HDMI Dropout
 

Just a couple of times, I've noticed something odd. I would be watching a movie, and all of a sudden the tv went blank. Like the cable was disconnected or something. The picture, and sound, came right back though. I went back a little bit and the movie, and it played right through the point where it had stopped. I was thinking that it was the cable, but the cable is only about a year old.

The player goes into the receiver and the receiver goes into the tv. It's not a full HD tv, it's only 720p. I had my player set on 1080p24. Could this have been the issue? I changed it to just 1080p to see if the problem will happen again.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

I would certainly start by setting the Blu-ray player to output your TV's native resolution. Yes, the TV can convert, but who knows how good it is at doing the conversion? Set the player to 720p.

If that does nothing I'd start troubleshooting the HDMI cables. It doesn't matter how old the cable is, it might have gotten damaged somewhere along the line, or have been defective from the beginning. If you have an additional HDMI cable you can use, try first swapping out the cable from the player to the receiver. If that doesn't work, try swapping the cable from the receiver to the TV.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

Those are some good tips. Thanks. I'll try that when I have the time later tonight.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

Try a different cable, that is definitely a possible cause.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

Yeah, cables can cause a lot of annoying issues.

I just went through this, recently. Hooking up a WDTV HD box to an LG TV via HDMI kept giving me 'unsupported format' on the TV. The box worked fine with another TV, and my computer monitor, just not the LG TV. I tried another HDMI cable and it worked perfectly. Very frustrating as I spent a lot of time trying to use different resolutions, etc. even though I knew my TV supported 1080p.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

Well, I set the player for 720p, as that's the tv's resolution. The tv can support 1080p, but maybe having had it set on 1080p24 was causing some sort of problem? Either way, so far I haven't had any problems.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

If the problem does come back, I would check the cables as well. Additionally, I would check the female connector on the tv/receiver/player. My parents once had an issue when they roated the tv to the right. Screen would go blank. Rotate it back to center and the opposite way, no issue. Rotate it partway to the right, no problem. Turned out to be a loose connector on the back of the tv.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

I'll try that. Thanks.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

1080p24 can cause problems even with TVs that have a native 1080p24 mode. 720p and 1080i are a lot more stable.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

The instructions for my tv say that it's 720p resolution, but that it can accept a 1080p signal.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

It's possible the display can accept normal 1080P video without handling 1080P at 24 FPS. Many older HD displays made before 2011 or so sometimes had issues handling 1080P at 24 frames. They are not the same thing unless the flags are perfectly set in the video, which is not always the case.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

Right. Just because it's part of the specs doesn't mean it works. My Panasonic AE900 projector had a 24p mode, and I never once got it to sync with any player outputting that resolution. And I read countless similar stories across all kinds and brands of TVs.

I really don't know what sort of graphics chips were in TVs, but they sure didn't work right for 24p.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

I've seen this before with bright white scenes - especially dark to bright-white.

It was a problem with the player outputting an out-of-scope signal (brighter white than RGB spec).

I actually had an HDMI splitter setup (I had a dual projector / LCD setup) and the LCD dealt with the out-of-scope signal fine - it didn't even notice. Projector blipped out every time.

So it could be a combo of display device + output device.

Re: HDMI Dropout
 

My tv is just a normal tv. A 32 inch Samsung. The receiver is an Onkyo that's only a couple of years old. I changed my player to output 720p, the native resolution of the tv. Hopefully, this will solve the problem from now on.