HDMI ARC vs Digital Optical: Which is Better and Why?

There is a lot of confusion regarding HDMI arc and

digital

optics. There is so much misinformation out there that it's easy for people to second-guess

which

one they should use, so today I want to shed a little light on this topic. What's up guys, Jonah Mathis here? My channel is about sound bars, home entertainment setups, home technology, and more. I try to break down complex topics into terms that most people can easily understand, so let's first discuss what each of these are and how they work. HDMI Arc and Digital Optical both transmit

digital

.

hdmi

arc signals i like to call it

hdmi

arc

which

stands for audio return channel most tvs these days have a few hdmi inputs and one will usually be labeled arc if you have a newer, fancier tv you may even have e-arc or enhanced audio return channel which is even

better

than arc, we're not going to go into this video too much.

I have a whole separate video on that anyway, hdmi arc works by sending the audio signal from your tv to an arc compatible sound bar. or audio and video receiver, so whether you are streaming Netflix or anything on a smart TV or playing something from a Fire TV Apple TV Blu-ray player, etc., the audio signal will still be sent back to the device connected to the Arc port as long as it is supported, it is good to note that you may need to enable CEC on your TV for Arc to work properly. Digital optics are much simpler.

Connect one end to your TV or media device and the other end to your sound bar or AV receiver and that's it, the audio being played will pass to the connected sound bar or receiver. Here is a little general information about digital optics. It was actually introduced in the 1980s and was used to connect CD players to, believe it or not, digital receivers. The optic actually uses light to send data. It is not made of copper wire like most HDMI cables. That's why you can see the light coming from its end. Digital

optical

cables use Toslink connectors.

That's why you may see a digital

optical

cable labeled Toslink. cable, they are basically the same thing, so now that we have clarified what they both are, let's talk about the limitations of each, starting with the digital optical, it is capable of sending two channels of uncompressed PCM audio or up to 5.1 channels of compressed audio at via the adobe digital or dts digital surround audio codecs, let's unpack that statement a bit. two channels of uncompressed pcm audio can come from a blu-ray player where it is decoding the audio on its own or possibly from an apple tv 4k 5.1 channel. adobe digital audio can come from basically any modern smart TV app or media streamer, so an nvidia Shield TV Fire TV Roku etc, this also includes Blu-ray players, by the way, now HDMI Arc is capable of It does a little more than this and also has some additional features than digital optics. does not have like cec, it has been very difficult to get clear and definitive capabilities of hdmi arc because many of the main sources that talk about this have different information that comes directly from dolby hdmi arc is fully compatible with dolby digital plus, which supports up to a stream 7.1 channel compressed audio and also includes Adobe Atmos, so if you have an Adobe Atmos compatible sound bar or an AV receiver with high channel speakers connected, in theory these channels are supported via HDMI ARC.

Here's the confusing part about many TVs made before 2018. They may not support Dolby Digital Plus over HDMI. Arc Dolby Digital Plus was added much later after Arc was first introduced. When Arc was first introduced, some TVs only supported two channels of audio and most others supported 5.1 channels, just like digital optical cables, at their best. I found that solving this is to look up your TV's spec sheet or manual and see what audio codecs it supports natively; however, this information is not always included or easily accessible. Well, let's go over the limitations of each again. which is super clear optical digital supports up to 5.1 channels of audio with adobe digital or dts digital surround audio codecs hdmi arc for almost all TVs supports the same hdmi arc on most newer TVs made between 2018 and today can support up to 7.1 channels of audio included Adobe Atmos with the Adobe Digital Plus audio codec, so now that we are clear about this, why should I use HDMI Arc or Optical Digital?

Do you really care? Of course use hdmi arc if you want to use cec, this makes it so. That your TV remote can control your sound bar or A/V receiver and vice versa, if you have a sound bar or a 5.1 channel surround sound system or less, it doesn't really matter which one you use, both will generate a stream compressed audio which is exactly the same, but if you have in-ceiling or upward-firing speakers that are set up as height channels, you'll definitely want to use HDMI Arc, as the digital optics won't support these height channels at all, so if you have an Adobe Atmos soundbar, never use HDMI Arc. digital optical again even with hdmi arc you still get a compressed audio stream there is no way to send more than two channels of uncompressed audio over hdmi arc it's just not capable of doing that now if you have hdmi e arc then that's a completely different story. just go watch my video on hdmi arc and it will explain everything you need to know about it, but to be very brief, hdmi er supports adobe true hd and dts hd master audio, both of which offer over 7.1 channels of audio without compress and 3D. object based effects that are adobe atmos and dtsx that's a lot to say hope it makes sense also i want to clear up another little confusion about hdmi arc which is very important when you have a media device connected directly to a sound bar or av receiver with an hdmi cable, you are not using hdmi arc to send the audio, so all of these limitations I just discussed don't apply when the media device is connected directly this way, the only bottlenecks for audio quality are those what the multimedia device is capable of. of playing on the media source, so a blu-ray disc, netflix, hulu, etc., most video streaming services support up to dolby digital plus, by the way, and three, the last bottleneck Is the sound bar or AV receiver naturally going to only play what you are capable of receiving?

I hope this clears up any confusion about digital ARC and HDMI. If you learned anything or found this video helpful, I would really appreciate it if you smashed the like button as always. I'll see you next time goodbye