Hey guys,

I just don't get it. I have a trusted system with my 2013 Samsung LED TV and per HDMI a Raspberry Pi, with old OSMC system installed, connected to the TV. By the way OSMC is a media center system.

So everything works fine and no eyestrain so far. In order to get a better sound I purchased a Yamaha YAS-107 soundbar.

Now the set up is:
Raspberry Pi -HDMI- YAS 107 -HDMI- Samsung TV

So the YAS 107 seperates the audio signal from the video signal and passes trough the video signal from the Pi to the TV. Typically the video signal is not altered from the soundbar with such a set up. However I get immediatly discomfort and eyestrain if I am watching a movie on the Pi, if the video signal passes the soundbar.

Do you have any ideas? Last year I tested a Panasonic All70T for some days which gives me no eyestrain, if video pass trough is used.

  • KM replied to this.

    I've seen this happen both ways - I have an older Sony soundbar that is just fine. But my newer one doesn't. I figure it's the chips... something has changed in technology that is tweaking us out, and I'm just not sure what.

    thanks. I'll try such a HDMI extractor.

    Moreover I was thinking about that the new HDMI 2.0 makes some troubles. Is there anyone who is more familiar with this standard?

    a month later

    I just wanted to come up with this discussion again.

    Do some of you have an idea why there is eyestrain if the video signal passes trough the soundbar? The Yamaha Support confirmed that the bar does nothing at all with the video signal. So what's the difference here?

    • hpst replied to this.

      Harrison I am cynical due to such poor experiences trying to get answers out of support services, so take this with a grain of salt...but my first thought was the support people you talked to might just be wrong. Someone in a call center or answering tickets usually doesn't know that much and is just looking up specs in some information reference if anything. You'd need to reach an actual engineer etc who would listen to and understand the question to be sure. I mean it's pretty obvious if passing through a device causes strain then SOMETHING is being done. I don't know about these devices at all but most i/o connections on electronics have sub boards and software involved in them, and aren't just wires connecting the in and the out.

        So there are two ways to do A/V split/extract.

        1. Unified signal comes in, processor grabs it, copies it to a second stream, and work on the second stream, while allowing a copy of the first stream to pass through unmolested. The problem here is A/V sync. It's nearly impossible to output the original stream unmolested whilst ensuring that the audio comes out synchronous...

        2. Unified signal comes in, processor disassembles it, outputs audio to one output and video to another... or reassembles it for output, sending it to destinations synchronized.

        They might not be "doing anything to it", but they are almost assuredly taking it apart and putting it back together.

        Thanks for your answers. It's a mess that we even have to take care if we use hdmi and audio. So there is more and more new technology which I can't use. Moreover my equipment is getting older and older.

        However it is clear for me now that dithering and pwm can't be the only answer for my eyestrain.

        • Gurm replied to this.

          Harrison Can I ask why you don't just use ARC, or the optical out on the TV iself? That's what I do - STB and XBox go into TV via HDMI, audio comes out via Optical, adjust sync on TV.

              Gurm
              Hey, yeah thats what I've done after the eyestrain problem occurs. By the way my TV can only passtrough stereo, though thats only a marginal problem.

              Moreover I actually wanted to discuss what the problem in this case could be.

                Maybe someone needs to send me a soundbar after I get the (eventual) capture card setup done. 😃

                dev