Connecting a Soundbar

[Iain-asks]

Hi,

I am interested in adding a soundbar into my current setup, I have never had one before and don’t really know what I am doing.  My current setup consists of my TV (Sony KDL40W605B), Sky box and Xbox that are simply connected using HDMI.  I watch all my TV via the Sky box and really enjoy just using the Sky remote to control everything (i.e. TV volume).

To be able to get everything playing through the soundbar and continuing to be able to just use the Sky remote when watching TV, how do I need to set things up?  Do I need a soundbar that connects to my TV’s HDMI ARC socket or will connecting up using Digital Optical work?  I just want to be able to connect it to my TV to play sound for everything (TV, Sky & XBox).

Many thanks

[rooobb]

The only thing that leave me not sure is the unfortunately Sky boxes are known to have problems with HDMI-CEC (AKA Braviasync in Sony terms). So it may interferes in the normal operations of HDMI connected devices....

Otherwise my suggestion is really simple:

• buy preferably a soundbar with more than 300W, HDMI-ARC support and at least 3 HDMI in... obviously a Sony one
• Connect it using only HDMI high speed cables: HDMI-ARC with the TV, all the other device to the soundbar that supports the HDMI passthorugh (better if supporting 4K/3D passthrough just in case for the future) 

You'll be able to command everything compatible from the TV remote (and so if the Sky remote can send directlty commands to the TV they will be passed via HDMI-CEC protocol to the attached devices i.e. volume)

That's it. All the sound (and video) will pass through the soundbar processor via the HDMI connection (so you'll not have any problem/downscale of whatever signal you're receiving from XBOX/SKY -5.1 DTS/Dolby/etc) and you'll get the audio back from TV just in case you want to watch a Freeview broadcast.