HDMI, Arc and just getting them to play together

[peige]

I've purchased a new TV and Amp, my previous setup with an older amp with optical inputs, each hdmi into the TV, the amp picked the correct optical input steared by my Harmony remote.

I'm really pleased with each part of my purchase but getting them to function consistently without 13 remotes for the rest of the family is proving a problem.

The TV, a Samsung QE55Q90R Qled tv
The Amp is a Marantz NR1510
The media player is a Zidoo Z9s
Then I use Virgin media with there Tivo style box.
All hopefully controlled by a Harmony remote.

At the moment I have all hdmi's plugged into the Marantz box and then a connection from that to the TV on HDMI 3 which is the ARC one. I thought this was the right way to do it but its problematic, mainly if you don't want the sound out of the cini system but just want sound from the TV, kids often just watch Virgin and we don't want the amp setting in.
Worse one is watch Virgin with TV sound. The Harmony fires up tv, Virgin but often Virgin doesn't actually come on the screen, i'm guessing because the Amp hasn't patched through the hdmi signal (maybe this depends on what it was last doing when powered off)

Virgin should really be directly into the TV? but sometimes we want to watch Virgin with Amped sound (they do some broadcasts in 5.1), at which point I understood that ARC should be able to hand the sound back to the amp but i've struggled to get it to do this.
Same with the Zidoo, feels like it should go through the amp but then perhaps it should be TV but i'm not sure the TV supports all the sound streams the Zidoo can and to be fair we only use the Zidoo with the amp as its always for a film.

I feel I'm trying to plug it old school and it should be all into the TV...

If I can figure out which to plug to what I can get the Harmony to signal the correct buttons an inputs.

At the moment everyone thinks the setup is rubbish and complains that Virgin is broken, help!

 

[peige]

Firstly, thanks for your comprehensive answer

I did buy the Marantz for good sound which it does deliver but also my old amp couldn't handle a number of newer audio formats The new amp is mostly for use with the Zidoo player as thats when I'm out with all the newer sound formats and watching a film.

When I do want to kick in the Marantz with Virgin its when they broadcast something that's worth bringing it in for, as I understand it you only get 5.1 with the HD channels (but not ITV) so its normally when a new Doctor Who comes on or His Dark Materials atm, am I right in thinking that virgin never use anything over bog standard 5.1 anyway so possibly ARC is capable of doing the audio back to the amp?
Then you have Prime/apple tv on the tv itself, again ARC I think(?) can do the job in that context.

Almost seems like Virgin could be plugged into the TV but I'm going to try the settings on the Marantz that you've highlighted, it may be that i've muggled them up whilst punting around settings trying to fix this. I think sticking it so it always defaults to Virgin's hdmi socket would be best but now i'm aware of the area to look in I can play with how it works. As I said, the only other source is the Zidoo and when I use that its always sound out through the amp so I can set the Harmony to power on and select the correct inputs no problem.

I just want it to work simply for Virgin mainly, because it doesn't work right now I get home and find every remote has been used and the whole system is out of sync highlighting what you say about the Harmony, ie Virgin is on but the tv is off so they try and use the Harmony but it turns virgin off and the tv on again, or it works but the harmony doesn't control the Virgin box and arggg

Last night I got back to girls powering off the Virgin Broadband router because the TV wasn't working *facepalm*

 

[peige]

A quick recap on the settings:

HDMI PassThrough - ON

Pass Source - CBL/SAT if that's the source for Virgin

RC Select - Source Only

OK i've gone with this, it looks like it works well. See how it works over the next few days...

I know what your saying about others being frustraighted with the seemingly complex setup, if anything it should be simpler than it used to be and maybe now it will behave better!