What is it and how do you benefit from it? – Teach me about science

The generational gap that exists between the world’s population is indisputable, as there are a large number of elderly people living and adapting to the leaps and bounds of the digital age, technology that is so highly implemented and standardized by children and adolescents that they would have a hard time imagining their day-to-day life without it.

A clear example of this is televisions. On the other hand, we have generations of adults and seniors who grew up with black and white screens, long antennas to get a little signal, and lights that let light through to create an image; Unlike the smart screens found in most homes today, not to mention the large number of inputs and cables these devices have.

But honestly, do you know what each of these entries is for? Between how similar these inputs are to the number of ports on your TV, we know it can be hard to remember.

However, there is a port that has a very important function that few people know about and we will tell you more about it below.

What is HDMI ARC and what is it for?

HDMI ARC (HDMI Audio Return Channel) is a function that allows us to reproduce the sound from our TV in a home theater system only and exclusively using an HDMI connection.

The implementation of this connection made it possible to get rid of fiber optic cables with EIAJ / TosLink connectors, ushering in a new era of HDMI cables in multimedia equipment.

An HDMI cable allows you to transmit more information than was previously allowed by scart or even RCA and component video cables. The integration of these improvements (in the case of ARC with an implementation in the HDMI 1.4 specification), has allowed to further reduce the number of cables needed to achieve this, but above all, it has made it easier for manufacturers to create more complete devices with less variety in connections, but above all , with better results and high quality.

How do you use the HDMI ARC connection?

To take advantage of an HDMI ARC connection, it’s important to make sure that both your TV and your home cinema equipment are compatible with this connection (a common thing with new equipment, but not all monitor models have it).

Checking this is very simple, just check on the back of your device and see if the HDMI ports have this connection, they have the following letters: HDMI OUT / HDMI OUR (ARC) or HDMI IN / HDMI IN (ARC).

The next step is quite simple, you just have to enable this function in the configuration menu on the monitor and in the audio system and make sure that you connect an HDMI cable that supports ARC (avoid older models that do not support it).

HDMI ARC Limitations

Like almost all products, there are improvements that can still be made. One such limitation of HDMI ARC is that the ARC standard found in HDMI 1.4 and 2.0 standards is only capable of transmitting PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS stereo audio up to 5.1 channels with compression loss. Therefore, if we were thinking of using tracks in Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats losslessly, then it would be impossible to do so.

But if not, this little-known tool will undoubtedly be your ally at home to improve sound quality.