Need HDMI ARC help with Oppo UDP-205

Both my Oppo 205 and my Samsung UN43NU7100FXZA 43" 4K UHD 7 Series TV are spec'd to support HDMI ARC, so I got a proper HDMI cable and have tried to get it to work but the OPPO does not recognize the device. I am not sure if this is some fault of the TV which is just a mass market Best Buy purchase, but I tried connecting to the 205 rear panel HDMI IN and OUT and nothing works.

Has anyone used this HDMI ARC feature on the 205? There aren't too many instructions but I searched online and one user says he counterintuitively got it to work by plugging it into the HDMI OUT on the 205. The idea is to send the TV audio out to the DAC and the Samsung instructions all suggest that this is for HDMI ARC capable speakers (not a DAC) but I just want to see if this would be a better option for sending the TV audio out than the optical port which is what I am using now and which sounds pretty darn good, but still if HDMI ARC can sound better then I'd like to avail myself of the option. Thanks...

 

Audio Return Channel (ARC) Selection 1. When sending a digital audio signal from the TV back to the UDP-205 through an HDMI connection, press the INPUT button on the remote to bring the Input Source menu. 2. Use the UP/DOWN ARROW buttons to choose the ARC channel. 3. You can always select BLU-RAY PLAYER to return to OPPO HOME Menu

 

Those are the steps I followed. I select the correct input on the 205, I connect the HDMI cable at the TV end to the port marked HDMI (ARC), I connect the other end to the HDMI input on the back of the 205 and it does not work. I tried connecting to the HDMI out (audio only) on the 205 (another user online reported success by doing it this way) but still no dice. My TV has audio output settings and when there is a cable plugged into the HDMI ARC port it gives three selections: TV speaker, HDMI receiver and Optical out. I select HDMI receiver and instead the TV puts sound out the TV speaker. I poked around in the settings for the TV but no luck. This is some kind of problem with the TV not sending the audio out the port. OPPO gives me the screen message: "Audio Return Channel (ARC) is not available. Please make sure the television has ARC capability and it is turned on."

Unless someone has some other suggestion I guess I will give up and keep using the optical out to the OPPO for TV sound. As I wrote, it sounds quite good. But I wish I could take advantage of ARC.

 

After spending some time on the Samsung community forum it seems clear this is a reported bug in the HDMI ARC functionality of the Samsung TVs. Which Samsung (unsurprisingly) has not fixed in almost two years of reported complaints. So I will continue using the optical out until I buy a new TV.

 

If it's any consolation to you, I don't think you're losing any SQ by using the optical out of your Samsung. A few years ago I connected my Samsung TV via HDMI ARC to my Denon AVR and though it worked as it should, all the HDMI handshaking and stuff annoyed me, so I connected it with an optical cable and never looked back. Much easier. It's not as though your Samsung TV would give out any hi-res signals that an optical cable could not handle.

 

Thank you for the reassurance, I don't have to give this any more thought now.

 

ARC is a big mess.

I have an older LG OLED and few have ever been able to get ARC to work with it, either.

 

UPDATE TO THIS THREAD: I got rid of the Samsung TV and got a new Sony LED TV and tried the ARC connection again. After a lot of trial and error I did get it to work, once I got the HDMI cable connected to the right port on the OPPO and entered the correct settings on the Sony TV. But the problem was that every time I switched the TV input to the OPPO for the purpose of watching a Bluray or DVD, the TV sound output setting reverted to the TV speaker, which meant that each time I switched back to streamed TV content I had to reset the sound output to Audio System. So to save the bother of repeatedly doing this, I have settled with just using the optical output to my OPPO for the audio signal. Sounds fine, once I adjusted the sound settings in the Sony to eliminate the sound sync delay I was getting with the Sony default sound settings for HDMI format. I spent quite a while on the phone with Sony tech support trying to get ARC to work without reverting to TV speakers every time I switched the TV input, but no luck.