Forum Discussion

m1onon's avatar
m1onon
Newbie
2 years ago
Solved

Use case- computer monitor with Roku soundbar?

I find myself with 32-in UHD computer monitor that was recently replaced with something a bit better for spouses photo editing, and was wondering if it would replace the old 27 inch Samsung TV in the...
  • renojim's avatar
    renojim
    2 years ago

    Since the audio is always coming out of the Streambar, it should work.  It's getting audio out of the Streambar from a different source than itself that's the problem since it has to be connected to an ARC port or connected to an optical source for audio from anything other than a Roku app.  I don't have any monitors lying around with an HDMI input, but I tried an HDMI-to-DVI cable and it worked.  The startup animation was a mess, but once it got to the Home Screen it displayed in 720p which is as high as this old monitor supports (1680x1050 isn't quite 1080p).  The only issue you might have is HDCP (copy protection).  I was able to play a 4k video downscaled to 720p which I expected to throw up an HDCP error message since there's no way this monitor supports HDCP 2.2 (that was an issue in the past, but maybe Roku fixed it).

renojim's avatar
renojim
Community Streaming Expert
2 years ago

Since the audio is always coming out of the Streambar, it should work.  It's getting audio out of the Streambar from a different source than itself that's the problem since it has to be connected to an ARC port or connected to an optical source for audio from anything other than a Roku app.  I don't have any monitors lying around with an HDMI input, but I tried an HDMI-to-DVI cable and it worked.  The startup animation was a mess, but once it got to the Home Screen it displayed in 720p which is as high as this old monitor supports (1680x1050 isn't quite 1080p).  The only issue you might have is HDCP (copy protection).  I was able to play a 4k video downscaled to 720p which I expected to throw up an HDCP error message since there's no way this monitor supports HDCP 2.2 (that was an issue in the past, but maybe Roku fixed it).