Audio from laptop to soundbar through TV?

May 22, 2018
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Hi, I have an old tv setup as a monitor (Hitachi L37x01) and an old laptop connected to it via HDMI. I want to play movies on my laptop and have the audio stream from the tv to a JBL 2.1 soundbar. The tv has no HDMI ARC but only regular HDMI, and no optical either. I connected an additional HDMI cable from the TV to soundbar but there's no audio. The laptop only has USB ports available. Is there a viable solution to get quality audio (not 3.5" jack) to the soundbar?
 
Solution
If your soundbar has optical input, there are plenty of inexpensive USB audio adapters with optical / toslink output.

Another option would be to use HDMI audio extractor, but I doubt it will be cheaper.