The above sets are JVC's take on LCoS (Sony call theirs SXRD) and are HDTV (1280x720) sets with HDMI inputs and HDCP.

I have had one for the past 4 months and have never been able to get a PC to display an image on the set over HDMI (using a DVI to HDMI connector) despite using a video card that purports to be able to generate a standard HTDV signal over DVI (in my case 1280x720 at 720P).


JVC New Zealand had no idea so I e-mailed JVC Australia. After some strange questions from them like where I lived, what suburb(!), what model, etc. they said they knew what the problem was. I then get a note from JVC NZ who said they were referred to me from Australia and that a local Wellington service company would come to fix the set.

Well 4 months later a guy finally came around. The delay was for a number of reasons but I won't go into that. Anyway I had a chance to read the service bulletin. Turns out that these sets have an issue with enforcing HDCP over DVI. So if you provide a signal from a DVI source, using an adapter, the TV requires the signal to be HDCP compliant, tries to negotiate HDCP and fails and rather than giving you an error message, just display a no signal blue screen. Apparently this does not occur with a HDMI to HDMI connection (can't think why not).

Anyway the fix is to upgrade the firmware in an EEPROM. The tech duly connected his PC to a service port on the back of the set to the parallel printer port on his laptop. The program was able to read the EEPROM but when he tried to open up a file containing the revised firmware on his HD, the application would not display the Open File dialogue!  I tried the software on my PC and it worked fine and I would have used that machine to do the upgrade but alas, it has no parallel printer port!  He is going to try to find another laptop that will work. Interestingly since the software requires direct access to the parallel port, for Win2K and XP you need to install a special driver that will allow direct access to the port. This is not required under Win98!

I was interesting in that apparently I am the first (perhaps only) person who has complained about this problem. I can only surmise that either 1) users who are using the HDMI port from say an upscaling DVD player have a DVD player that supports HDCP or 2) nobody is trying to use the display for PC input via HDMI. In fact since I can't I am using a VGA to component adapter instead.

According to the tech, he has done firmware upgrades on other brands of sets for similar reasons.  This makes me wonder how much checking is done at the factory for sets for this market where HD content is not available so probably not being used

Larry