers.

I'm not home at the moment, but I'm pretty sure they don't have an HDMI input. I haven't seen speakers that do, except sound bars. I don't like the general premise of sound bars. You either need a subwoofer, or you're limited to too-many too-small drivers.

Active bookshelf speakers with HDMI Arc input are getting more common. Kanto Ren, Kef LSX II, Klipsch The Fives, Elac Debut ConneX

There's also the compact, simple alternatives to bulky receivers that are becoming available: Wiim amp, Sonos amp, Eversolo play, and the cheaper chinese makers like SMSL and Fosi. Each of those brands has a small device the size of an apple tv that will take an HDMI Arc input, and output an amplified signal to power some passive bookshelf speakers.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#97

Post by nfriedly »

My TV and soundbar have the same issue: CEC works for everything except the "turn on" command. I ended up fixing it with an arduino-ish IR blaster that's powered by the TVs USB port - so as soon as the TV powers on, the Arduino boots up and tells the soundbar to turn on too. https://www.nfriedly.com/techblog/2015/01/samsung-tv-turn-on...

I also had a NUC that I installed a Pulse Eight CEC module into, but I never ended up using it, so it got passed on to someone else.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#98

Post by ryandrake »

jimmaswell wrote: post #71
ryandrake wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was kind of in OP's shoes a few months ago. My 2000-2010 era stereo receiver crapped out and I was looking to see if I could simplify my system a bit. Unlike OP, I didn't need anything that could extract audio from the TV. My requirements were: 1. A decoder with at least 5.1 output since that's how many speakers I have 2. At least 3 HDMI inputs + 1 HDMI output to my TV 3. An amplifier with a volume control That's i…

I never understood the "ugly" perception. At worst some might look boring to me, but at best some of them are absolutely beautiful. For example, my favorite in my collection appearance-wise has a 70s-style wooden finish on all but the front plate with a polished silver look on the front plate: https://imgur.com/a/DAUeJJW

This is going to sound kind of sexist, but I have never met a woman who was OK interior design-wise with 18 inch stereo equipment in the living room. I mean look at the OP article: He's got all this stuff hidden away in a closet. This seems to be the only viable way to keep an "A/V stack" full of black boxes and a marriage.

I've got a great sounding 5.1 system with a receiver and a game console and everything set up. You know where it is? My garage.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#99

Post by dwood_dev »

davidczech wrote: post #40

A side note: I am very sad that HDMI-CEC apparently can only support like 3 "console-like" devices. I have an Apple TV, Nintendo Switch 2, Sound Bar (eARC) and PS5 hooked up, but only 3 can really interact with CEC. It took me a long time to diagnose why it seemingly wouldn't work with my Nintendo Switch 2. I ended up disabling it on my PS5 because I never use the darn thing, but it kind of stinks since most TV's hav…

This is my exact setup. Maybe I don't have many issues because I literally only have the NS2/PS5Pro turn on the TV/change input. I still use the AppleTV remote to adjust volume no matter the input.

Re: Fix HDMI-CEC weirdness with a Raspberry Pi and a $7 cable

#100

Post by ssl-3 »

recursive wrote: post #17

Modern AV stuff is insane. I have no interest in taking it up as a hobby. I have an xbox, a TV, and a pair of bookshelf speakers. How am I supposed to get the audio to the speakers without a bulky expensive receiver box? Luckily, I have one of the last remaining TVs with a headphone jack. I don't use a remote for any of it. Side note: Sometimes the TV doesn't come on when you press its power button. After a tremendou…

The audio part can still be made to be simple.

Others have mentioned toslink and I'd like to expand upon that.

When you get a new TV and no longer have a headphone jack to plug your powered speakers into, then you can just add a DAC that converts the toslink digital audio that your new TV outputs into the bog-standard line-level analog audio that your speakers understand.

DACs like this are available at all price points.

At the low end of the scale, some are less than $15 -- and they're tiny. If you can't hide it somehow then I might insist that you're not really trying.

And that's it. That's the entire missing link for where we are in 2025, wherein: A new TV will still have a toslink output, and your powered speakers still have an analog input.

(Tomorrow? Who knows, man. We aren't there yet.)

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