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Adding local blu-ray player to remote location causes odd consequences - advice sought.

809 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by jpb-ca, Jun 26, 2012

jpb-ca

Discussion Starter · Jun 23, 2012

Very odd HDMI issue here in a somewhat complicated setup.

One end of the house (I'll call "AV Rack") has an HDMI 8x8 matrix switch. Everything running beautifully on it for years, and it feeds into Gefen baluns, in particular to one room far away I'll call "Basement". The Basement with its Hitachi TV has worked great.

That room has bunch of local HDMI-based stuff in it as well. So, the HDMI feed from the AV Rack goes into input1 of a very inexpensive 5x1 HDMI switch, which also has a Boxee Box in input2, a Wii (via Component/HDMI converter) in input3, and xBox 360 in input4. This all has worked beautifully for ya year: I could get input from any of those four sources displayed on that TV. Again, works great.

I replaced the TV I had (it broke) with a Samsung 8000 series TV. Again, everything works fine. The new TV is not an issue.

Now, I plug in a Samsung Blu-Ray-based "Home Theater" (HT-E6730WZA) into the one free port on the 5x1 HDMI switch. Just the fact I plug the Blue-Ray HDMI Output into the switch means the TV will no longer properly display input from the AV Rack (via the Gefen). It will display input from the other 3 devices: xBox, Wii, Boxee Box, just fine. But for the input from the AV Rack, it constantly jumps the image, has dropouts, etc. This interference continues until I unplug the Blu Ray player from the 5x1 switch - the moment I do that, the image from the AV Rack stabilizes. I put it back in, and the input from the AV Rack is messed up, no matter what I do. So, I try plugging the Blu Ray player and the AV Rack HDMI into the TV directly - bypassing the 5x1 thing. Same problem. AV Rack input works fine on the TV, until the moment I plug the Blu Ray into the TV. When that happens, messy AV Rack images. Unplug the BluRay from the TV, and the image from the AV Rack is fine again. All this time, the images from the BluRay player are wonderful. It's just the AV Rack image that is messed u.

My workaround is to constantly plug in and out the Blu Ray cable, based on need. Ick.

Does anyone know in the world is this happening? It's quite annoying!

Thanks!

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Selden Ball

· #2 · Jun 23, 2012

My guess is that something needs to have its firmware updated -- probably either the TV or the player, but it might be the AVR or the matrix switches

Check them all.

An unlikely possibility, but one that's easy to check, is that CEC is enabled in the TV and player and their control codes are confusing things. I believe Samsung's name for it is "Anynet +". Try disabling CEC in all of your devices.

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alk3997

· #3 · Jun 23, 2012

Quote:
Originally Posted by Selden Ball /t/1417136/adding-local-blu-ray-pla...-odd-consequences-advice-sought#post_22160665

My guess is that something needs to have its firmware updated -- probably either the TV or the player, but it might be the AVR or the matrix switches

Check them all.

An unlikely possibility, but one that's easy to check, is that CEC is enabled in the TV and player and their control codes are confusing things. I believe Samsung's name for it is "Anynet +". Try disabling CEC in all of your devices.

Selden is most likely right in that one of your devices can't recognize something in the HDMI signal the Samsung BD is sending out. Besides CEC, also disable anything to do with deep color. Just go through the Samsung menu and disable anything HDMI related that looks like an optional feature.

Does this also happen if you set the Samsung to 1080i output?

If nothing else works a BD player from another manufacturer might bypass the problem.

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Joe Fernand

· #4 · Jun 24, 2012

Anynet+ is the likely culprit – though note too how you plug this new device to the system can have an effect too! Plug it in when the system is ‘hot’ (powered on) and you can cause chaos!

Ensure Anynet or Anynet+ (CEC) is disabled on the BD and TV – then power everything (Inc. the kit in the AV Rack) Off at the wall – leave the whole system powered Off for a few secs before repowering!

Joe

PS It’s also worth having a look at how the kit is earthed – we’ve seen a few oddities due to stray earth paths on connected systems!

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jpb-ca

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jun 24, 2012

Thanks to suggestions to remove the Anynet+, the situation has improved markedly. From a situation where the screen flickered constantly, it might run multiple minutes without a flicker, but it will also show periods of where it flickers every few seconds - as if a short single frame of disruption in an otherwise clear stream.

The situation is therefore much improved, but still not solved. I must have had multiple issues going on. Now I need to figure out what could cause an OCCASIONAL glitch on the screen (vs. a constant one).

Does anyone have ideas on that?

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Selden Ball

· #6 · Jun 24, 2012

Verify that all of your HDMI cables are certified "high speed". Longer cables need to contain thicker wires. Many people have reported that cables too long to be certified work well if they're 22 gauge. Cables from Monoprice work well.

Long cables attenuate and "smear" the digital audio and video signals enough that sometimes they aren't detected reliably, making the screen glitch. One way to find out if this might be the problem would be to play a BD after you set its player to output 1080i instead of Auto or 1080p. That reduces the bitrate enough that the signal is easier to detect reliably.

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alk3997

· #7 · Jun 24, 2012

Also make sure you disable "deep color"... It adds a lot of bits per second for no real benefit.

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jpb-ca

Discussion Starter · #8 · Jun 26, 2012

Thank you every one for the suggestions. The resulting fix appeared to have two steps:

1) Get rid of Anynet+

2) The balun had to be plugged into the wall. The installer said this was absolutely not necessary, so I had forgotten that it had a power input. On a lark (read: out of desperation) I tried attaching the AC power supply to the balun, and yep, the noise is gone. Noise DOES return with Anynet+ enabled, so that DID need to be removed.

Thanks for all the help!

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