OTL HDMI cables

[Brian K. White]

On 12/21/2011 11:28 AM, Richard Kreiss wrote:
> Had a problem with my home AV system.  On Sunday the picture and sound
> signal using an HDMI cable failed.
>
> After testing almost everything and finally connecting the cable box and DVD
> player back to the set itself, everything worked.  This indicated to me that
> the HDMI connections on the set were working.
>
> This A.M. I reconnected the Sound bar and found that it still did not work.
> Finally I replaced the Output HDMI from the sound bar cable to the set and
> everything worked.
>
> Has anyone of you experienced an HDMI cable failing?  This one failed after
> 13 months of use.  I checked the outside of the cable and it was not
> damaged.
>
> Richard Kreiss

No but it's not uncommon for various devices to have flaky hdmi circuits 
that fail after a while or are flaky from day one or are flaky but only 
between particular other boxes or are flaky only at high resolutions or 
are flaky when everything is set to automatic but are ok when one or 
more devices are locked to one resolution / one audio setting.

I was going to recount all the little glitches I've had and my brothers 
had and the stuff I googled up about my model of cable box and it's 
known issues, and my surround amp, and my brothers different cable box 
and different surround amp, and tv, both our ps3's etc... But basically 
it just turns out that almost every device can have some quirk and some 
thing you just have to live with or work around (by not using hdmi or by 
locking the settings instead of auto, or by not sending the hdmi through 
the surround amp for switching, etc..) or get your device warranty 
replaced or repaired.

Google your particular devices for hdmi problems. Some will have known 
issues and workarounds, some will have firmware updates, some will have 
known issues that are warranty replaceable without much contest. 
Sometimes the issues take years to become certain because either the 
issue is infrequent or the issue is because a piece of hardware starts 
out ok but then fails after a while.

It's a drag. The magic single cable that makes everything simple isn't 
and doesn't.

-- 
bkw