Sorry guys, but I find ll these responses a little misleading and confusing, especially in regards to the Soundbar Pro. The reality is, you do not need either the ARC HDMI port, or the Optical output from your TV in order to use the Soundbar. Here is why; The Roku soundbar will output video on the HDMI pot of the soundbar and that d=feeds into your HDIM inout on your TV or Projector. The ROKU soundbar plays the audio from the streamed channel directly through the soundbar and never sends it to the TV. So, if all you want to use is the ROKU device, you only need a simple HDMI output to your display device.
Why do you need or want the ARC output or Optical output from your TV connected to your Soundbar? Simple. If you have a DVD/BlueRay/other devices connected to your TV, then the audio from those devices are routed through their HDMI input and out the Optical and ARC Channel HDMI port. If the optical or ARC are connected to the Roku Soundbar, then the soundbar will play the audio of the selected device. This allows you to have one soundbar to play audio from all your connected devices.
I learned all this while trying to get either optical, audio out or ARC audio from my TV to a hearing aid bluetooth device. This send my TV audio to my hearing aids and allows me to listen to TV with my family without blasting the volume. (it sucks to have haring loss). After a couple of days and much research I learned that my device was not working because the ROKU never sends the audio to the TV to be redistributed. I my case,I am returning the Soundbar, which is sad because it was a good solution otherwise. For those that will point out that I could use private listening on my phone, or headphones through the remote.... That is fine, except it mutes the Soundbar and my family cannot join in the show. 🙂
I hope this helps
