Question Intermittant picture off/on/off with sony HW40ES PJ

Thanks again Joe. I will check whether my sony projector or Blu Ray player actual has options to change video output for DVDs to interlaced or progressive. Not a deal breaker either way as my main issue is/was this intermittant loss of picture problem, which still could be the 10metre HDMI cable. Luckily I have installed a second 10m HDMI cable in the ceiling, as well as 2 x cat 6 cables.
I have a HDBaseT extender and with 35 hours on my projector I have had one drop out but I think that might have been me.
Have you made sure HDMI deep colour is turned off on everything?
 
^^ Deep colour is OFF on the AVR and I cannot see the any mention of it on the PJ and BD player. What the hell is deep colour anyway?!!
 
^^ Deep colour is OFF on the AVR and I cannot see the any mention of it on the PJ and BD player. What the hell is deep colour anyway?!!

Here you go:

Color depth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since BluRay only has 8 bit depth then using the player to 'upscale' to 24 bit depth is (usually) pretty pointless. All it does is send lots of extra (usually just 'padded') data down the HDMI cable, making drop outs more likely, for no real improvement in the image quality. Therefore it's usually better to leave deepcolour OFF in the player or any upscaling device IMHO.

Check your player's menus to see the output settings which would usually be set to YCrCb (4:2:2). If you see it set to xxxxx 4:4:4 then that is also a deepcolour setting (and no need to use as above).

I'm not sure about Sony projectors, but on my JVC if I press the 'info' button I can see what the input signal is 1080/24p for example, and also if it is YCrCb or whatever. Might be worth checking if you can do the same as it would confirm if you are trying to send a deepcolour signal which might be causing the issue.

@Russ 66 that Lindy link wasn't too far off what I was thinking. After all if it means that I'll be sure to be able to transmit 4K over the 12 metres or so (depending on which way round I redo the room), then I'd accept it as part of the rebuild cost to ensure future upgrades to projector, etc will be possible.

EDIT: It is 'only' 3840 x 2160p @30Hz (ie bandwidth of 10.2Gbps rather than 18Gbps which would be required for proper futureproofing IMHO).
 
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Many thanks for the great info above Kelvin. How the hell is the 'average Joe' who buys a modern AVR supposed to know all this stuff? :( (google I guess?)
 
Russ 66 that Lindy link wasn't too far off what I was thinking. After all if it means that I'll be sure to be able to transmit 4K over the 12 metres or so (depending on which way round I redo the room), then I'd accept it as part of the rebuild cost to ensure future upgrades to projector, etc will be possible.

EDIT: It is 'only' 3840 x 2160p @30Hz (ie bandwidth of 10.2Gbps rather than 18Gbps which would be required for proper futureproofing IMHO).
Sorry to the OP for derailing the thread!
I would ask @Joe Fernand about HDMI 2.0A / HDCP 2.2 HDBaseT extenders as I bet they would be similar price to the optical HDMI cable. I am not entirely sure if these have been released yet.
 
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Many thanks for the great info above Kelvin. How the hell is the 'average Joe' who buys a modern AVR supposed to know all this stuff? :( (google I guess?)
It's a nightmare isn't, the industry will never learn, look at the current HDR, HDCP, HDMI 2.0A, 4K, UHD etc etc etc.
All you can do is ask questions on here.
 
Many thanks for the great info above Kelvin. How the hell is the 'average Joe' who buys a modern AVR supposed to know all this stuff? :( (google I guess?)

I guess the 'average Joe' just stumbles along and perhaps through blind luck will manage to get their system working OK. Maybe they won't have it working optimally though (let alone actually calibrated and properly set up).

I suppose that buyers have choices; seek out a really good dealer who will be able to help them set up everything properly rather than just buying at the cheapest online site. Do a ton of research and ask plenty of questions on here, maybe making a few mistakes along the way (I certainly have in 18 years of home AV buying) or maybe hire a pro to install/calibrate/set up the system.

To be fair though a lot of equipment these days has a 'wizard' to help with the set up. If followed carefully then most of the issues should be avoided. I think what starts the problems is when people think that there must be more to their set up, something that can be further improved (look at all the useless 'extra' features in many TV menus that actually reduce picture quality), instead of just accepting that it is as good as it gets (unless you go for a full calibration perhaps).
 
I guess AVRs are a bit of niche market too, as most people I know have no clue about surround sound, hifi seperates, decent speakers etc.

They seem to think sonos, apple and spotify have re-invented a completely new 21st Century wheel !! :D
 
I guess AVRs are a bit of niche market too, as most people I know have no clue about surround sound, hifi seperates, decent speakers etc.

They seem to think sonos, apple and spotify have re-invented a completely new 21st Century wheel !! :D
You start talking to "an ordinary person" about Atmos etc and you see them glaze over and can't see how their £200 sound bar can be bettered.

I really read into my hobbies, for me it's part of the fun. Whenever I go to friends or relatives houses I always have a play with their TV's and lots are on Dynamic or some other horrible mode with motion processing ramped up to the max.

It is nice when they come over to my house and I put a film on and you then start getting questions about how much it would cost to replicate what I have.

It's a shame a lot of good dealers have gone and are replaced by the Internet or box shifters.
 
'I would ask @Joe Fernand about HDMI 2.0A / HDCP 2.2 HDBaseT extenders' - Russ 66 is correct, HDBT has still to 'catch up' with all of the New Features Ultra HD Sources and HDMI 2.0a has to offer.

CAT6 (solid core, non-CCA) and Optical is a good shout (along with conduit) where you want to avoid having to redecorate as standards change.

At a guess we must be doing 200 'over CAT' extenders to every one 'over Fibre' Extender - though the Fibre cables are becoming more affordable - we shipped a couple of 15m Optical HDMI cables this week, I believe they were around £10/m.

Joe
 
ANother update to this saga, sadly the intermittant loss of picture re-occrred last night whilst I watching crimson tide on DVD (I must get this movie on blu-ray one day!). I am now going to bypass the AVR to prove out the 10metre HDMI cable, or not. I Will keep this updated with my results.
 
Slight change of plan,

Rather than just connect the possibly troublesome 10m active-wire HDMI cable directly between PJ and sony BD player in order to prove out the AVR or cable, I have just swapped from the
active-wire hdmi cable to another 10metre hdmi high-speed cable that I installed in the ceiling. This is in effect a 'like for like' swap because this secondary/test cable is now connected between the AVR and the PJ, so I can still enjoy movies whilst monitoring for picture drop outs at the same time. If I still get dropouts with this second cable, I am going to have to potentially go down the cat6 HDMI extender route. (but I have nasty feeling these extenders need a power source at the RX end of the run?)

Luckily, I ran 2 x cat6 cables in the ceiling, and because I allowed myself many months testing of this new setup, if push comes to shove I can always still remove and re-install any current cabling, as I can still access the ceiling void above my cinema from the spare room above it (Phew!).

I also have the cheap and easy option of replacing the short 0.5 metre HDMI cable that connects from the BD player to the AVR input, as this is many years old. :rolleyes:

Oh well.....
 
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The 0.5m cable could be the problem. I would try all the cheap options first.

You can get HDBaseT extenders that don't require power at the receiver end. These aren't cheap however, £200 plus.
Most extenders, dual cat 6 or the cheaper HDBaseT extenders do require power at the receiver end.

I would give the single cat 6 extenders a miss if they are not HDBaseT as I believe they use signal compression to achieve the single cat 6.
 

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