HD100 Black Screen at 1080p

[Taddeusz]

Ok, I know I've read this somewhere and I don't remember if there is a solution to the problem.

I just got a 1080p HDTV and received the HDMI cables from Monoprice today. They are 6' CAT2 CL2 HDMI 1.3b certified cables. Both my other devices, an upconverting DVD player and my SA STB both seem to work fine at 720p and 1080i respectively.

What happens is that when the HD100 is set to output at 1080p everything works fine until I start playing something. As soon as the video begins to play the screen goes black and I can still here the audio so I know it's playing. If I set it to 1080i or 720p everything plays fine. Only when the HD100 is set to 1080p through HDMI does this happen.

1080p works fine through the component output but I don't have proper video cables and was using an AV cable as a temporary solution until the others came in. Lots of noise at 1080p but it at least worked.

Due to extenuating circumstances I'm not at home at the moment but what I plan to do is wipe out the client files and start with a clean slate on the settings and see if that helps.

The TV I have is the one in my sig.

Any ideas would be great, thanks.

[valnar]

Hi Taddeusz.

A couple things you can try... Do you have any other sources which can output 1080p to this same TV? Are you sure it's not the TV?

Have you tried a non-HD source, like a DVD rip or analog TV show, which gets upscaled to 1080p through the HD extender? ie. Eliminate the source video from the problem (if it happened to be 1080p)

Or you can do what I do -- The upscaling on the HD extender isn't as good as my Sony A3000 RPTV, so I let my TV do all interlacing and upscaling. I output any video in it's native format only. There is a slight pause every time you start a video while it syncs the resolution, which is annoying, but my picture is marginally better. Of course this only works with videos sourced 1080i or lower. Any 1080p video would go unchanged. I guess that is the root of my question. Does this only affect 1080p videos?

[Taddeusz]

No, it affects all videos regardless of resolution. I tried 1080p, 720p and 480p videos and they all had the same result with the HD100 set at 1080p.

I submitted a trouble ticket with Frey.

I have some RG6 cable at home and I've decided I'm going to run to Radio Shack at lunch and buy some RCA jacks to make my own component cable set. I was using a regular RCA A/V cable for component cables before my HDMI cables arrived but of course was getting really noisy video at 1080p, although 720p and 1080i looked fine. The RG6 cable should provide the needed bandwidth for clear 1080p.

Long before I got my HDTV I'd read about people having problems with 1080p on the HD100 but those voices eventually silenced and I hadn't heard anything else about it. Now that I have an HDTV it would be nice to be able to run at the full resolution of my TV.

[valnar]

Do you own any other 1080p source components?

[Taddeusz]

Nope, the DVD player and cable box only go up to 1080i.

[stanger89]

The menus work at 1080p? Do you have native output switching enabled?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stanger89

The menus work at 1080p? Do you have native output switching enabled?

Nope, native output switching is turned off.

[stanger89]

Menus don't work either?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Menus don't work either?

Sorry, menus work fine. It goes black whenever a video starts playing.

[stanger89]

That's really odd.

[Taddeusz]

Yes, it really is. It's like the TV loses sync with the HDMI when the video begins playing. No matter what I do it won't regain sync without rebooting the extender.

[stanger89]

I'd submit a support ticket, with native output switching disabled, there should be no difference in output between menus and video playing.

[Taddeusz]

Yea, I did this morning.

I hope they might be able to help. It really is very odd.

I'm not particularly familiar with HDMI signaling but maybe the HD Extender does something as the video begins to play that causes the TV to lose sync. Just a guess. It's an Insignia so it's not the best quality TV. It still looks pretty dang good at 1080i though.

[smak]

I was having a similar issue.

My setup was HD100 --HDMI--> Onkyo TX-SR606 --HDMI--> Panny Plasma (50PZ800U).

I would get menus but as soon as something starts playing (tv, ripped dvd, video) the screen would black out like it lost it's signal.

I found that if I ran the HDMI directly from the HD100 to the TV is worked fine. In my case, I'm thinking it is the receiver having trouble passing the HDMI signal. I still haven't investigated that entirely.

So currently I have the HDMI going to the TV and the receiver hooked up via optical. Everything appears to be ok for the time being.

-smak

[Taddeusz]

Unfortunately that's not the case for me. My Sony receiver is from 2004 and does not have HDMI. Only composite, S-video and component. So I have the video for each of my devices going via HDMI directly to the TV and then a separate SPDIF connection going to my receiver.

I was actually just thinking yesterday how nice it would be to have an HDMI capable receiver. It would reduce the amount of cabling by a bit since I'd only need a single HDMI cable per device, then a single HDMI cable going to the TV. Theoretically anyway assuming everything works ok.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Unfortunately that's not the case for me. My Sony receiver is from 2004 and does not have HDMI. Only composite, S-video and component. So I have the video for each of my devices going via HDMI directly to the TV and then a separate SPDIF connection going to my receiver.

I was actually just thinking yesterday how nice it would be to have an HDMI capable receiver. It would reduce the amount of cabling by a bit since I'd only need a single HDMI cable per device, then a single HDMI cable going to the TV. Theoretically anyway assuming everything works ok.

If it's just a handshake issue (I understand we don't know yet), there are HDMI devices you can buy to insert between the HD100 and TV. Some video cards need it to. 'Can't remember the name of it, but it is mentioned often on AVS.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by valnar

If it's just a handshake issue (I understand we don't know yet), there are HDMI devices you can buy to insert between the HD100 and TV. Some video cards need it to. 'Can't remember the name of it, but it is mentioned often on AVS.

Maybe something like an HDMI repeater?

[valnar]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Maybe something like an HDMI repeater?

I was just looking for you because I may want one as well, but I'm only coming up with things that cost $200 or better. Ouch.

But yah, that's the idea.


Have you tried unplugging and plugging in the HDMI cable while the video is playing (when you hear the audio)?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by valnar

I was just looking for you because I may want one as well, but I'm only coming up with things that cost $299 or better. Ouch.

But yah, that's the idea.

Yea, I don't want to spend that much money to fix this problem.

Last night I tried making my own RG6 component cables. Unfortunately they worked about as well at 1080p as the A/V cable I used over the weekend. I'm a bit disappointed by that. It could be that my cheap TV just isn't capable of pulling a clean 1080p component signal. Not the TV I would have chosen but I'm not going to argue with free. I at least have something better than my 32" tube. And 1080i is for the moment at least better than that.