Travato - INSIGNIA TV & JENSEN JWM9 sound

[Storysrvwego]

Maybe I am the only one that found making the INSIGNIA TV send audio through the JENSON JWM9 entertainment system, daunting to make work. For sure the 3 steps of instructions in the WINNEBAGO Travato Owners manual is incomplete/wrong. Maybe the steps work with an early firmware version in the tv or sound system. In any case, I spent the morning putting on paper what the steps really are from A to Z. That information is in the attached PDF file.

I have seen another document on the travato.group that indicates fewer steps in a different order. Those steps do not work with mine. I suspect that my steps work on all possible versions of the INSIGNIA TV and JENSEN JWM9 that WB has/is using on the Travato. I reckon the best I can tell you is this - If you have not made the TV to JWM9 audio work so far, try the steps from my document and let me know if it works for you. Or needs revising. Or toss it in the dumpster.

Gene / storysrvwego
2018 Travato 59K

[Saldar]

We watch Netflix movies off an ipad via the HDMI input to the JVC and often have trouble with the sound. We nearly gave up on our remote speakers until I learned an HDMI port has brains which may require a reset. The HDMI port of the Insignia TV appears to have HDMI glitches.

When we don't get sound from the speakers after we we start playing a movie (after setting the JVC to "HDMI/ARC" and the TV to "receiver") we turn the TV on and off. This apparently resets the HDMI port on the TV, and will give us audio through the speakers, instead of no audio, or audio through the TV.

This does seem weird though, as I think of it, since the speaker audio must come from the JVC. I guess the brainy HDMI port is a active two way street.

Don't forget how lame the JVC is in that you have to hit the "Enter" button after you "select" HDMI/ARC, or the JVC won't have changed the selection.

We tried the instructions on the often helpful Travato.group site, but didn't get consistent results until we distilled them down to this.

[Storysrvwego]

Saldar,
Thanks for commenting. As you have found out, there are different scenarios that also have issues setting up, and then maintaining the audio link between devices and the JWM9.

Maybe the folks in upper management at JENSEN ought to go out in their company parking lot one or two at a time, lock themselves in a shuttered RV for one hour max without cell phones or other interruptions. They must use the JWM9 in all of the different modes per a checklist and then discuss it in a round table session when they return. Some points may just require new firmware, QC time and another round of staff parking lot testing. Other points might require some hardware redesign and that gets messy re R&D and manufacturing costs, market share, profit, potentially another round of FCC/CE testing, etc and when current build-out and remaining inventory would be depleted.

Meanwhile, once we figure out how to make the JWM9 and devices work together, the JWM9 is pretty slick!

[Saldar]

I'm sorry RVStorysrvwego. I thought you were reposting the travato.group instructions, not your own (very humorous) direction on how to get the speakers to work. It will certainly help because it's hard to laugh when the long litany fails because you didn't hold your mouth right.

[Storysrvwego]

17aug18
Hi Saldar,
I found the document over on the travato.group site. It is well written. My dilemma after reading it is whether to add my document over there or see if I could collaborate with the other docs author to integrate steps from both that are possibly model and serial number dependent.

I could not get the steps as defined in that other document to work for my INSIGNIA tv and JWM9A combo. During the Connect stage, the JWM9A never shows up as a "device" in the list in the INSIGNIA INlink screen. I did get a blank bar showing as a device after running that step. With some tinkering, I can get INlink to work so blank-bar in Connect apparently is a not-identifiable connection to the JWM9A. Unfortunately if others get the same result it would perplex some as it did me. While I did get that procedure to work it took some jimmy-ing back and forth in a way I could never clearly explain to myself, let alone document for others.

A CLARIFICATION OF MODEL NUMBERS
I think (not confirmed) that the first of the JWM 9 series was called the JWM990. I have a hunch that this is what the doc on the travato.group site refers to as the "early JWM9" but I could be wrong. I just haven't come across anything yet that shows there was a JWM9 without the "A" suffix.

Ok so I think the model after the JWM990 is the JWM9A, aka simply JWM9. The front panel controls of the 990 and 9 are identical from what I can tell from their manuals.

The latest 9 series model is the JWM90A. The front panel has undergone a number of changes. I do not know if operationally it is easier to use. Longer time before Menu system falls back to last setting? Is the HDMI-ARC function call to action better than before? Maybe someone else that actually has one can comment on that.

I did consider that maybe firmware updates would improve the HDMI-ARC connection process. When I first failed to make INlink work per the 3 steps in the WB Owners Manual, the very first think I did was to research firmware for both devices. I only found firmware for the INSIGNIA TV on insignia.com in their Support section. I downloaded that and updated the TV. The steps in the WB manual still did not work, I decided to do figure it out myself. I was not aware that there was another document on this subject until two days ago. In fact I did not even know the travato.group web site until then.

The tv's firmware update did not change anything at all, at least related to this HDMI-ARC connectivity issue. The firmware update might be helpful to others. The firmware revision on the INSIGNIA site today ( ns24d510na17_reva_20161019_1.03.02 ) is for the Model NS-24D510NA tv. This is the same version I downloaded and installed a few months ago.

A USB stick is required to put the unzipped firmware on the tv. If people are not familiar with what NOT to do during a firmware update process, I would recommend they let someone who has done this sort of updating successfully do it for them. Otherwise you can "brick" a device like this tv into a non-working state. At that point the TV (or other devices that get bricked) would likely have to be sent back to a factory support center to get it working again.

I did not find firmware for the JWM9A or other variants of this 9 series on the ASA ELECTRONICS/JENSEN web site. Either ASA ELECTRONICS/JENSEN hard coded instructions into a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory) chip which may or may not be a plug in chip or they used an erasable chip but have not provided any firmware updates deemed necessary anyway. At least not to the public.

[Saldar]

We dorked with almost everything in frustration trying to get the remote speakers to work with the TV. We were about to give up. The travato.group info helped, but learning to "reboot" the TV (above) was critical for our Netflix setup.

Did you run "inlink connect"? As I recall this added the JVC to the device list.

Here is the initial setup that works for us. It should be one-time setup, but it took us a million tries:

TV remote "menu" button/Settings/Inlink/device list= JWM9A.
To add the JWM9A to that list, with the JVC on and set to HDMI/ARC...
TV remote "menu" button/Settings/Inlink/Connect
...the TV thinks and finds the JVC and then puts it on the device list.

If all our dorking with the TV possibly set something else important, these TV audio related settings are working for us (but I don't know if they are crucial):

TV remote "menu" button/Audio/TV speakers=AUTO
TV remote "menu" button/Setting/Audio input sensing=ON
TV remote "menu" button/Settings/Inlink/Inlink control=ON
TV remote "menu" button/Settings/Inlink/Audio Receiver=ON

We have the JMW9A on a 2017.5 59K. Our main uses are regular (Over The Air) TV and Netflix movies (from ipad plugged into the HDMI port on the bottom of the JVC shelf).

For all our TV purposes the JVC is set to Source=HDMI-ARC.
Here are the menu items we see when we press the "Input" button on the remote of the Insigna TV:

TV..................(we use this for OTA TV)
HDMI-JWM9A...(this works for the DVD on the JVC)
Receiver..........(for video in via HDMI port for JVC -- under JVC shelf in 59K -- you may need to turn the tv off and on to activate external speakers)
AV.................(have never used)
USB photo......(have never used)

--

[ericmeds]

Thank you! My 2021 Travato has an ATYME TV and the step I was missing was going to HDMI1 first to fully link (it would say linked previously but wasn’t completely “linked”). Great guide.

[rowiebowie]

Originally Posted by ericmeds

Thank you! My 2021 Travato has an ATYME TV and the step I was missing was going to HDMI1 first to fully link (it would say linked previously but wasn’t completely “linked”). Great guide.

Welcome to the forum ericmeds!

This is a two year old thread, but your point is a good one. Must get all settings and scans correct to get a signal.

I still suffer from reduced signal strength for over the air channels. Initially the signal is ok, but after some time (particularly after sunset) the signal often decreases to the point of freezing & pixelated images.