Use both HDMI to connect TV and Amp like BD players

Bent0 · January 1, 2021 at 12:33 PM

Well hello there and happy new year !

I'm new on the forum and at the moment i use LE on my PI3 perfectly fine.

But for 2021 i'll buy a new TV (got mine since 2008 now) and it's gonna be 4K obviously, the downsize it's my Amp since it is a 1.4 HDMI it's not gonna be able to display 4K rez (neither new audio stuff but i'm fine with it).

My question is simple, can i use a Pi4 with its two HDMI output to connect both my TV 4K and Amp to have 4K and audio HD like BD players allows it nowadays ? And if not can it be implemented ?

Thanks a lot for your answers.

BentO

**Klojum** · January 1, 2021 at 1:32 PM Official Post

Due to the internal nature of Kodi and its drivers, dual screens (in 'clone' mode), does not work on the RPi4. It's only possible to have a dual screen running Raspberry Pi on the RPi4. Moreover, somewhere in the release begin of the RPi4, it was suggested that a dual 4K monitor setup was not supported. Things may have change for that alone, but for now Kodi/LibreELEC only runs on 1 screen.

Bent0 · January 1, 2021 at 1:48 PM

But here i'm not talking about dual screen, even if i want to use both HDMI only one screen will be used the other will be only used for sound (like BD players)

But maybe it is the same as long as i'm using both HDMI it is considered dual screen. It's a shame because it could provide a cheap solution for users like me and avoid the purchase of a new Amp.

Maybe like you said i'll be able to do so on other OS running on RPi4. Got to test that.

Thanks

ghtester · January 1, 2021 at 3:05 PM

Yes it's possible to have a video on HDMI0 and audio on HDMI1 when running LE (at least it works with test build 9.80 nightly, not sure about official LE 9.2.6) on RPi 4B.

Bent0 · January 1, 2021 at 3:57 PM

Oh ok seems nice.

Did you use it this way too ? What's your setup ?

ghtester · January 1, 2021 at 4:22 PM

No, just tested if it worked.

I would like to use both HDMI outputs for video (a second display for webcams etc.), currently it's not possiblle but audio can be switched.

You can change the audio output in Kodi through Settings / System / Audio / Audio output device.

Bent0 · January 1, 2021 at 5:38 PM

Perfect. I hope all kinds of source audio can be decode or at least passthrough.

Thanks a bunch for this, maybe it'll help someone else.

JLADK · April 17, 2022 at 11:09 AM

Quote from ghtester

No, just tested if it worked.
I would like to use both HDMI outputs for video (a second display for webcams etc.), currently it's not possiblle but audio can be switched.
You can change the audio output in Kodi through Settings / System / Audio / Audio output device.

Hi

Sorry to continue an old thread.

This is actually what I need from my HTPC. Onboard HDMI for audio to AVR (non-4K) and video to my 4K TV from external GPU HDMI.

But I'm running LibreELEC 10 x86_64. Do you know if it works on that version too?

ghtester · April 17, 2022 at 1:39 PM

I have no experience with this on x86_64 platform but the configuration in Kodi should work the same.

So it depends if your HW is supported. As soon as both of your HDMI devices are recognized properly, I believe you should be able to configure them as needed.

**Da Flex** · April 18, 2022 at 3:08 PM

JLADK What you want is decoding an A/V stream twice, once for each GPU. That's not intended by Kodi, and it doesn't work. What works is decoding a stream on a single GPU, and then split A/V to two HDMI ports. You can only select a single GPU for decoding.