I have just connected my core up to my AVR via HDMI just so I can try out some multi channel playback.
First off, it is a really shame I can’t get it to work with native DSD! Both 2 and multi channel. Although the AVR does native DSD via HDMI it won’t do DoP! From reading around seems like it is just not possible to get native DSD to the AVR from ROCK.
Anyway, on to the problem I am posting about.
I have a bunch of devices, such as a blu ray player, an Apple TV, etc, etc, plugged into my AVR in the ‘TV Room’ and control them using a Harmony Remote.
This all worked great until I plugged in ROCK (latest gen nuc).
It seems that no matter what input I set when turning on the AVR, the HDMI input used by ROCK eventually kicks in and the AVR switches to that input! I presume that it is sending out a CEC signal or similar that it possibly being sent after a delay or something!?!
Is anyone else having this issue?
Is there a way to disable CEC if that is the issue (my AVR is all or nothing)?
Is it possible to turn off video via the HDMI so it is audio only?
PS. I understand why it doesn’t but it would be great if the HDMI output displayed the Now Playing screen when a track was playing or at least a slightly more rich or designed screen. The command prompt style text hurts my eyes showing on my 4K screen
Hey Guy, I have a similar setup, NUC connected to a Denon AVR in my Living Roon system with other components, OPPO disk player, Roku Media player, Tivo Cable box, and all controlled with the Logitech Harmony Remote. I have the TV off with the Roon HDMI configuration since it only displays the NUC boot screen information.
The only time the receiver would automatically switch to Roon was when I was using the receiver Network Airplay setup. It does not do that with HDMI setup. Are you using the HDA Intel PCH HDMI 1 Roon Core option for the HDMI connection?
Sorry, I’m using HDMI 0 for my NUC to Receiver connection, not HDMI 1. How is yours configured?
I do agree with you that it would be nice to have the “now playing” screen with the HDMI connection. Maybe that will be available in the future.
My setup is very similar to yours except I am using a Marantz AVR which from a software point of view is basically the same as the Denon being made by the same company.
I am still getting the issue randomly. I use a Harmony remote to turn everything on and sometimes when I turn on things like the Apple TV the Harmony remote will set the right input on the AVR only for it to switch to the Roon input a few seconds later.
I have notice that it does it more or only does it when I have Zone 2 turned on?!?
Usually when I have problems like this I just turn off CEC on the device (or what ever the manufacturer has decided to call it on their devices) and all is good. But I can’t do this on the NUC / Roon.
I’m not familiar with CEC, HDMI COntrol ?, or ARC. Have not tried to use them. I did some research online specifically for “Marantz CEC” and found a forum discussion from 2017 that seems to reference the issue your experiencing with an LG B7 smart tv included.
That caught my attention because I have that TV and had issues with the NUC HDMI to receiver dropouts and stuttering when a USB powered back light was connected to the TV. When I unplugged the USB powered device from the TV my dropout problem stopped. I believe the comments specifically mentioned the LG TV software as a contributor to the problem.
Try online searches for MARANTZ CEC. It does seems to reference the issue you described with regards to connectivity but is not related to Roon.
Interesting. I have a Denon X3400, Logitech Harmony Remote and a LG B6 TV (1 year older) and I’m not experiencing any of the HDMI switching issues.
I do have an issue though when the Denon doesn’t handshake the HDMI correctly with the Roon Rock (Intel NUC8i3) and it stays on “stereo” when I’m feeding it a 6 channel file. Roon then downsamples it to 2 channel. I have to go into the Roon settings for the HDMI connection and play around with the values to force a re-handshake to get 6 channels recognized.
Sorry if this is a dumb question but what do you have the Device Setup - Advanced - Channel Layout set to. I have mine set to 7.1 and it does play multi-channel music when its recorded that way.
Channel Layout is always set to 5.1 on my config. But, when the Denon ignores that and insists on playing 2 channel I have to go into the Advanced settings here and just toggle a few settings to trigger a new HDMI handshake. That usually gets 6 channel playback going again. But, it’s kind of a pain to do this almost every time I select HDMI source.
I checked my Denon’s HDMI setup in regards to Guy_Brown’s original post and I wonder if he has HDMI control set to OFF and CEC disabled under the HDMI setup on the Denon. That should resolve his issue.
Guy mentioned its mostly or only when the receiver Zone 2 is turned on. I’m not familiar with what happens when that is used. I use my receiver for the living room only, TV, videos and Roon music zone, and don’t use the additional receiver zone(s). Roon handles music zones for the rest of the house. I haven’t noticed the issue you are experiencing and my receiver is probably configured differently. I have the NUC HDMI connected to the receiver DVD HDMI input with the Dolby Surround Processor enabled. When Roon sends a multi-channel signal the receiver automatically switches to multi-channel input mode and when it send a stereo signal the receiver uses the surround processor so I’m always hearing native or processed multi-channel sound. When Roon is playing music that I know is multi-channel I can verify it by checking the receiver display.
I suspect Guy’s issue is with ARC, CEC or maybe something in the Logitech Harmony remote setup.
It might not be the NUC that is running ROCK that is causing the issues but it started happening at the same time I connected it!
The issue seems to be getting worse. ARC randomly stops working, inputs just switch them selves over all the time and sometimes I only get 2 channel across the board until disconnect and reconnect the power!
Sounds like the HDMI board in the AVR is starting to go???
Strange how it was all working perfectly until I plugged in the NUC though.
Which HDMI input are you using for the Nuc connection? Don’t think it makes any difference, just curious. Does the situation still occur when you disconnect the NUC HDMI or rearrange the HDMI Inputs? It is a pain to rearrange the inputs but might be worth the effort to help you determine the source of the problem.
My connections are pretty basic. Tivo Cable to the CBL/SAT input, Roku Ultra to Media Player input, the OPPO 205 has 2 connections - Blu-Ray input for digital (movies) and CD input for the analog 7.1 (SACD’s or Bly-Ray music discs). The OPPO uses its DAC’s via the 7.1 connections and the receiver does the decoding over HDMI. I have the NUC connected to the DVD input.
If I didn’t need to use the CD input for the OPPO 7.1 analog connections I would use the CD HDMI for the NUC because it does not expect video and the receiver allows you to pick any video source for the TV while the music is playing.
You might try unplugging the TV and then using the Logitech remote to pick different configurations to see if the switching still occurs. My LG TV was causing issues even when it was not turned on. I had a back lighting kit plugged into the TV USB port that was only supposed to draw power over the USB when the TV was on. The lights came on when the TV was turned off and the NUC HDMI connection started having severe dropouts. Apparently the TV was trying to draw power over the HDMI connection and that was causing the dropouts. When I unplugged the TV or USB connection the dropout problem stopped. Worth a try to eliminate the possibility.
I agree that the first thing I would do is to remove the NUC from the equation, reboot everything after the NUC has been unplugged and see if the issues still remain. If so, then that is great information. If not, then I’d try removing other things, until you get a working baseline; and then, add things back in.
If you start re-arranging connectors, you should keep notes on what was where and every change you did. Changing too many things at once is a recipe for diagnostic issues.
I’m having similar issues as the original poster, Guy.
My issues started after getting the latest Apple TV remote and I wanted to be able to control AVR volume with it. So I had to start using HDMI CEC in my receiver.
Roon Nucleus was working fine before this, but now the AVR receiver keeps randomly switching to the Roon HDMI input all the time. There is some kind of HDMI CEC signal coming out of the Nucleus that is not user configurable? Any thoughts?
