Setup adviser

Which HDfury Arcana do you need?

Three questions about your source, your display and your sound system. The answer names one model and tells you why — including the cases where an Arcana is not the fix.

1. Where does the picture come from?
2. Does your display have ARC or eARC?
3. Where should the sound go?

Answer the three questions above and the recommendation appears here.

Every outcome, written out

The adviser above narrows three questions down to one recommendation. Below is the same reasoning in full, so you can read the case that applies to you without working through the form — and so you can see the cases where the honest answer is that an HDfury Arcana will not help.

You only use the apps built into your television

An HDfury Arcana will not change anything here. It takes audio out of an external HDMI source, and with no external box in the chain there is nothing for it to work on. It cannot add support your television's apps do not already have, and it does not decode, re-encode or upmix — it passes through what the source sends. If you later add a streamer or a disc player, the picture changes completely.

You use a streamer or a media player

Apple TV 4K, Nvidia Shield, Fire TV, Chromecast with Google TV and Zidoo all stay within 4K60 and 18 Gbps, which is exactly what the original HDfury Arcana handles. It takes full audio straight from the source and sends it to your sound system, so the television never gets the chance to limit it.

You use a Blu-ray or UHD disc player

UHD Blu-ray uses high-bandwidth 18 Gbps signals but never 4K120, so the original HDfury Arcana is enough. Panasonic, Sony, OPPO and Magnetar players all fall in this group.

You use a PS5, an Xbox Series X or a gaming PC

Choose the HDfury Arcana 2. 4K120 and VRR need HDMI 2.1 at FRL5, 40 Gbps. The original HDfury Arcana is an 18 Gbps device and modern 10-bit HDR and VRR signals do not fit through it. Arcana 2 passes those signals through and still extracts the full audio. It also adds a second HDMI output for a capture card or a second display. Check your HDMI cables while you are at it — an 18 Gbps cable produces exactly the same black screen as an underspecified device.

What your display changes about the answer

Your display has eARC. You could use it directly, but routing through the HDfury Arcana avoids the television re-encoding the audio, which is the usual cause of lip-sync drift.

Your display has ARC only. Full Atmos over TrueHD cannot come back out of an ARC port. The Arcana bypasses that limit for external sources.

A projector or a monitor. Neither has an audio return path at all. This is the case the Arcana was designed for.

What your sound system changes about the answer

Sonos Arc or Beam Gen 2. These have an eARC input and no HDMI input, so they need exactly the kind of feed the HDfury Arcana produces.

An AV receiver or soundbar with eARC. It can accept the full audio the Arcana sends it.

A receiver or soundbar with ARC only. Worth knowing before you buy anything: a sound system with ARC only cannot receive Atmos over TrueHD. That format does not fit through ARC, and no device in the chain can change it. You will get Dolby Digital Plus at best. The Arcana still helps with EDID control and lip sync, but check your audio system's specification first.

The short version

Choose the HDfury Arcana when your sources stay at 4K60: streaming, disc playback, older consoles. Choose the Arcana 2 when anything in the chain needs 4K120, VRR, 8K or a second video output. Both extract the same audio formats; the difference between them is video bandwidth and routing.