HDMI problems - Do you leave your cable box on ?

[louise]

I have TW cable in Manhattan using an HDMI connection. Yes,
there are problems.

My experience has been that the Samsung box doesn't want to
recognize the hdmi connection and gets quite confused
sometimes.

The Scientific Atlantic box worked well for several weeks
and I then began getting a loss of transmission, picture and
sound, with a message on a black screen that said "please
wait". After a minute the signal came back, only to repeat
the process within 5 or 10 minutes - again and again.

I am now on my second Scientific Atlantic box.

TW is telling me they don't "support" HDMI and therefore,
not their problem if it doesn't work. As I understand it,
the 1080 signal transmitted stations will not be nearly as
good if I let them use their component cables. Is this true?

Some techs have suggested I leave the cable box on all the
time and only turn the TV off. Might this be better, worse?

Any idea what causes the episodes of "please wait" with a
total loss of signal transmission? I've spoken to several
friends and it does seem related to the HDMI cable situation.

Thanks for suggestions and thoughts.

Louise

[Kenneth J. Harris]

Try this: hook up both the component cables and the HDMI cable at the
same time. Check to see that you get a picture with component and then
with HDMI. Turn off set and box and recheck again. If both connections
work, unplug the component cables and turn off the set and box. Now
turn on and see if the HDMI connection is O.K. If so, your problem may
be solved from now on. If not, go to this forum
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=471859 and do a search
for your problem.

Ken

[its_my_dime]

I feel your pain.

I'm also a TW NYC subscriber with an SA box with the built in hard drive
recorder.

The AVS forums have pages and pages of issues with both TW and SA.

I would suggest that you hard reboot your box once a week (unplug and plug
in again). And don't be concerned about returning it on a regular basis.
Many people do. If SA had to sell to the ultimate consumer (us) rather than
to TW, it would have stopped making these boxes a long time ago because its
ratings (on Amazon) would have all been 1 *.

For whatever reason, the TW box won't let you set the output using HDMI and
it frequently defaults to a lower resolution.

I was always changing the picture size on the cable box because, every time
I switched inputs away from the box (to TIVO, for example), and returned to
the box, the size was wrong.

I switched to component cables, set the output for 1080 only and the picture
seems to be ok, especially for HD.

I'm going to try the suggestion of hooking up both to see what happens but
there seems to be some issue with the TV or cable box if both outputs are
connected.

Good luck.

"louise" <lou...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:67l7vaF...@mid.individual.net...

[louise]

Thanks for the support - it is extremely frustrating. I
don't have the built in recorder but I've got the same
problems. Sometime I lose 1080, sometimes I lose sound,
sometimes the remote wont turn the TV on and sometimes......

I have found that if you just go back and forth between HD
and regular channels, it usually finds its way back to the
correct resolution. But it's reached a point where I have
to turn on the system a good 15 minutes before I want to
watch something because I never know whether I'll have a
working system or whether I'll have to start fiddling with
all the settings. We pay a lot of money for this!

But if you (I) reboot the box every week, don't you then
have to set all the settings again. And do you lose HBO and
the On Demand channels when you reboot?

I am under an impression that the HD channels are not nearly
as sharp, and the sound isn't as good with the component
cables. Do you find this to be true?

BTW, I tried a Samsung box and it too had problems.

The last tech, and his supervisor both told me TW does not
"support" HDMI cables - so that's how they've "solved" the
problem :-)

Louise