I was given an Amazon FireStick for Christmas. It works well connected to the second HDMI socket on my TV. The TV has two HDMI sockets, each of them for input only logically enough; the TV input is switchable between them. My DVD recorder has one HDMI socket, bidirectional presumably since it works for both recording and playback. Question: how do I get the Amazon FireStick to record on the DVD recorder while watching on the TV? I could plug the FireStick into the single HDMI socket on the recorder but then no TV. Would an HDMI splitter or switch do the job and if so what kind do I need (in terms of number of inputs and outputs) and how would I connect it? Many thanks in advance, Stephen
Anything involving HDMI is unpredictable IMHO. It's a 'solution' which does the consumer a major disservice by making something that should be fairly simple become fraught with problems.
Recording what? List everything that is connected to the DVD recorder.
If its recording a DTTV (or possibly a DSAT one) channel or you are pressing a "record TV now" button on the TV remote the chances are that the TV is just telling the DVD (or DSAT box) to tune its reciever to the correct channel and the DVD to selct the appropiate source and enter record.
I'm resonably certain that HDMI is unidirectional as far as pictures are concerned. There is the Audio Reverse Channel (ARC) that enables sound from a TV to find its way to an an HDMI connected AV amp/speakers.
Whoever designed hdmi has to have been a little deranged I feel. I'm fed up with it, but of course I care not the picture quality so my idea is to down convert everything back to analogue. Bah humbug. Brian
HDMI tends in my experience to "just work" but it needs a slightly different way of thinking or you can get into a mess. It's a more linear, bus like, system and the TV is just a viewing device rather than being the place where all signals meet and are selected. The biggest snag is devices with limited settings for their behaviour both how they react to control commands/information from the HDMI and what commands/information they send to the HDMI for a given situation.
Of the consumer "solutions" that really do the consumer a major disservice that's held by DNLA. Nothing but a very limited file managment system. Done properly one ought to be able to rip a DVD into a directory on a "server", point the TV at that directory via DNLA press "play" and get the same result as pressing "play" with the orginal DVD in a player. Oh no, you have to rip the DVD, convert the relevant file(s) to a format the TV can play, bung that on the server and use the basic and clunky DNLA navigation to find and select that file by it's file name only not from any metadata of title/thumbnail etc.
I tried back connecting the TV's audio to the soundbar using ARC (audio return channel). On a Samsung that requires HDMI-CEC aka ANYNET+ to be enabled (auto signal switching and HDMI inter device communications).
CEC works up to a point - turn on the WII-U that's jacked into the soundbar (which has some extra HDMI inputs) - TV and sounbar select the right connections and it all appears on the TV with the TV remote controlling the volume on the soundbar via HDMI-ARC-CEC and the TV speakers muted. That's how it is supposed to work.
However, the inbuilt media player on the Samsung (Smart-Hub) plays havoc and if you leave an app running like Netflix and change to another source, Netflix seems to cause a signal randomly and grabs the input back.
iPlayer is even worse - that managed to drop the ARC link and selecting TV(ARC) as the sound source on the soundbar then caused iPlayer to close!!!
The irony is that is a Samsung fault - all external inputs do the right thing.
So we disable CEC which means disabling ARC - so jack in an optical SPDIF link from the TV back to the soundbar. Did not notice the "Doby Digital = On setting and spend a day wondering why soundbar only gets stereo and not 5.1 from Netflix. With a pointer on a forum, fix that.
Then notice that in order for 4K Ultra HD to work from the soundbar, we need to use exactly one input on the TV labelled MHL that is the only one that supports HDCP. Who the f*ck is an ordinary person supposed to know HDCP means 4K support - let alone that they must use the MHL input unless they scan a 100 page manual (I did).
Oh and the MHL input != the ARC input so even if CEC works for you, you cannot use it and have both 5.1/7.1 AND 4k from an external single source!!!
I work with IT and a high and low level and the insanity of this did my head in. I expect most people just sit there and either not notice or think the devices are a bit crap compared to their mate's.
You are completely right - it is an utter mess. All inputs on a device should support the same feature set for a start and CEC needs to be fixed - or at least have some options to tweak it or disable auto switching without breaking ARC.
In other respects HDMI is a nice idea - I use these leads:
formatting link
Fantastically light and flexible compared to the abomination that was SCART and being digital any sensible lead works as well and any other - subject to not having rubbish plugs that fall out.
I thought I had more than enough fun and games getting an ARC-attached soundbar to work on our Samsung telly but your experience is something else entirely.
Yes - it's not that it didn't "just work" - it sort of did - but it was not working optimally - and what's the point of a mid range soundbar and a decent definition TV if the interconnects drop your signals down to the previous levels :(
And it's incredibly painful to "prove" what each component is actually seeing. A 4k picture looks better than a HD but it's difficult in isolation to say "that is 4k"
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