STX-HD100 and HDMI is a NO GO!!!

[Stuntman]

I have spent the last month trying everything I could think of to show off my new LCD HDTV and my HD extender.. but the thing just wouldn't work right! HD recordings would drop audio for a second or so every minute or two.. the video would blank out for a few seconds.. the green pixels would go nuts on some shows and I would frequently see diagnal green lines running through the Sage GUI.. sometimes resetting the extender helped for a while.. but ultimately it became almost impossible to use regularly.. Sage Support told me it was probably my TV's fault.. they verified that there seems to be trouble with the AKAI/Samsung TV's and HDMI.. except, my TV isn't one of those! I thought perhaps my server was having trouble recording the shows, until I discovered that the HD content played fine on the server itself and even the transcoded MVP! I was about to give up, but wanted to give it one more go.. so I removed the HDMI cable and replaced it with an old set of componant cables.. and, what do you know.. all the problems went away! HD content that was unwatchable now plays perfectly! I've tried different HDMI cables, with no improvement.. I've tried the other HDMI port on the TV and the results were the same.. Seems to me there is an HDMI problem with the extender.. I'd like to think my brand new TV isn't having HDMI issues on both its ports, and since I've seen others complain of similar issues, I'm trying to think of the one thing we all have in common....

Hopefully the much delayed 'second shipment' will fix the HDMI issues and the IR issues... and, if Sage discovers an HDMI issue, hopefully they will own up to it and allow us to get our extenders fixed.

[BFisher]

I've had no issues with my HDMI port on my Extender...

[jlindborg]

I've been using HDMI to my Pannasonic plasma and it works great - the audio issues are being worked with firmware betas (has something to do with accurately getting info via the connection if audio is allowed or not) - this will get fixed I'm sure.

The pixelation stuff you see is not something I've run into - I'm playing lots of HD content via the HDHR capture and I haven't seen a single instance of an artifact.

I know at least a couple people had this issue and it went away with a better quality cable but I can't say if there's something else going on...

[gplasky]

No issues for me either. Audio is coming out of the optical SPDIF. I connected to my Panasonic plasma via HDMI and never had a picture issue. No pixelation or green lines or sparkies. None. Different cables have helped some but not others.


Gerry

[mayamaniac]

What firmware are you using? The original firmware that shipped with the HD extender had the green artifacts problems, but with the current firmware update, the problems went away for me. So do a firmware update if you haven't done so.

Posting note: try to break your postings into multiple paragraphs, makes it easier to read. Sometime I don't read or ignore postings like this because it is hard to read.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

What firmware are you using?

I'm using the latest firmware available.. I was told by support that the green issue was not an extender issue, it was a TV issue.. but if that was entirely true then why would a firmware update fix that for you??

Me thinks there is more to this story.. However, having said that.. I have tried 3 different HDMI cables.. all fail exactly the same way.. but I have NOT tried a 'top of the line' HDMI cable, so I can't totally rule out the cable.. I also use HDMI for audio, not optical.. But for now the componant cables seem to work just peachie!

[autoboy]

Top of the line does not mean expensive. There is no reason you should need to buy expensive cables for this application, unless you are running cables longer than 5 meters. Any HDMI cable should work, and if you try more than 1 or 2 no matter the quality, then you can be assured that there is something wrong in the TV or the extender that is causing this problem. HDMI sucks IMO, but we are stuck with it.

I had no issues with HDMI until I routed it through my receiver. With a cheapo Link Depot HDMI cable from Frys I had no issues with HDMI to my Sony KDS-60A3000 TV and toslink to my Sony receiver. As soon as I upgraded to a HDMI receiver, I get the green sparkles on 1080p, and HDMI will only pass 2 channel PCM to my receiver, a high end Onkyo 875.

The Reon video processor in the Onkyo 875 does a much much much better job deinterlacing and scaling to 1080p than the Silicon Image processor in the extender and it finally looks as good or better as my HTPC with 2600pro. I am so glad they have native mode for the extender. However, I have to run toslink to get 5.1 audio. The Onkyo has only 2 rear toslink connections (Why did they have to make two connections that provide the same signal, toslink and digital coax, when one would have been enough? I'll take digital coax over toslink any day) so I don't have enough toslink for all my equipment. It's a real bummer. I sure hope they fix these issues soon. I still have to have my HPTC hooked up for the occational problem that arises on the extender.

[Enormous]

I too am having issues with HDMI audio. The video portion is fine, but when I run audio through my receiver it drops out, pops, crackles, and does all sorts of nasty things. I have also had to move back to using the SPDIF connector for audio.

One weird thing I have noticed is that even if you select HDMI as your audio output in the extender settings, the SPDIF connector isn't deactivated. This has led me to run my HDMI video straight the the TV set, because if I have both the HDMI and SPDIF plugged into the receiver (and SPDIF chosen as the audio output in the extender settings), the HDMI audio signal apparently gets priority and I still get the pops and crackles.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by autoboy

I had no issues with HDMI to my Sony KDS-60A3000 TV.....

The Reon video processor in the Onkyo 875 does a much much much better job deinterlacing and scaling to 1080p than the Silicon Image processor in the extender and it finally looks as good or better as my HTPC with 2600pro.

Since you've had the chance to try all the major players that I'm interested in - Radeon HD2600, SI in the HD Extender and Sony A3000 (I have the KDS-55A3000)...

How does the HD Extender scale/deinterlace compared to the Sony? I have no visual problems with my A3000, so if the extender is at least as good, I'll be happy. Did you try setting the extender to just output source resolution and let the Sony scale it?

Robert

[autoboy]

Originally Posted by valnar

Since you've had the chance to try all the major players that I'm interested in - Radeon HD2600, SI in the HD Extender and Sony A3000 (I have the KDS-55A3000)...

How does the HD Extender scale/deinterlace compared to the Sony? I have no visual problems with my A3000, so if the extender is at least as good, I'll be happy. Did you try setting the extender to just output source resolution and let the Sony scale it?

Robert

Yes, i tried all combinations. I've been in search of a perfect picture for some time. I'm not an expert here, but these are my impressions. I felt that the SI in the HD extender and the Sony TV were about equivalent. Neither did a terribly good job on SD material. I had more jaggies on the TV (not well regarded for it's 480i deinterlacing) but the SI in the extender showed some artifacts at the edges that really started to bother me. (I have my TV pretty well calibrated with all sharpening enhancements turned off except the sharpness setting is at 30) On HD material it is much harder to tell a difference between the two, but I still saw more jaggies on the TV, while the exdender still showed the edge artifacts. It was pretty hard to spot and both looked really good on a 60" 1080p display from 11 feet. Football was a great check because I have content in 1080i and 720p. 720p sources looked identical except there is a little more red in the extender seen in faces that I can take out if I really care but I don't.


Comparing the Reon in the Onkyo 875 to the 2600pro, they look about equivalent. Both fix the problems I see with the extender and the Sony TV. I no longer see the edge artifacts on the extender, and there are no visible jaggies to be seen, except on some material on the Military channel that is old film content. No deinterlacer I have seen has ever fixed this image. The SD image on the Onkyo and 2600pro cleans up a lot of the noise on analog broadcasts, while maintaining the detail levels. It is pretty clear both are much better than the extender and the Sony with SD material. HD material is indistingishable between the two as far as image quality goes. Both are extremely detailed and you can see this on shows like Sarah Conner Terminator. The faces even during pans maintain their detail. It is better than the SI and Sony.

There are two things the HD extender and Onkyo do much better, and that is fluid pans and macroblocking. I could never get my 2600pro to give me ultra smooth pans, as there would be a frame that got stuck somewhere in the pan, resulting in the occational judder. I would also get macroblocking on faces giving very red checks in SD on the 2600pro that I couldn't get rid of.

The combination of the external scaler and the extender has given me the best possible picture, comparable to the excelent 2600pro, while eliminating any concerns I have about judder. I am very happy now and I only have issues with HDMI when I watch something that is not a native TV format like youtube and it gets scaled to 1080p. I get the sparkles. I could get rid of that if I wanted to by switching to 1080i as the max res, but I don't watch much content that is not 480, 720, or 1080 so it doesn't bother me. I kinda want to keep it there so I can keep on top of the issue and can help to find a fix.

Now the last thing to fix is the remote...

[valnar]

Thanks. That helped a lot... although now I'm concerned about replacing my HTPC with a Radeon HD2600 in favor of the HD extender.

Straight cable (QAM HD & SD) looks okay to me, so perhaps I'm not that picky. I probably won't notice the minor artifacts. However, I am pretty picky about color. I couldn't stand the Hauppauge MVP. Too red and dark. I certainly hope the HD Extender looks better in that regard. At least with our A3000, we can tweak each input somewhat.

Robert

[autoboy]

I just recently got the Onkyo into the loop. Before, I experimented with the TV scaling and the extender, and preferred the extender. Only on SD material did I see a noticeable change without studying the differences. Overall, the ease of use of the extender outweighs the picture quality issues. HD looks especially smooth and clear on the extender with little difference b/w the extender and 2600pro.