HD300 issues with HD

[rgroves]

I've got an issue with my HD300. I hooked my HD300 to each of my 3 22" LCD's (~ 2 years old) and it works fine with Live TV (SD and HD), fine with recorded DVD's, and fine with recorded Blu-Ray movies. But when I hook the HD300 to my 5 year old Dell 42" Plasma, the Blu-Rays have very choppy video and audio.

Now my HD200 works fine on the 22" LCD's, and on a 12 year old Sony 32" CRT - All my Blu-Ray's and GD Live TV work great.

I don't understand why the HD300 has such problems on the 42". I tries all the video outputs (Component, Composite, HDMI - reg and v1.3a mode), i even tried all the audio options (Stereo, SPDIF, HDMI) and no luck.

I'm going to try the HD300 on the old Sony tomorrow, and the HD200 on the 42", and I'll add to the post with the results.

[paulbeers]

Standard questions: How do you have it connected and what firmware? Server specs? Based on your post you are actually using this with Sage Media Center and not in stand alone mode?

[rgroves]

Sorry about that.....here's the specs....

Wired to network, Cat5e, Gigabit switch (only server, 2 PC's, and the HD300 and HD200 on switch).

Latest firmware (NOT BETA), checked it 3 times to make sure, but don't remember the number, but it did say "no updates available". I'm going to try the BETA firmware tomorrow as well.

SageTV 6.6.2.218, Java 1.6, SageMC 6.3.9a.

Not used in stand alone mode at all.

HD200 and HD300 using SageMC

And to add...I have a HTPC running SageTV Client on the same Dell 42" Plasma with out any issues with SDTV, HDTV and Blu-Ray movies on the server or played directly on the HTPC. Only difference is the HTPC is using DVI, not HDMI. I do not have an HDMI to DVI adapter or cable to try.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by rgroves

Latest firmware (NOT BETA), checked it 3 times to make sure, but don't remember the number, but it did say "no updates available". I'm going to try the BETA firmware tomorrow as well.

You need to load the BETA firmware.

Gerry

[rgroves]

The beta firmware did not help. The ripped blu-rays are still choppy (think of watching a movie one frame at a time). There is still NO audio.

These same movies play fine on the HD200, the HTPC via SageTV and Total Media Theater 3 Platinum.

[Fuzzy]

And this is only happening on that one tv? (More specifically at that one lcoation?) It sounds' like a networking problem with that drop.

[rgroves]

Not the network. There are two drops right there and it does the same on both. One of the drops is for the HTPC and it's fine on either connection. Also ran a cable to another jack from another room and the HD300 does the same thing.

Still need the try the HD300 on the old CRT SDTV and the HD200 on the plasma. Will do this in Thursday and report back....

[Shield]

Couple of ideas - have you tried "Force HDMI mode" in the Advanced setup? Also, do these movies playback choppy in stand-alone mode or only in extender mode?

I would also be curious if you recorded a TV show in 1080i and put a copy of that in your blu-ray folder and whether or not that played back either.

[rgroves]

I was able to do some testing today.

I connected an 8 port gig switch to the ports at my HTPC, and plugged the HD300 and the HTPC into the switch and the htpc, and the HTPC still works fine, but the netowrk lights on the HD300 only blink (not a solid light when it has a connection), and hte same port on the switch keeps blinking it's connection light. Also the HD300 will no longer pull an IP address from my router.

I took the HD300 to two other network jacks, in other rooms, and the connection and activity lights were solid, as they should be. I took the HD300 back to the HTPC jacks and now it's working just fine. The Blu-rays play perfectly fine now. The only thing I can figure is that the netowrk cables I was trying just didn't have a complete connection either at the HD300 or the wall jack, even though I connected/re-connected them about 20 times each, I even made sure each time to double check that they were connected correctly and fully.

So, I guess I've resolved my issues for now. Thank goodness it was only the connection and nothing more serious.

Thanks to all of you that read and submitted advice for me. Sometimes it takes a switch smack to the back of the head (ala NCIS style) to figure things out.