exitguy

Shouldn't be, I don't have them in the wall but running on the outside behind an entertainment unit. Have Power, Antenna and HDMI tied together with cable ties [1] behind the TV, [2] about 250mm down from there and then [3] another 250mm down from there - no issue and all signals A OK.

There's your problem, get HDMI + Ethernet and your good to go - I use Alogic cables for all my connections with their USB, Ethernet and HDMI (Carbon Series with Ethernet for 18Gbps) and never had an issue. Devices (Beyonwiz T2, Foxtel IQ3, Panasonic UB420 4K UHD) -> Onkyo NR696 (1Mtr) and Onkyo NR696 -> Sony KD65X9000F (3Mtr) all via the Carbon series cables. No, the Sony can do ARC/eARC depending on what is connected. It's the cables that don't have the capacity to carry the bandwidth

Due to COVID - same with heaps of other manufacturers as well. Don't think so - distributed by Amber Technology who also do a range of other manufacturers Not had an issue here in Mel, rang Amber Technology a couple of times to ask about some things when I got the new AVR and had all done over the phone really quickly.

You can't - 7.2 means 7 total speakers and 2 sub woofers Read pages 18-31 of the manual to see all configurations and how to set them up

Sorry, none - get a Panasonic UB820

For Kodi, in the Settings menu, set Audio output to Passthrough and then enable all the AVR settings that the 685 can do like DTS, AAC etc. I run Kodi from the Google Playstore on a Sony X9000F, stream from internet and Synology NAS - get Atmos as well as everything else as well Yeh, found that out. If you want to get Atmos, DTS etc. then download the files and play them back via Kodi. This has heaps of demo files that work really well - https://kodi.wiki/view/Samples What output do you have the Shield doing - if it is possible set it to output Bitstream which will let the AVR do all the decoding.

As does the UB420, got one and it rocks along very nicely. Last night watched Black Hawk Down with Atmos speakers - GREAT !! Can also stream from our Synology NAS so another benefit, the Apps are a pretty "poxxy" but we use the YouTube & Kodi apps on the Sony X900F

Also over at WP(Whirlpool) and they tell me this is a very interesting site for those into HT - so here I am to get into it .