How HDMI CEC Simplifies My Life
My receiver (Denon DRA-800H) is plugged into my TV (Sony A95L) via HDMI. This is how HDMI CEC simplifies my life:
When I turn the TV on, the receiver turns on automatically, and switches to the TV’s input.
When I turn the TV off, the receiver turns off automatically1.
I can use the volume and mute controls on either remote, and they work, without having two different volume levels2.
This is why it’s better to use HDMI over alternatives like USB-C, optical audio, coaxial digital audio, 3.5mm or RCA.
It doesn’t work in the reverse direction:
When I turn the receiver on, the TV doesn’t turn on.
When I turn the receiver off, the TV doesn’t turn off. It instead switches to its internal speakers.
When I connect my laptop to the receiver and select the laptop as the receiver’s input, the receiver can’t tell the TV to switch to the receiver’s input. If I was watching Youtube on the TV using the TV’s app, I remain in Youtube. When press Play on my laptop, I hear the sound but don’t see the video. I have to manually pick up the TV’s remote and change its input to the receiver.
Having two volume levels that don’t sync is annoying: even when you max out the volume, it may be low because the other volume control is set to low. When you set the volume to medium, the sound may blast your ears because the other volume control was set to max.
You can’t look at the volume level to know how loud it will be: I know that a volume of 40 on my receiver is good for watching videos, and for critical listening of music, I prefer 50. If there was a second volume control, 40 may be too high or too low — this predictability will go out the window.
Similarly, I can mute using one remote control and unmute using the other. If there were two volume controls, this would end up muting both the volumes, which is not what I want.
HDMI CEC solves this: both devices talk to each other, and have one volume control.