Inline karaoke mixer between TV and receiver

[riehmc]

I tried a couple of mixers from sound town and pyle that had HDMI in/out ARC ports as well as wireless microphones. Both systems did not function as advertised nor would they work in a passthrough mode if wanting to just watch TV.
Can someone guide me to the equipment I should purchase if wanting to play YouTube videos as the karaoke source but use my existing system with wireless mics?
I heard the Xbox has a karaoke game that you can attach a microphone to but it sucks

 

[TLS Guy]

I tried a couple of mixers from sound town and pyle that had HDMI in/out ARC ports as well as wireless microphones. Both systems did not function as advertised nor would they work in a passthrough mode if wanting to just watch TV.
Can someone guide me to the equipment I should purchase if wanting to play YouTube videos as the karaoke source but use my existing system with wireless mics?
I heard the Xbox has a karaoke game that you can attach a microphone to but it sucks

If you are using HDMI, I suspect the DRM of HDMI will defeat you what ever you do.

You will need a YouTube source with an analog out out, to your mixer and an HDMI from your source to the TV.

 

[BMXTRIX]

This is the type of device I would take a look at.

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Town-Microphone-Bluetooth-SWM15-PRO/dp/B07MVXXW72

You will want to connect a laptop to the karaoke device and then into your AVR. You would playback videos from the laptop, through the mixer and onto the TV.

This may, or may not work well. I have no idea. But, it really gives you the flexibility to do what you want here. I would ABSOLUTELY do this as a separate input into any AVR I was using.

 

[highfigh]

Some Karaoke players just use an HDMI to connect to the AVR, which sends the video to the TV, which is the way equipment should be connected as BMX posted. There's one reason for Arc of any kind- using the TV as a source and that brings problems to the table- the setup is (slightly) more complicated and it doesn't necessarily work if an active HDMI cable or coupler has been used, or if some HDMI extenders (HD-BaseT being a common one) are used for long cable runs. IMO, a TV should receive the video signal, not act as a source.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Hey, I just sang karaoke today in my system. So funny you mentioned this.

 

[riehmc]

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Town-Microphone-Bluetooth-SWM15-PRO/dp/B07MVXXW72

I returned the SWM15 and started looking at the Pyle equivalent. I hooked up the SWM15 with optical and analog and couldnt get the mics to work. Then after calling Pyle to ask them technical questions about their unit, they had no clue their product even had HDMI and after 15 email attempts to clarify I gave up.

The laptop idea isnt a bad one, but when you get my age, reading off a small screen isnt necessarily feasible

any other hardware recommendations or setups?

 

[BMXTRIX]

I'm not sure how you get specific Kareoke videos up on the TV without a laptop. It is by FAR the best way to get video out to the TV with specific music/songs.

By placing the SWM15 in next to your AV receiver, then connecting the HDMI OUT to your AV receiver, you will get a permanent installed device which you can connect any laptop to at any time easily, and disconnect it when you don't need the laptop there.

The laptop video will pass through the system and appear on your TV. So, you can hook up the laptop, use a wireless keyboard and mouse, and run the entire show from the TV. I'm a 50+ year old at this point who needs glasses, so I feel your pain on working off a laptop screen (though it is part of my job).

LAPTOP->HDMI->SWM15->HDMI->AV RECEIVER->HDMI->TV (and room speakers)
Video will appear on your TV.
Audio will come out of your room's speakers.

I recently recommended this to a friend, but he hasn't gotten it yet, so I can't speak to the quality. This is truly what makes so much sense to me to use. And keep it simple.

 

[riehmc]

Great explanation and sounds like the only solution to use existing home audio. I guess the only question now is do I go with the soundtown swm15-pros or the pyle pdwmkhrd22wm.5? I couldnt get the soundtown mics to work and pyle’s support is worthless

 

[lovinthehd]

Pyle is generally useless for audio gear.

 

[BMXTRIX]

Great explanation and sounds like the only solution to use existing home audio. I guess the only question now is do I go with the soundtown swm15-pros or the pyle pdwmkhrd22wm.5? I couldnt get the soundtown mics to work and pyle’s support is worthless

I'm not sure you had it hooked up directly to you AV receiver previously via HDMI. This is how it appears to work and it should work that way. I would get the SWM over anything Pyle makes every day of the week.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I'm not sure you had it hooked up directly to you AV receiver previously via HDMI. This is how it appears to work and it should work that way. I would get the SWM over anything Pyle makes every day of the week.

Yeah, I would stick with Yamaha and Harman/Crown.

 

[-Jim-]

Gents, I do this (infrequently) using a Laptop for the Tunes & Video but I do have an idea if @riehmc wants to stick with the TV as the source.

TV Analogue Audio out->SWM15->HDMI->AV RECEIVER->Room Speakers. There shouldn't be any HDMI handshaking issues, and if there is he could use the Optical Out from the SWM15. Or he could just forget about the HDMI and Optical Out from the start.

Does this work for you?

 

[BMXTRIX]

Gents, I do this (infrequently) using a Laptop for the Tunes & Video but I do have an idea if @riehmc wants to stick with the TV as the source.

TV Analogue Audio out->SWM15->HDMI->AV RECEIVER->Room Speakers. There shouldn't be any HDMI handshaking issues, and if there is he could use the Optical Out from the SWM15. Or he could just forget about the HDMI and Optical Out from the start.

Does this work for you?

In theory that should work. If the TV doesn't have an analog out, as many don't these days, he would need a optical to analog audio converter, which is another way to get audio into the SWM.

This all complicates things though. This is the rub of it. If he had a SWM before and it didn't work right, then it is really important to keep it simple at this point. Start by hooking the SWM to the AV receiver using HDMI. Start by hooking a laptop (or computer) up to the SWM directly and ensure you can get HDMI video through the SWM to the TV and audio to the room speakers from the computer. Ensure the basics work. Then ensure the microphones pass audio to the speakers.

Try a bit of karaoke using this setup. Then, it is fine to try any of a dozen or a hundred dozen different setups that may also work. But, the first would be to use this device in the most basic manner possible.

But, what you are suggesting is just another perfectly fine way to use this device and should work... assuming the SWM injects analog audio into the HDMI output connection, which is not a guarantee.

 

[svtdragon]

Sorry for the bit of thread necromancy here, but I'm trying to accomplish the same thing.

The goal is to use a smart TV's youtube app to serve the content and output via ARC. This is accomplishable by the Sound Town thingy, but it won't then reencrypt the signal to HDMI for output; in order to send the output back to my AVR, it gets downgraded to optical.

Now, I know HDMI passthrough is technically achievable, even when muxing content together (the xbox 360 did this for ages) so I'd like to find a karaoke mixer device that reencrypts the output signal in HDMI, so that I can avoid having to mess with cables every time I want to turn the mic mixer on or off.

I would love to know if such a thing exists, and I have a pretty generous budget if somebody can think of something. Heck, I might build it if it doesn't exist.

 

[TLS Guy]

Sorry for the bit of thread necromancy here, but I'm trying to accomplish the same thing.

The goal is to use a smart TV's youtube app to serve the content and output via ARC. This is accomplishable by the Sound Town thingy, but it won't then reencrypt the signal to HDMI for output; in order to send the output back to my AVR, it gets downgraded to optical.

Now, I know HDMI passthrough is technically achievable, even when muxing content together (the xbox 360 did this for ages) so I'd like to find a karaoke mixer device that reencrypts the output signal in HDMI, so that I can avoid having to mess with cables every time I want to turn the mic mixer on or off.

I would love to know if such a thing exists, and I have a pretty generous budget if somebody can think of something. Heck, I might build it if it doesn't exist.

That last conversion would be against the HDCP DRM rules for HDMI and be an illegal conversion. You can strip audio from HDMI, but not back again.

 

[jtestement]

I bought the Sound Town mixer and got it working with the optical out going to my Denon. But there is an unacceptable delay in the microphone audio which I could not get rid of. Can anyone recommend a better mixer with optical input and outputs?

 

[TLS Guy]

I bought the Sound Town mixer and got it working with the optical out going to my Denon. But there is an unacceptable delay in the microphone audio which I could not get rid of. Can anyone recommend a better mixer with optical input and outputs?

Not enough information given to help you. How is picture and sound rigged up exactly? There will always be a delay digitizing the analog signal from the microphone. That is digital latency. So I suspect you are going to need some type of digital delay line for the picture. This is not an easy straightforward problem, but a complex one.
Somehow audio and video have got to be integrated. I am certain the answer is NOT a different mixer, or at least that will not be all that is required.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I bought the Sound Town mixer and got it working with the optical out going to my Denon. But there is an unacceptable delay in the microphone audio which I could not get rid of.

Your Denon needs to be set to Direct or Pure Direct mode.

 

[jtestement]

The setup is quite simple. I connected the optical output of the mixer to an optical input on the Denon. I connected the optical output of the smart TV to the optical input of the mixer. The mic delay is quite distracting. Yes, I could delay the TV/YouTube audio to be in sync but the delayed voice is too awkward.

I'll try Direct on the Denon.

 

[jtestement]

WOW! It worked. Setting the Denon to Pure Direct eliminated the delay. Thank you!
Now I want to know why.