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ever wonder why there's a special HMI port on the back of your TV that says

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Arc next to it even though it looks exactly the same as the other HDMI ports

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Arc stands for audio return Channel and it's sneakily one of the HDMI's best

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features with a few caveats to put it simply Arc sends an audio signal back

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down the HDMI cable to an AV receiver or a set of speakers such as a sound bar

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you just need to make sure both devices support Arc it's relevant when you're

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using external speakers instead of the ones built into your TV and there are

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lots of folks with this kind of setup who aren't necessarily home theater or

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Tech enthusiasts built-in TV speakers are often lacking in sound quality

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partially because they have to be made rather small that fit inside the thin

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thin TVs we're used to today and partly because manufacturers are typically much

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more concerned with picture quality than they are with sound quality meaning external speakers are extremely popular

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without HDMI ARC you'd have to use at least one additional cable to send sound

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from your TV to your external speakers whenever the content you're watching

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originates from the TV itself so we're talking about situations where you're

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watching over-the-air Channels with an antenna or using built-in Smart TV apps

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for streaming content of course if you've connected any external sources

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like streaming devices cable boxes Blu-ray players or game consoles

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directly to the TV and you're just using a sound bar instead of a full-fledged

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home theater system with a receiver you'd need some kind of cable to connect

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your TV to the sound bar regardless whether it's an HDMI cable or a toslink

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cable or just some old-school red and white RCA cables but HDMI ARC is still

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useful if you're going the sound bar route as the newest version called e-arc

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can carry 32 channels of uncompressed

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audio meaning it'll work with fancy object-based round sound schemes like

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Dolby Atmos and dtsx Technology switch toslink and RCA don't support and of

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course if you've got one of those sound bars that can pass through HDMI video

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signals from multiple external devices you can just connect everything to the

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sound bar have a single HDMI cable running from the sound bar to your TV

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and take advantage of HD my arc just as you would if you have used a traditional

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AP receiver but despite the obvious benefits of HDMI ARC and e-arc there are

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some situations where you might actually not want to use it and we'll tell you

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what those are right after we thank Best Buy get ready to save on your next tech

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upgrade with Best Buy's back to school sale maybe it's time to replace that old

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laptop you've been carrying around or get a second monitor to increase your

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productivity your Excel spreadsheets will thank you check out Best Buy's back

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to school sale and grab some new gear at the link below probably the biggest

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issue with Arc is that it's usually coupled with a feature called consumer

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electronics control or CEC in theory CEC

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is a good idea it's the feature that allows you to control the volume on your

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receiver or Soundbar with one remote causes the audio system to switch off

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whenever you turn off the TV and switches the input automatically when

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you fire up an attached device like a game console I personally hate having

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multiple remotes and I love these quality of life improvements but the

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problem is that all these different Gadget manufacturers can undo Implement

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CEC in different ways meaning that devices don't necessarily talk to each

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other properly resulting in weird behaviors

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the power switching off when you don't want it to and even audio coming out of

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the wrong speakers although CEC and HDMI ARC are technically separate features

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many TV manufacturers design their software to where you cannot turn off

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one feature without also turning off the other leading to CEC glitches becoming a

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common gripe for folks who use HDMI ARC in their setups this can be especially

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infuriating if you have a receiver connected to a cable box as cable boxes

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tend to be cheaply designed and ripe for CEC hiccups but there are a couple of

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ways to avoid these glitches if you have a simple setup that only handles stereo

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sound or conventional 5.1 Channel surround you might consider using

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additional cables like toslink or RCA instead of using Arc at all and if you

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really want to be a hacker you can keep Arc and disable CEC by covering up pin

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13 on the HDMI cable but please don't

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sue us if something goes awry thanks for watching guys if you like this video hit

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like hit subscribe and hit us up in the comment section with your ideas for

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topics that we should cover in the future