Whole bunch of issues w/ HD100.....

[hemicuda]

ok, did the f/w update. got it all hooked up via HDMI w/ audio. 6.3 on the server. loaded up comskip and default padding. theme is set to hd720. output is set to 720p ( 1080p puts highlights on the background image).

what i have now is no audio on recordings/live, SD is badly pixelated (looks like a webcast instead of DVD Std) and jumpy, HD recordings stutter worse than the MVP. all the menus are sharp as I'd expect. not quite as responsive as the MVP though.

i've checked the loadings and CPU is under 13% and network is under 5%. with all the excitement and good reports about this thing from other users... what the heck is going on w/ mine? neither of us is happy at this point.

Edit: scratch the stuttering issues. discovered that was a mismatch in the f/w:sage settings. I'm still getting a scattering of green pixels at 1080p however and 1080i makes the screen jumpy. i'll go back to 720p til someone can help me work that out.

still no audio through the hdmi cable though; even tried it w/ the RCA output, no dice. my xbox360 feeds audio through hdmi just fine. I even tried the HD100 on the HDMI input the Xbox was on. this is darn strange.

[mikesm]

What is the TV you are trying to drive with it? Do you see the same issues with component?

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I'm still getting a scattering of green pixels at 1080p however and 1080i makes the screen jumpy. i'll go back to 720p til someone can help me work that out.

These are green sparklies; most likely due to you HDMI cable. How long is it? Try a different cable and see.

[foolio]

Very disappointed as well:

intermittent stuttering on HD sources
audio drop out on AC3 source - tried HDMI, SPDIF, RCA (the source played back fine on pc client)

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by Lucas

These are green sparklies; most likely due to you HDMI cable. How long is it? Try a different cable and see.

Used this on the HD100 and Xbox.

LCD is a Samsung 40" 1080p. got late and I didn't get a chance to try component.

Edit: out of time to tinker til this evening.... 1080p works via component as does 2ch audio. now I need someone to have an epiphany about HDMI w/ 5.1. I don't have 2 toslinks on my surround. as before, hdmi works great w/ the xbox360.

[ToxMox]

The sparkles are definitely caused by the HDMI cable. I guess the HDMI chip/port isn't as good as some other devices that don't have sparkles but it works with a different cable.

[Yooper]

I bought several Philips DVD players with HDMI outputs. In all the units the HDMI port did not work properly out of the box. It only worked after a firmware upgrade. You might need to wait for future firmware updates. In all of these cases the component video worked fine.

[sam99]

after my firmware update and first time in to the sage menus using component cables (forgot my pc was using dvi-hdmi and dont have an hdmi-hdmi cable) the screen was slightly jumpy on 1080i and 1080p on my new samsung 60a3000. I ignored it while trying to get my remote to be more responsive and either my eyes got used to it or the screen jumping stopped. Pretty sure it stopped tho, because it was pretty irritating at first.

I am using optical out and sound was great for me. I think i saw two real quick stutters on HD recorded tv in about 30 total minutes of viewing testing, basically not enough to be able to tell if it was the HD extender or the recording.

What was meant by Edit: scratch the stuttering issues. discovered that was a mismatch in the f/w:sage settings. ? What is f/w sage settings?

[Polycron]

I also was having many of the issues posted in this thread. All of my HD channels were extremely jumpy, pre-recorded HD was smooth but very pixelated and SD channels were just plain nasty. I also had no audio on my HD broadcasts through HDMI or RCA. My HD was coming from an HDhomerun.

I ended up rebuilding my Sage server from scratch. A clean windows install and reinstallation of Sage and everything is PERFECT. It cleaned up every problem I was having. I have no idea what was wrong with the server since my network stats were low as was my memory utilization and my CPU utilization. The only major change I made to my server was to set the recording drives as a RAID 0 (2 drive) and format with 64k block sizes.

Whatever the ending solution was all I can say is I'm extremely pleased now.

[basset]

I also have green pixels at 1080p (with new hdmi cable stated 1080p) ... I noticed two things.

1) When I pause the TV, the pixel pause too ... if it was noise or a problem with the cable .. shouldn't the pixels still be flying all over the place ?

2) If I slightly move the HDMI cable at the back of the HD100 I get HUGE amounts of garbage on the screen ... I don't have to do much ... just a slight jingle will do this. Is it a bad connection inside the HD100 ?

Basset

[MrD]

Originally Posted by Polycron

I also was having many of the issues posted in this thread. All of my HD channels were extremely jumpy, pre-recorded HD was smooth but very pixelated and SD channels were just plain nasty. I also had no audio on my HD broadcasts through HDMI or RCA. My HD was coming from an HDhomerun.

I ended up rebuilding my Sage server from scratch. A clean windows install and reinstallation of Sage and everything is PERFECT. It cleaned up every problem I was having. I have no idea what was wrong with the server since my network stats were low as was my memory utilization and my CPU utilization. The only major change I made to my server was to set the recording drives as a RAID 0 (2 drive) and format with 64k block sizes.

Whatever the ending solution was all I can say is I'm extremely pleased now.

To me this implies that some DShow filter or graph was the culprit.

Is there anyway to determine the DShow graphs that Sage is building?

[Opus4]

... wasn't there a comment about stuttering during live TV playback? I was told this is something known & is being worked on. For now, you can either pause briefly before continuing playback, or try setting this property:
videoframe/local_encoding_to_playback_delay=1000

- Andy

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by sam99

What was meant by Edit: scratch the stuttering issues. discovered that was a mismatch in the f/w:sage settings. ? What is f/w sage settings?

There's a setting for resolutions under the HDMI configuration in the HD100's boot menu. Somehow I had it set to use 480p by default. This conflicted somehow w/ me setting anything higher than 720p in Sage's settings.

If everyone thinks my '1080p-rated' cable is not behaving then I will drop by Best Buy on the way home and get a $40 6ft-er or so and see what happens. Thing is... even at the other lower resolutions I still got NO audio through the HDMI link. Tried all 3 on the TV.

I can live w/ RCA audio and component video for now, but at some point 5.1 will be missed and I'll need the HDMI working.

Edit: I tried a fresh install on a wireless-b laptop last night I should have mentioned. Even on this slow of a link I got google video and SD recordings to play... however, still no audio via HDMI.

[mikejaner]

This may sound stupid, but I didn't see you mention you did this above. Did you enable the Audio on HDMI in the settings for the Media Extender. I ran into the same issue, and realized I just had to do that.

Also, I agree with everybody on the cable issue and the green speckles. I have seen this too with a cable that can't handle what the box is putting out. Whether it's a weak box or cable, a better cable fixes this usually.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

There's a setting for resolutions under the HDMI configuration in the HD100's boot menu. Somehow I had it set to use 480p by default. This conflicted somehow w/ me setting anything higher than 720p in Sage's settings.

If everyone thinks my '1080p-rated' cable is not behaving then I will drop by Best Buy on the way home and get a $40 6ft-er or so and see what happens. Thing is... even at the other lower resolutions I still got NO audio through the HDMI link. Tried all 3 on the TV.

I can live w/ RCA audio and component video for now, but at some point 5.1 will be missed and I'll need the HDMI working.

Edit: I tried a fresh install on a wireless-b laptop last night I should have mentioned. Even on this slow of a link I got google video and SD recordings to play... however, still no audio via HDMI.

Price is not the leading indicator of quality on HDMI cables. A lot of cables that get shipped with monitors etc have smaller size conductors, don't have ferrite chokes, etc... I have had very good experience with the monoprice.com HDMI cables. Some of this is dependent on how the HDMI is driven by the video card, but I have seen funkiness in connectors and such in HDMI cables cause this kind of problem. Hence my question about if it had problems with component.

Interesting that it can do 1080p over component though.

thx
mike

[valnar]

The current "top-o-the-line" HDMI cables are HDMI 1.3a category 2 certified. There are many places to get them, but the best value is from Monoprice.com

Scroll to the bottom section under "28AWG HDMI 1.3a Category 2 Certified Male to Male Cables"

-Robert

[sam99]

Originally Posted by valnar

The current "top-o-the-line" HDMI cables are HDMI 1.3a category 2 certified. There are many places to get them, but the best value is from Monoprice.com

Scroll to the bottom section under "28AWG HDMI 1.3a Category 2 Certified Male to Male Cables"

-Robert

just ordered 4 6ft HDMI and 2 6ft toslink cables for less than i paid for my 6 ft hdmi-dvi cable at Best Buy when i bought my tv.

[hemicuda]

I don't know what the heck is going on now.... the monoprice hdmi cable is now passing audio. this is after I went to Best Buy and picked up a $70 4ft "quality" cable that didn't do as good. Still can't get 1080p to lock in. TV blinks and sometimes displays invalid format. last ditch effort will be to take that one back (going to return it either way) and bite the bullet for a $120 monster. if that works then I'll look into an equivalent monoprice offer; just don't want to wait a week to find out if it's a cable issue or HD100 port issue. thanks for all the suggestions.

next thing... I guess "smooth" FF/REW only has one speed on HD content?

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Price is not the leading indicator of quality on HDMI cables. A lot of cables that get shipped with monitors etc have smaller size conductors, don't have ferrite chokes, etc... I have had very good experience with the monoprice.com HDMI cables. Some of this is dependent on how the HDMI is driven by the video card, but I have seen funkiness in connectors and such in HDMI cables cause this kind of problem. Hence my question about if it had problems with component.

Interesting that it can do 1080p over component though.

thx
mike

I have a business acquaintance who does HT installs in LA, all high end. He and his peers all hate hdmi and are sticking with component because of these issues. The allure of a single cable when you're not hiding it all behind a wall is almost too good to pass up though.

B

[hemicuda]

I turned in a trouble ticket on the front IR wndow. My wife would have a fit if I voided the warranty on a $200 STB. I may try that $3 'eye' someone posted a link to in another thread until Sage can get things fixed (hope they step up to it).