Apple Tv 4 and Phantom

[johancarlsbo]

Hi
What is the best way to connect my 2phantoms and dialog to a Atv4? Is it thru hdmi in tv and out from tv optical to the dialog or?
Johan

[seb]

There is one solution without additional hardware, use Bluetooth. The other one would be to use a HDMI Matrix box, e.g. like the one linked below. Both works well. These boxes are sometimes hit or miss, I made very good experience with the View HD. The ViewHD has an HDMI in/out and an optical out which then could be connected to either the Dialog or the Phantom.

http://amzn.to/1OW2W9z

[frenkb]

There is one solution without additional hardware, use Bluetooth. The other one would be to use a HDMI Matrix box, e.g. like the one linked below. Both works well. These boxes are sometimes hit or miss, I made very good experience with the View HD. The ViewHD has an HDMI in/out and an optical out which then could be connected to either the Dialog or the Phantom.

http://amzn.to/1OW2W9z

I never considered bluetooth a viable option, does it work smoothly and does it have enough bandwidth? Interesting...

[andreas]

I would guess the truest signal would be from the TV, optical. HDMI from APTV to TV - optical from TV to Dialog.
Otherwise I suspect a delay in sound.

[johancarlsbo]

Strange but i didnt get the optical from my lg tv to work.. No sound at all

[seb]

There is one solution without additional hardware, use Bluetooth. The other one would be to use a HDMI Matrix box, e.g. like the one linked below. Both works well. These boxes are sometimes hit or miss, I made very good experience with the View HD. The ViewHD has an HDMI in/out and an optical out which then could be connected to either the Dialog or the Phantom.

http://amzn.to/1OW2W9z

I never considered bluetooth a viable option, does it work smoothly and does it have enough bandwidth? Interesting...

I have tested it first with my Panasonic Plasma TV's Bluetooth output (one of the last THX models produced) and then also with my Apple TV 4th generation Bluetooth. Both worked. Of course I would guess that the HDMI/Optical path is superior in quality, but for a "fake" 2.1 system it worked astoninglishly well. One interesting "by-product" is that you could adjust the volume with your remote control of the TV/Apple TV. This is quite convenient. The volume settings are however a kind of scary. Why? It would make a jump to maybe "70" on the Spark app, but this is only to adjust to the Bluetooth signal. So when you use your TV's/Apple TV's remote it works fine. Just be careful when you switch input sources in Spark. Usually it would switch back to "35", but who knows ... 

Regarding the delay. My TV could change the delay for Bluetooth output. It was not perfect, but only a very slight delay was left which became almost unnoticeable after some viewing. Also Apple TV was OK. This is a complicated matter as the delay also depends on the electronics of the TV. So your milage may vary. However, the brain adjust obviously quite well and I am fine with it. 

So to cut a long story short. I would test it. If you feel it is necessary, you might add a HDMI switch. It adds some complexity to the system and there are pro's and cons. One pro is that you could connect multiple sources, another that it would convert different type of surround signals to stereo (depends on the model) however the latter is also done when you use Bluetooth. I noticed is that the model I own has one limitation though, which is the HDMI to optical is limited to CD quality. I noticed because I also have an Mac mini (my music server) connected to my TV & Dialog via HDMI and tested it for music output. So you might consider this when you connect multiple sources. This is the reason I stay with Spark/Dialog as it would connect to the Spark app on my Mac mini server and pull higher sampled sources without compromising the quality. 

For me the most annoying thing is to open Spark every time I would like to change volume when watching TV or a movie. So there is certainly a convenience factor in using Bluetooth. For now there are lot of compromises, but I am hopeful that the Devialet developers add the promised surround features in the future. At least there is a solution available that kind of works now.

[testerer]

Phantom has CSR bluetooth which supports AptX codec, a semi-lossless A2DP codec running at 352kbit/sec constant rate (1.4Mbit is 44/16 full rate). Quality is much better compared to non-aptx, f.e. AAC.
Mac laptops since 2011 all support Aptx, you can see if it's being used by holding Alt/Option key and clicking on the bluetooth icon on top menu bar, then selecting Phantom. It should show the codec.
Could not get it to work at higher than 44/16 though.

iPhones sadly don't support aptX even in latest generation.
Many Androids do.

[stevenweber]

Hi-Can you please describe exactly how you go about using bluetooth to connect an atv4 to a phantom setup?

Thank you!!

[kameraguy]

steven, on the aTV4, navigate to settings, then go to the section for remotes and other devices. Here you should see the Phantom(s) assuming bluetooth is enabled on them. You can pair them here...just make note that for whatever reason, the Phantoms default a bluetooth connection to a volume level of 70 when initially paired.

[stevenweber]

thx for the reply-one quick follow-up. . .
Will it stay paired even if I then pair the phantoms with something else, like my phone, and play music from my phone directly to the phantoms via bluetooth- will I then have to re-pair the ATV, or will it remain paired and automatically work when I use the ATV next?