Connecting projector with Sony HT-ZF9

[Acerinth]

Hello everyone,

I am considering to purchase Sony HT-ZF9 soundbar and I am wondering if it would work in my preffered setup which is not that common. I am definitely not a pro, and my setup is just a low-mid budget setup according to my own needs

I have Optoma UHD30 4K projector with HDMI 2.0 IN port, Nvidia TV Shield and hope to buy Sony BluRay player as well. My idea is to make my Soundbar kind of Hub: send audio/video signal through HDMI from Nvidia TV Shield and BluRay player to a Soundbar's HDMI IN ports, and then just forward the video signal with it's pass-through option via HDMI OUT to my projector. What is confusing me is that this HDMI OUT port on Soundbar is also HDMI ARC and I don't wanna make a mistake here and end up without a sound or something. So, would connecting a HDMI OUT port on a soundbar, to a normal HDMI IN port on a projector work out?

Why am I doing this and not outputing sound from e.g. projector? Three main reasons:

1. Projector officially does not support any fancy audio surround sound.

2. If I wanna just listen to music from my BluRay/CD Player, I don't wanna turn on the projector.

3. Projector has only 1x HDMI IN 2.0 that supports HDR and I don't wanna sacrifice either Nvidia Shield nor BluRay player obviously. The other HDMI IN is 1.4 without HDR.

Hope I made it clear.

Thanks in advance!

[Win_88 · Accepted solution]

So, would connecting a HDMI OUT port on a soundbar, to a normal HDMI IN port on a projector work out?

The answer is yes. You're on the right track. ARC is designed to work that way anyway. You're good to go, theoretically.

[Acerinth]

Thank you for your answer.

Meanwhile I indeed bought the soundbar and the concept works 100%.

My only remaining issue is that I need a long HDMI cable from soundbar to projector. Bought a 10m active HDMI cable (with embedded repeater), but that one does not seem to work (maybe obvious, but I am new to this kind of tech). Precisely, connecting direct source to projector works, but over soundbar it doesn't work, no matter what I do.

Do you have any HDMI cable recommendations for those cases? Would an optical HDMI work for this scenario?

Thanks!

[Win_88]

Before buying any more cables, is it possible to test the connection with a short cable that's known to work?

[Acerinth]

I already did that - that's why I wrote in the last message that the concept definitely works

The first long cable I bought did not work (worked only from direct source to direct target), so I returned it, and bought a second one. Optical HDMI, 10m - Works

The second one has a little bit loose end (bcos of the weight of the connector, falls down a bit), connection is not 100% stable at the beginning at the "output" end, so I am also considering exchanging that one as well with a new one (might be just a production issue), but for now it does the job (before I run the cables through the cable channels).

So, in case anyone wants this kind of low-budget / simple cinamtic experience with projector, I can for sure recommend it, as it's super easy to setup and definitely requires way less cables, equimpent and space then the traditional full home cinema setup.

[Win_88]

Sorry I may have missed that, or maybe it's because I don't like to assume stuff. Anyway, I'm glad it worked out.