FMB

I finally managed to resolve all of my issues. I went home last night with a more aggressive 'take no prisoners' approach. I replaced the HDMI cable from HDMI 2 to the amp with one of these Crest cables from Big W (as well as another from Fetch to the amp). Then I went into each device and changed various settings. Most importantly and the thing which I suspect made the biggest difference, was switching off AnyNet (HDMI-CEC) / HDMI control on every device. That meant also switching the audio output from the TV to the amp from ARC to optical, but that works. The whole smart control thing is dumb. Anyway, once all that was complete, everything worked as it should. I'm now getting 5.1 sound from the K8500 to the amp. I tested it with this on Bluray and it looked and sounded great. I got the TV working as well as Fetch and TiVo. I just need to test the AppleTV. I even managed to watch the show on Catchup we couldn't watch the night before. Although, on the TV, Plus7 froze up when it reached an ad break spot. We switched to Fetch and it worked fine. Anyway, it's all working now. It's been probably the most difficult setup I've ever encountered.

After my post yesterday, I did some digging and found a thread on the AVS forum. It suggested changing the audio setting from PCM to Bitstream (Unprocessed). So when I go home I jumped in and tried changing it and a few other settings they recommended. The result was audio through the amp...for one second. Then it dropped out. If I switched inputs on the amp and then back, I'd get another second of audio. This happened consistently. I went back to the settings to see what might be causing it and managed to somehow even disable that. Back to no audio again. One thing I did notice is that when I switch to the BD input on the amp, the amp's display has a flashing HDMI icon. That suggests it is receiving a signal, but can't understand it. Overall, last night was both a total disaster and a comedy of errors. Simply trying to watch something on catch up TV via Fetch, AppleTV, the Bluray player and the TV itself all failed miserably. Just about ready to give up. Luckily my wife is being extremely patient.

I bought one of these the other day along with a Samsung 60" Series 8 SUHD TV. Supposedly a good combination. The first problem I had was that the BD player says the TV is not supported, so I can't turn on the BD Wise feature. Somewhat ironic considering the connection document that comes with the BD player specifically mentions connecting to a KS series TV. I even went back and purchased a high speed (23 gbps) HDMI cable thinking that might be the problem. Apparently not. The biggest issue though is audio out. I connected the HDMI 1 port to the HDMI 1 port on the TV for video. I also connected the HDMI 2 port to the BD port on my Sony STR-DN1040 amp. I got picture but no audio. The display on the amp showed a flashing HDMI and the message 'No Stream', suggesting it knew something was connected, but it wasn't getting anything. I spent the next two days trying every possible combination of ports on the amp, settings on the BD player and even different HDMI cables. All to no avail. The only way I could get audio out of the BD player was to set it to output audio from the HDMI 1 port and set the amp to TV with audio coming from the audio return channel. Unfortunately, it was only outputting a 2.0 (stereo) signal. I didn't spend a fortune on a 5.1 setup only to have to listen to Bluray's in stereo. Out of frustration, I even tried connecting the HDMI 1 port to the both the BD and Game ports on the amp, but got nothing at all. No picture or sound. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to fix that scenario, I was pretty fed up by then. It seems that the much touted feature of being able to send audio out through the second HDMI port simply doesn't work. I've contacted Samsung tech support, which was a nightmare in itself, but haven't heard back from them yet. Has anyone been able to get this working or can suggest options I haven't tried yet? TIA FMB

Thanks Peter. It does seem to be a feature that I've only ever seen on TiVo. It is very useful. If, for example, there's a major news story and you want to see both 7 and 9's coverage, you can use the LiveTV button to toggle between the two. Or, you're watching a show that runs longer than the next one you wish to watch, you set the second tuner to that channel and when the first show finishes, you hit the LiveTV button and rewind to the beginning. No need to record it. I know I could simply record the other channels, but that means I end up with more crap on the hard drive that I have to manage.

Having read through this thread, I'm convinced that the 4Tune isn't quite ready yet. I'm happy to wait until they resolve the issues before jumping in, but have one question I thought I'd ask of those who've tried it. My TiVo is on its' way out and has been for some time. It keeps randomly rebooting and, as any TiVo user knows, it takes about 10 minutes for the thing to fully reboot, ready to use again. I like the concept of the Humax 4Tune, but it seems to be lacking one important TiVo feature I use constantly. Namely, the LiveTV button which enables you to switch between tuners. It's very convenient having each tuner on a separate channel and being able to just hit the button, knowing you have 30 minutes of the other channel available to watch. I've looked at the user manual for the 4Tune and can't see any mention of being able to switch between the four tuners. Is this possible?