New to Me, Old for You Folks: Copy Protection/HDMI Output Blocked Message

Pull the HDMI cable and reconnect the TV to the cable box using component video cables and stereo or SPDIF audio cables.

Vern

You need to give us a bit more information. Please provide brand/model of your "non-hi def VCR/VDR player".

Also, how is it connected to to your DVR... S-video, composite, component video, firewire, HDMI?

Since the DVR only has one HDMI output, I assume you've got your HDTV connected to the DVR using that HDMI connection. So this VCR-like recorder of yours can't be connected by HDMI to the DVR. It must be connected to the DVR in some other way. What is that way?

Or, are you daisy-chaining from the DVR to your recorder via HDMI, and then HDMI again from recorder to HDTV?



So now you have a completely different setup... HDTV instead of non-HDTV, and probably DVR now connected to HDTV with HDMI cable instead of non-HDTV connected probably S-video.

But what was the former connection method for your VCR to your DVR (when you had the non-HDTV connected by S-video)? Did you have S-video going from DVR to VCR and then S-video from VCR to non-HDTV?

And again, what now is the cabling arrangement of all of this equipment, now that you have an HDTV?? Are you trying to go HDMI from DVR to your VCR (if it has an HDMI input that would surprise me) and still from VCR to HDTV somehow?

Please... details on equipment (recorder, non-HDTV and HDTV), and details on your cabling schematic... both before (e.g. 4 days ago) and after (e.g. right now, which is producing the current failure) your HDTV acquisition. You obviously changed cabling 3 days ago when your HDTV arrived.

Thanks.

Ok, now I know the equipment you have right now.

But you didn't mention what your previous non-HDTV was four days ago, nor how that was cabled to the 4250 STB which has not changed.

Nor did you say what, if anything, was changed in the cabling from 4250 to the Toshiba DVR670, from 4 days ago to today.

The before and after cabling details are CRUCIAL to understanding why things worked before, and why they don't work now. Please provide these details, as best you can.


And as you already know, that SA 4250HDC is just a set top box that provides SD/HD channel tuning capability. It is not their DVR version of the box (probably a SA8300 variant, if the non-DVR is the 4250, meaning you are in a non-Motorola infrastructure area so that you must use Scientific Atlanta equipment).

And as you already know, the 4250 rents for much less than the 8300 DVR would rent for, but then again the 8300 DVR is a DVR, with all that it brings to the table (e.g. the ability to time-shift HD content to hard drive, something you cannot do with your Toshiba recorder which requires tape or DVD... neither of which is HD).

Anyway...


You didn't really provide the details of your wiring diagram, but I'm going to make some guesses...

(a) you do currently have your 4250 STB's digital HDMI output connected to your Samsung HDTV via HDMI cable. This is what you certainly want, and will provide the best possible HDTV picture on your HDTV.

Don't worry about 3D from Comcast yet. I'm not sure the HDMI connector on the 4250 is 3D-capable but for the moment don't worry about it. Let's focus on ordinary channels and getting them recorded on your DVR670.

(b) you probably currently have the 4250 STB connected to your Toshiba DVR670 via either S-video cable or a composite (yellow) video cable, since both of these are analog output available on the 4250.

I can't imagine why using this analog connection from the 4250 to the DVR670 should cause any HDCP "copy protection" shutdown of the 4250.


Now... the kicker: how do you have the DVR670 connected to your Samsung HDTV (which you never had before now)? Is it using the HDMI output of the DVR670, going to a second HDMI input on your Samsung?

You never used HDMI output from the DVR670 before now, because your old non-HDTV didn't have an HDMI input, did it. You probably used S-video (analog) out from the DVR670 to S-video input on your non-HDTV.

Now if you are using HDMI from DVR670 to Samsung I wouldn't have thought this second HDMI (digital) connection to the HDTV would in any way bother the 4250 feeding analog to the DVR670 (along with the 4250 feeding digital via HDMI to the Samsung). So for the moment, I have no explanation or solution for you yet.


Please provide the specific missing details about before and after cabling... what was it 4 days ago, and what is it now, between all three boxes.

Thanks. We'll get to the bottom of this yet.

We would have been glad to provide similar instructions and guidance, if only you'd told us what your previous and current cabling was... both last week before your HDTV install (when you said you WERE able to do what you wanted with your SA4250 STB and Toshiba DVR670 cabled together in some still un-named way, and presumably both feeding your till un-named non-HDTV in some still un-named method) and now this week ever since you got your Samsung HDTV installed. You never did provide the answers to those questions.

Analog (i.r. RCA) non-digital cables are the standard way for A/V devices to be connected together. Your Toshiba DVR670 only has composite and S-video video analog connections, so I can't think of any other way your SA4250 could have fed it except this way (along with L/R-stereo red/white RCA cables for audio). It does not have any digital A/V input (e.g component video) for HD, so it can only accept 4:3 SD analog A/V input from the SA4250. You HAD to be using this connection method.

In my opinion, there's no way using this analog S-video/RCA connection method from SA4250 to DVR670 should have had any negative effect on your ability to use HDMI connection from SA4250 to your new Samsung HDTV. And you should absolutely have been able to watch 16:9 HDTV content on the Samsung while simultaneously recording that same program (probably in letterboxed 4:3 downconverted 480i SD form) to your DVR/VCR gizmo.

If your recording showed an "HDCP error" message, I wonder if the problem at that moment was really between the DVR670 and the Samsung for some reason, and you were just seeing the message on your recording as well (which is doing nothing but duplicating what is going out the primary HDMI output to your HDTV, just letterboxed and downconverted).

Anyway, I'm glad the Comcast guy was able to connect things so that it now "works" again as you want.



That's because that's the way it works.

If you are "taping" from the SA4250, using analog A/V connections out of the SA4250 to the DVR670 (i.e. ideally, using S-video cable for video and L/R-stereo red/white RCA cable for audio) then you are wired to do exactly what is happening: whatever you are actually watching (i.e. using the tuner on the SA4250 to feed the Samsung HDTV via HDMI) is exactly what will be duplicated out over the analog outputs to your DVR670. Your DVR670 is set to "line input", and that line signal is fed from the SA4250 from whatever it is currently tuned to.

That's the way it works... when feeding "line output" of the SA4250 to "line input" of the DVR670.

However... if you really do want to "watch one thing while recording another" (at least for available non-protected non-encrypted off-air local network channels like CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, MyTV and CW) you CAN do that if you want to... even if the Comcast guy didn't know how.

You say you have a splitter? Well, connect your wall coax from Comcast to the input of the splitter. Send one output of the splitter to the cable-input of the SA4250. now you have things just like they are right now.

Take the other output of the splitter and connect it to the RF-coax input of your DVR670, which also includes its own ATSC/QAM digital tuner for RF-coax input. This is NOT the line-input (i.e. S-video, direct from the the analog output of the SA4250) you're using right now, which is "slaving" the DVR670 to the SA4250 and forcing you to record only what you're watching on the SA4250 at that moment.

Instead, when you want to record something else from OTA networks (via the new RF-coax input) you would switch the DVR670 from its "line input" as source signal to "RF-coax input" as source signal. Then you would use the digital QAM tuner that the DVR670 has, to tune to whatever unprotected non-encrypted local network channel you want to record... directly from that coax connection which is completely independent of what you're watching at that very moment on the SA4250 and Samsung HDTV.

You'd of course first need to set up your DVR670's QAM tuner, to scan for the digital channels coming into it via the split coax feed so that it knows where NBC, CBS, etc. are. The digital channel numbers aren't necessarily obvious but the QAM tuner in that box will find them, and they MUST be unprotected and non-encrypted by edict from the FCC and federal law.

This should work.

So if you really want "record one thing on the DVR670 off of local networks while simultaneously watching anything else you want on the Samsung HDTV (which might be different from what's recording from local network on the DVR670 at that moment from the split-coax) on your HDTV fed directly from the SA4250" via HDMI, splitting your coax like I describe and connecting things as I describe and setting the DVR670 for its timer recording like I describe will do the trick.

Note that you will NOT be able to record protected encrypted channels (pretty much everything other than local networks, very possibly) using this coax/QAM method. Those channels are NOT tunable on the DVR670. For recording those protected encrypted channels you still will be forced to use the line-input (S-video from SA4250) source on the DVR670, and you will have to be recording what you are currently watching on the Samsung HDTV at that moment.

Of course you don't actually have to be watching HDTV during these "protected" recording moments. The HDTV can be powered off. The SA4250 will simply be powered on and tuned to the channel you want to record, if you are recording a protected encrypted channel via S-video to the DVR670.

But if you wanted to record anything from local OTA networks, then the SA4250 doesn't even need to be powered on. The DVR670 will do it all by itself, waking up, tuning to the QAM channel you set, and recording... all from the coax split input (having nothing to do with the line-input S-video feed from the SA4250).


That's my suggestion, if you really do want to "watch one thing on Samsung HDTV from SA4250 via HDMI, while independently recording a local network channel on the DVR670 via split-coax".