HDMI switching during movie

[rldev]

Last night I was watching Life of Pi which I had recorded from HBO. It was hard to watch because there so many issues with HDMI. There were a bunch of times, the picture would go blank and the receiver would click losing the HDMI signal and then coming back on. Even the WMC photo screen saver came on at one point while the movie was playing.

[rldev]

I noticed this happens on many premium channel movies. Does this happen to anyone? I have Verizon Fios.

[blueiedgod]

We recorded a bunch of stuff over the FREE HBO Cinemax weekend on FiOS. It was the first time we played something that was copyright protected. All previous HBO/Cinemax recordings were not.

I was a little worried as to whether VGA would work, but it did. Our HTPC sends audio over toslink to the AVR, and video over VGA to the TV.

The reason for VGA is that it was the only setting on the LG TV that does not apply "soap opera" effect, which can not be turned off on my older LG TV.

[rldev]

Glad that works for you, but I'm not sure what it has to do with my problem.

[rldev]

The problem seems to happen with newer movies. It's not a problem with older movies. Playing through xbox extender has no such issues. And to think directly connecting an htpc was supposed to eliminate problems, not create new ones.

[Timbo2]

I have same issue on copy protected movies on FIOS in NJ. I think it is a TV and/or A/V Receiver issue. I'm using a Sharp TV and an Onkyo receiver. What brands are you using and where are you? My TV is older and it won't pass anything more than 2.0 sound via HDMI. But I would hate to replace it and find out the receiver is the issue so my plan is to experiment first.

Here is a copy what I posted on Silicondust yesterday:

I have what I suspect is a hardware problem with my AV Receiver and/or TV, but wanted to see if anyone else has experienced the same problem. WMC plays non-copy-protected files perfectly. And PowerDVD plays HDCP protected Blu-ray content perfectly.

However with WMC playing copy-protected movies I get stutter/drop out. Sometimes once per 2 hour movie or sometimes 5 or 6 times. There doesn't seem to be any consistent pattern. It may be HDMI bandwidth related/congestion, but I can't pinpoint that either.

When it happens everything in the video path resets - my A/V Receiver plus my TV. Also when that happens WMC senses that the protected path is disrupted and I get a copy protection error. At that point the only way to WMC to restore the protected path is to reboot the HTPC. Very frustrating. I was able to get around the rebooting issue by putting a Gefen HDMI Detective Plus in-line between the HTPC and the A/V Receiver. I still get the dropout/stutter, but since the whole video path doesn't reset the HDCP stays connected.

It's a real pain in the neck to re-cable and temporarily reconfigure my system, but my next step seems to be to reconnect my HTPC direct to my TV. I'm not looking forward to doing this or watching my next movie through my TV's weak built-in speakers. So I thought I'd ask here first if anyone had any other thoughts or experienced this problem.

[Crash2009]

I wanted to have multiple displays and was getting all this HDCP crap all the time. Got tired of getting up and unplugging this to make that work, and unplugging that to make something else work. Did a bit of reading here and found a guy named Tad that tried this HDMI Switcher thing. Well he tried it and shortly after that "not one peep" came out of him for a long time. It was like all his previous complaints had been solved. So, I decided to gamble on Tad's HDMI Switcher approach. The Geffen HDMI ?X? Switcher was out of my price range, so I did the ebay thing and grabbed some no-name, couple hundred, type thing, ironed out a couple operator error type things, and all of a sudden no more HDCP problems.

I have been running 3 inputs, a HTPC and two extenders (see picture) as hdmi players, and four outputs, two TV's, one 3D projector, and the 4th display is not even a display it goes to the amp. I have no HDCP complaints anymore and I don't have to get up and fiddle with the wires any more.

Not saying this HDMI Matrix Switcher is the only solution, just saying, it was a pretty easy fix for me.

[rldev]

I have a newer sony avr and an older Mitsubishi DLP. I just swapped the video card and will test some movies tonight.

[Crash2009]

Looks like I forgot to post the picture to go with post #7