This means, an ARC source (TV) can determine which audio formats are understood by the ARC receiver (AVR, Soundbar), while an SPDIF source can just try and send stuff and hope for the best. Mainly for this reason, SPDIF is usually limited to the 48 kHz realm (DD, DTS and stereo PCM), and often can not support the 96 and 192 kHz formats (96 kHz ... More @Wikipedia
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