HDMI Audio & cable connection drawbacks

Hello there:

Hopefully looking for similar affected members & possible workarounds to what I have come across with my new A/V receiver setup.

I've had a surround home theater setup for near 20 years. Back in the days before HDMI existed one would connect their audio card to their Home theater amplifier by either toslink or coax connectors, mine has always been toslink. Toslink does have one drawback in that it cannot send a 7.1 signal as there isn't enough bandwith capability to do so, so for the last 20 years I have been limited to 5.1 sound from my a/v amplifier.

Recently my a/v receiver let me down, the L/F channel developed an issue in the pre-amp side & seeing as parts are scarce & the cost to repair it isn't feasible I've had to replace it with a newer current model. Now everything is pretty much HDMI with this new piece. 6 HDMI in & a single HDMI out to the Flatscreen. It does have both toslink & coax audio in but the HDMI is so much more simpler & less cable clutter.
My issue is this....I now am going thru the receiver to the flatscreen instead of going directly from the graphics card to the flatscreen, what this is causing is an interruption of the HDMI signal out from the pc every time I shut off the TV. I do not need the TV on when I am just listening to a 7.1 DTS audio track that has no video, trouble is when the TV is off the AMD Radeon graphics card thinks the circuit to the amp is incomplete & drops the audio signal altogether. I cannot listen to anything via DTS or Truehd if there isn't a video signal going to the TV. The issue is in the graphics card not the amp, if one goes into the sound properties one will not see all of the 7.1 options that are possible unless the HDMI signal sees the TV. When all are up & running..if one shuts off the TV one sees the pc monitor blink at the same time the signal to the amp is dropped.

Is anyone else experiencing this same sort of drawback to the HDMI manner of transmission? I had no idea that would occur with this sort of connection.

thx


Win10 64 1909, Win7 64 SP1

55trucker said:

Hello there:

Hopefully looking for similar affected members & possible workarounds to what I have come across with my new A/V receiver setup.

I've had a surround home theater setup for near 20 years. Back in the days before HDMI existed one would connect their audio card to their Home theater amplifier by either toslink or coax connectors, mine has always been toslink. Toslink does have one drawback in that it cannot send a 7.1 signal as there isn't enough bandwith capability to do so, so for the last 20 years I have been limited to 5.1 sound from my a/v amplifier.

Recently my a/v receiver let me down, the L/F channel developed an issue in the pre-amp side & seeing as parts are scarce & the cost to repair it isn't feasible I've had to replace it with a newer current model. Now everything is pretty much HDMI with this new piece. 6 HDMI in & a single HDMI out to the Flatscreen. It does have both toslink & coax audio in but the HDMI is so much more simpler & less cable clutter.
My issue is this....I now am going thru the receiver to the flatscreen instead of going directly from the graphics card to the flatscreen, what this is causing is an interruption of the HDMI signal out from the pc every time I shut off the TV. I do not need the TV on when I am just listening to a 7.1 DTS audio track that has no video, trouble is when the TV is off the AMD Radeon graphics card thinks the circuit to the amp is incomplete & drops the audio signal altogether. I cannot listen to anything via DTS or Truehd if there isn't a video signal going to the TV. The issue is in the graphics card not the amp, if one goes into the sound properties one will not see all of the 7.1 options that are possible unless the HDMI signal sees the TV. When all are up & running..if one shuts off the TV one sees the pc monitor blink at the same time the signal to the amp is dropped.

Is anyone else experiencing this same sort of drawback to the HDMI manner of transmission? I had no idea that would occur with this sort of connection.

thx


Win10 64 1909, Win7 64 SP1

Hi there

@55trucker

get an HDMI splitter and one of these (or similar). Will pass thru 7.1 Audio etc -- read the spec. Firefox or Edge can open pdf file directly.

hdmi.pdf

Cheers

jimbo

I don't think that you even need a splitter any longer. A passthrough EDID emulator like the one at the link below would likely do the trick, but I would need to research this a little further to be 100% sure.

Jimbo, you have any thoughts on whether this should also work? I'm almost certain that it will. The whole idea seems to be that it will sit inline like this:

PC --- HDMI Cable --- Receiver --- EDID Emulator --- HDMI Cable --- TV / Monitor

My understanding is that when the TV is switched off, the EDID emulator will emulate the monitor to make it look like it is still there. As a result. the receiver should be able to continue playing the audio.

Amazon.com

hsehestedt said:

I don't think that you even need a splitter any longer. A passthrough EDID emulator like the one at the link below would likely do the trick, but I would need to research this a little further to be 100% sure.

Jimbo, you have any thoughts on whether this should also work? I'm almost certain that it will. The whole idea seems to be that it will sit inline like this:

PC --- HDMI Cable --- Receiver --- EDID Emulator --- HDMI Cable --- TV / Monitor

My understanding is that when the TV is switched off, the EDID emulator will emulate the monitor to make it look like it is still there. As a result. the receiver should be able to continue playing the audio.

Amazon.com

Hi there
It might work --no idea though.

Some Graphic cards with embedded audio also allow "Multi Audio" output e.g Analog 7.1 + HDMI - although what the quality of the DAC's in that would be -- no idea. I gather though the OP doesn't have that possibility.

Cheers
jimbo

My graphics is an older HD Radeon, a 6770, it only supplies a digital signal, analog is not possible. For that I would make use of the onboard Realtek audio. Where that's concern I've only made use of the analog when the headphones are plugged into the front case port.

where third party accessories are concerned is there any degradation of the video signal?

55trucker said:

where third party accessories are concerned is there any degradation of the video signal?

If you remain digital, there would be no degradation because you are dealing basically with ones and zeros (digital data) and those values don't change.

Let me try doing a little more research into this. I can't promise that I'll come up with a definitive answer, but I will give it my best best shot. Please bear with me because the research may involve basically reposting your question to some audio / home theatre forums if I can't find answers via other means, and it may take me some time to get responses back. I'll post back here no later than Wednesday whether or not I have a definitive answer.

So, let's start by me summarizing the issue to make 100% sure I have the details correct:

Your scenario is that you have a PC that has an HDMI connection to your receiver. From your receiver you go out to a TV / Monitor, also via HDMI. The issue is that when the TV / Monitor is powered off, the audio from the HDMI connection no longer plays through the receiver but the desired behavior would be that audio continue playing. That sound like a good summary?

Also, any chance you could provide the following details? I like to post with as much specific info as I can:

EDIT: Skip the video card. I forgot that you already posted that detail.

Type of video adapter in the computer (for example Nvidia 1070Ti)
Make and model of the receiver
Make and model of the TV / monitor.

Thanks!

The receiver is a Yamaha Aventage RX-A850

The boob-tube is a Panasonic TC-P54VT25 3D tv.

I did take a look at that Fueran edid emulator, seems that this situation is rather common.
One of the notes on it I did see is that it is not capable of passing an HDR encoded 2160p video signal.
I do a lot of video re-encoding, 2160p to 1080p, I maintain the HDR encoding as my media player (Media Player Classic-black edition) is capable of playing HDR encoded video files without losing the contrast when displayed on a 1080p screen.

thx for reaching out on the subject.....

Well I ended up ordering an emulator, it should be here tomorrow, curious to see if this little *dongle* clears up the issue.

Apologies for my inactivity on this thread despite promise to reply back. Suffered a back injury that temporarily caused me to lose ability to walk. Focusing on recovering at the moment. Again, apologies for my slacking

Ouch!......that hurts,

join the club, I am unhappily blessed with Lumbar Spinal Stenosis, it really messes up ones life when one's back & legs are rendered considerably inoperable.

No need to apologize........

get better