Sound Bar & Samsung TV Sound Issues - Please Help

Just got a Samsung 55 inch Curved 6250 TV.
Connected to the TV is DirecTV receiver, Amazon Firestick, and Roku Stick. We also connected a sound bar to the TV, but the only options of connecting the sound bar are bluetooth or optical. I can't use HDMI or component because the TV doesn't have component and the sound bar doesn't have HDMI.

First, I connected the sound bar to the tv via blutooth. The audio/video was out of sync, so instead I connected to optical (my only other choice.) Sound worked fine for a while, but then suddenly stopped. We were going around checking different apps to make sure sound would come out of the sound bar. Youtube, Plex, DirecTV, etc, (sound was fine.) We went to the web browser, and suddenly the sound changed to TV speakers! We got out of the web browser, changed audio back to optical and went back to DirecTV and no sound on sound bar - and, although optical showed activity on the TV, no sound would come out of sound bar. We spent 2 hours completely perplexed and trying to think of everything. Checking connections, different TV settings. The only way we could get sound to start coming out of optical again was forgetting bluetooth, reconnecting to bluebooth, then changing back to optical.

This sound bar is a Sanyo, but we also worked with a Vizio sound bar experiencing pretty much the same things I described above.

Is there something we are doing wrong? We even tried using bluetooth and going to the audio delay setting to see if that would help sync the audio but changing that setting made it worse.
In the past, we have always just used component and never had problems but that isn't an option on this TV as I see no component connections at all on the back.

 

No. Should I? Forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't that mean the sound bar would only have sound via DirecTV? Unless somehow the fact that the DirecTV receiver is connected to the TV via HDMI would somehow allow sound coming out of the sound bar for everything? I don't know.

 

OK I will try it, but I'm not understanding how that would clear up the issues I explained above. But at this point, I'll try anything.

 

Rich
Thanks!
I was afraid of that. I called Samsung and they basically told me the same thing. However he did have me check for a software update. The TV showed none available, but I updated software manually. Everything seems to be working fine now, although I do not think it was the software update that did it.

I was confused why audio would come out of sound bar via directv, Roku, Amazon fire stick. Yet, when I went to OTA or the built in TV web browser - no audio would come out of the sound bar. I had to change to TV speakers to get audio out of those 2 things. While watching and OTA channel with no sound. I went into audio settings under expert settings. I changed dolby digital to PCM (I'm not sure what that does) but I was just trying anything I could think of. And suddenly, sound started coming out of the sound bar on OTA and web browser and continued working on everything else.

I hope it continues to work and I do not have to buy ANOTHER sound bar. The sound that comes out of the TV speakers on this TV isn't horrible compared to the other TV's I have. But the sound bar is still better.

 

I guess changing from Dolby Digital to PCM under expert settings was key, because it's been working great for a couple of days. All sound is coming through optical on the sound bar no matter what app or input you go to on the TV. I still think it's CRAZY that you can't control volume with the TV remote, but whatever. I guess I've learned that this isn't possible unless you use component. I've never used optical or any other method of connecting a soundbar other than component until now.

It's taken a few days but I'm finally used to the TV. One other thing that was bugging me was that I couldn't figure out how to manually name an input because the input the firestick was in would never automatically find it and it would keep asking me to set up the input every time I would go to it, always failing to automatically detect and name the firestick. I finally pressed the up on the remote while on the input and that brought me to edit settings so I was able to manually name it. I figured this out WHILE I was on hold with Samsung support.

So I guess this can be closed Thanks

 

This is like one of those smart remotes that have very limited settings. If I hit volume up or down with the TV remote, it just gives me a sound icon shaded out.

 

Yes. In the TV sound settings optical is chosen. That automatically turns the TV speakers off.

Trust me, I would have gotten a Samsung soundbar had I not gotten the sound to work on all inputs, but I did. I just don't want to be left with another soundbar that I don't need. If I EVER need another one, I will get a Samsung.

Yesterday, (and this is off topic kind of) I wish I could understand the picture settings as far as aspect ratio goes. You have 4:3, 16:9, or custom and "fit to screen". Yesterday, I was watching a 4:3 show on my Roku Plex app and it was in the correct aspect ratio with black bars on the side. But when I was in picture settings, I noticed "fit to screen" was set to on, and yet it wasn't fitting to screen. I also noticed aspect ratio was set to 16:9. So fit to screen doesn't work on this TV either.

 

Actually, the DirecTV receiver isn't in the equation since it was turned off. I rarely watch DirecTV anymore. I have a huge library of stuff on Plex. I was on my Roku app watching Plex, which is a media server I keep all my ripped DVDs of movies and shows on and use the Plex player app on Roku to view them. A lot of them are 4:3 tv shows. What I'm saying is, on the Vizio tv, I can "fit to screen" those shows but on the Samsung TV, even though fit to screen is "ON", it's still in 4:3. Watching 4:3 stretched is not something I usually do. But playing around and testing settings this is something I noticed on the Samsung vs the Vizio TV in the other room.