Sony blu-ray puzzle

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Rikkitic

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#185385 20-Nov-2015 15:15

I have a Sony BDP-S370 Blu-ray player I bought a few years ago. It is essentially new as it has literally only been used once or twice. It is connected to a Sony KDL-50W670A TV. Both devices work fine and picture quality is good, but today I was playing with the blu-ray and I noticed that it was 1080i, not 1080p. Since both devices are capable of 1080p, I got to wondering if a setting might be wrong and decided to check.

No problem with the TV, it displays full 1080p with other sources. I checked the player, which was set to auto. I changed that to 1080p and the display started flashing. I put it back to 1080i and everything was okay again.

Can someone explain what is wrong with this picture? Both devices are supposed to be 1080p capable, and the TV has no problem with other sources, but the Blu-ray produces a flashing screen if set to 1080p and only works correctly if set to 1080i. Am I missing something here?

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#1431784 20-Nov-2015 15:17

1080p24

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RunningMan

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#1431791 20-Nov-2015 15:33

Bad HDMI cable?

Rikkitic

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#1431818 20-Nov-2015 16:13

Spyware: 1080p24

And your point is? I get the same result regardless of the pulldown setting.

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Dunnersfella

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#1431821 20-Nov-2015 16:14

Yup - it will be either be the first two comments.
One device may not be sending or accepting 24p... or, the cable is not capable of 1080p bandwidth, so it is dropping the signal to 1080i in order to handle the jandal.

Obviously, you'll want to update the firmware on both products and do a full factory reset.

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#1431826 20-Nov-2015 16:33

bluray player outputs 1080i60 or 1080p24, your TV most likely cannot accept 1080p24.

Rikkitic

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#1431839 20-Nov-2015 16:40

OK thanks for the info. TV specs say it can handle 1080/24p. HDMI cables are fairly standard but I will try swapping them anyway. What cable spec would be guaranteed to work with this?

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Rikkitic

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#1432126 21-Nov-2015 11:50

Someone here once said that I don't seem to have simple problems. The issue turned out to be a combination of a slow cable and a shonky HDMI switch. When I bypassed the switch to test, the cable produced the same result. I have a lot of switches and cables so it took awhile to narrow things down. The switch is the main culprit. Another identical one works fine. Go figure.

Thanks again to everyone who helped me with this. I learned some things I didn't know about cables, and now also switches.

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Dunnersfella

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#1432226 21-Nov-2015 14:53

Good to hear you had it sorted... but you neglected to mention that there was an HDMI switch involved, this would have been the very first place to investigate.

Rikkitic

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#1432258 21-Nov-2015 15:36

Sorry, I didn't mention it because that was the very first thing I suspected and I immediately bypassed it but that didn't clear up the problem. Testing was complicated because I have a lot of cables and switches and some are difficult to get at and I had to work through all of them. The first thing I did was go through the cables one by one, using each to make a direct connection between the blu-ray and the TV. Each one worked until I found the one that didn't, which turned out to be one of those connecting the shonky switch. So then I had to rig the switch with cables that I knew did work, and when I still had the problem, I knew the switch was also part of it. The connections are complicated because of the number of devices I am switching between and also because my stupid Sony TV, which is good in all other respects, only has 2 (!) HDMI ports.

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kiwifidget

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#1432263 21-Nov-2015 15:50

Rikkitic: Testing was complicated because I have a lot of cables and switches and some are difficult to get at and I had to work through all of them.

I think I know why you dont have any simple problems? :)

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Dunnersfella

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#1432540 22-Nov-2015 10:21

Rikkitic: Sorry, I didn't mention it because that was the very first thing I suspected and I immediately bypassed it but that didn't clear up the problem. Testing was complicated because I have a lot of cables and switches and some are difficult to get at and I had to work through all of them. The first thing I did was go through the cables one by one, using each to make a direct connection between the blu-ray and the TV. Each one worked until I found the one that didn't, which turned out to be one of those connecting the shonky switch. So then I had to rig the switch with cables that I knew did work, and when I still had the problem, I knew the switch was also part of it. The connections are complicated because of the number of devices I am switching between and also because my stupid Sony TV, which is good in all other respects, only has 2 (!) HDMI ports.

All good, how many devices are you connecting?

Rikkitic

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#1432551 22-Nov-2015 11:09

Too many but I don't know any other way to do it. First, there is the Sky decoder which gets upscaled to HDMI through the DVR. That is one. Next are the two STBs, one for terrestrial Freeview, the other for the satellites. That makes three HDMIs. Then there is the blu-ray, 4. Next the streaming computer, which feeds through the Hauppauge HDMI recorder, that is 5 (actually 6 when the computer output is switched elsewhere). Then the HDMI input to the Hauppauge, which is 6 or 7. Finally, the splitter to record off the blu-ray, which makes 7 or 8, but at the moment is not switched because I ran out of possibilities so I just replug the cables when I want to use it. If you know a better way to do all this I would be delighted to hear it.

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richms

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#1432565 22-Nov-2015 12:05

HDMI matrix switch if you are wanting to get things into a capture device to record as well. 4x2 ones are pretty cheap, when you get larger than that they get expensive.

Also not all hdmi switches re-generate the signals, some are just passing them thru with additional loss from the switch.

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Rikkitic

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#1432619 22-Nov-2015 12:33

OK, thanks for the tip. I will look into it. As far as I know, all of my switches do re-generate the signal. Two are button-operated because they don't need to be changed on the fly, one is infra-red programmed into a Harmony universal remote.

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Rikkitic

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#1432642 22-Nov-2015 14:43

I took a look at matrix switches but I think they are overkill for my situation. The Sony has an awkward interface for integrated switching and the only reason I was using both HDMI ports is because my existing IR switch only has three outputs. So I bought a 5-port switch instead and that will run everything through the HDMI 1 port on the Sony and simplify some other stuff along the way. Sometimes less really is more.

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