HDMI Voltage Inserter

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smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#62113 30-May-2010 10:36

Has anyone seen anything like this HDMI Voltage Inserter, available in NZ?

I'm experiencing intermittent video dropout problems to my projector, which seem to occur when some other items in the house kick in - e.g. I noticed it coincide once at the exact second that the fridge compressor kicked in, and I can also simulate it when turning on a lamp with an energy-saving bulb.

The reason I think this might cure the problem, is that if I connect my blu-ray player direct to the projector, and turn the lamp on/off repeatedly, the picture doesn't drop at all. But connect the receiver to the projector, and turn the lamp on/off, the picture drops more often than not when the lamp is turned on, and then re-appears a second or so later.

This makes me think that the blu-ray is outputting a stronger voltage (or maybe current?) than the receiver, and the signal is not affected by other appliances turning on. I'm using good quality cables from Rapalloav between the source and the display (at either end of an HDMI/Cat5 wall plate), and the fact that it works okay when the blu-ray is connected direct eliminates the cables as being the problem point.

I've tried a regular HDMI signal booster and that didn't make the slightest bit of difference.

Anyone got any thoughts / comments or other suggestions?

Thanks.

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489 posts

Ultimate Geek

#336237 30-May-2010 11:17

How about putting the receiver on a cheap UPS or other power filtering device to smooth out any fluctuations?

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richms

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#336424 31-May-2010 01:43

Just inserting more available current on the pins that are there for it will not achieve anything, you need an actual booster to do what you are asking, which is what this device would be made to power when your source equipment cannot.

Is the reciver upscaling to 60Hz and the bluray outputting 24 or something? You are seeing interference not a loss of voltage. a CFL lamp will not take much current, but they spew out noise.

If the procector is on a different power circtuit to the reciver that may be the issue. Most recievers are grounded, most projectors are as well (well the ones I have used have all had 3 pins) so thats an instant groundloop there if they are on different circtuits.

Richard rich.ms

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#336784 31-May-2010 21:16

Filterer: How about putting the receiver on a cheap UPS or other power filtering device to smooth out any fluctuations?

I had wondered about that option actually, and might give it a go if I can find one suitably small enough to fit behind the entertainment cabinet.

What rating UPS should I be looking for - I've never been too sure how to read the settings (e.g Watts vs VA rating)? The receiver has a quoted power consumption of 450W, but I'll be amazed if it's actually going that high - it certainly doesn't get that hot. I'll put a power meter on it to be sure.

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#336787 31-May-2010 21:21

richms: Just inserting more available current on the pins that are there for it will not achieve anything, you need an actual booster to do what you are asking, which is what this device would be made to power when your source equipment cannot.

Is the reciver upscaling to 60Hz and the bluray outputting 24 or something? You are seeing interference not a loss of voltage. a CFL lamp will not take much current, but they spew out noise.

If the procector is on a different power circtuit to the reciver that may be the issue. Most recievers are grounded, most projectors are as well (well the ones I have used have all had 3 pins) so thats an instant groundloop there if they are on different circtuits.

I've tried the receiver with upscaling both on and off, and it didn't make any difference. It also still does it when using Sky (non-HDMI input) as a source and doing it's own internal video conversion to output to HDMI (whether scaling in the process or not).

I haven't checked the power circuits they're plugged into yet, but I'd wondered whether that was a potential issue too. How come it makes a difference if they're on different circuits though - re your ground-loop comment?

richms

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#336870 1-Jun-2010 01:52

every device with a switchmode power supply will couple the live and the neutral to the chassis with some filter capaciters to meet some stupid EMC compliance. This means that spikes on the line have a low impedance connection to the chassis of equipment.

If things are on the same circuit then the spikes are usually the same so there is no overall difference between the chassis of the gear. Its worse if the gear is earthed with a 3 pin plug at both ends, but still happens with 2 pin double insulated stuff.

Richard rich.ms

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#337189 1-Jun-2010 22:57

richms: every device with a switchmode power supply will couple the live and the neutral to the chassis with some filter capaciters to meet some stupid EMC compliance. This means that spikes on the line have a low impedance connection to the chassis of equipment.

If things are on the same circuit then the spikes are usually the same so there is no overall difference between the chassis of the gear. Its worse if the gear is earthed with a 3 pin plug at both ends, but still happens with 2 pin double insulated stuff.

@ richms: I think you're on to something here. I just plugged my projector into the same power outlet that the receiver's on, via a long extension lead, and did the lamp on/off test probably about 20 times over three or four minutes or so, and the picture didn't drop once.

On a couple of occasions I did get the briefest of flicks of interference, lasting only a fraction of a second, but the picture essentially didn't disappear - certainly nowhere near as noticeably as previously where it'd be gone for a couple of seconds.

Reconnecting the projector to it's usual ceiling power outlet, and doing the lamp test again, the picture disappeared on the 3rd or 4th time of turning the lamp on, and a few more times after that. I reconnected back to the extension lead a few minutes later, and tested again, and once more, no drop outs.

This certainly suggests that the ceiling power outlet is on a different circuit to the receiver one, so I'll have to look at getting that re-wired.

Granted this testing has only been for a few minutes of viewing, so the next time we watch a movie (probably this weekend), I'll connect the projector via the extension lead and see if we get any drop outs. I'm hoping we don't! I'll do a follow-up post to report if this was successful or not.

One more thing - is it worth clipping a ferrite bead onto the HDMI cable going into the projector to completely eliminate any other remaining interference, or won't that make any difference?

Many thanks for your advice on this problem. It's been doing my head in!!!!

FYI - there's an interesting site I found on ground loops here.

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#338715 6-Jun-2010 09:30

Right, well it's not a ground loop issue. I hooked the projector up to the same power outlets as the receiver last night, and watched a movie. In a 2-hour period the signal dropped three times - only for a second each time, and it came back fine, but it disappeared none-the-less.

So back to the drawing board. Next test will be to hook the bluray up directly and watch a movie straight from that - with only the sound being sent to the receiver. That should confirm if it's a power supply issue on the HDMI port on the receiver.

Is it worth clipping some ferrite beads on? Do they really make any difference? Would they fix this problem?

Anyone got any other ideas?

Brunzy

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#338721 6-Jun-2010 09:49

smarsden: Has anyone seen anything like this HDMI Voltage Inserter, available in NZ?

I'm experiencing intermittent video dropout problems to my projector, which seem to occur when some other items in the house kick in - e.g. I noticed it coincide once at the exact second that the fridge compressor kicked in, and I can also simulate it when turning on a lamp with an energy-saving bulb.

The reason I think this might cure the problem, is that if I connect my blu-ray player direct to the projector, and turn the lamp on/off repeatedly, the picture doesn't drop at all. But connect the receiver to the projector, and turn the lamp on/off, the picture drops more often than not when the lamp is turned on, and then re-appears a second or so later.

This makes me think that the blu-ray is outputting a stronger voltage (or maybe current?) than the receiver, and the signal is not affected by other appliances turning on. I'm using good quality cables from Rapalloav between the source and the display (at either end of an HDMI/Cat5 wall plate), and the fact that it works okay when the blu-ray is connected direct eliminates the cables as being the problem point.

I've tried a regular HDMI signal booster and that didn't make the slightest bit of difference.

Anyone got any thoughts / comments or other suggestions?

Thanks.

But that does not eliminate the Cat5e,/ wallplate connection.
Sounds like Interference, can you hook up a temporary HDMI from the Rec to the proj?

richms

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#338963 7-Jun-2010 09:35

are the cat-5 wall plates proper active ones, or just taking the hdmi and directly connecting it to the cat-5 cables. Seen some pretty lousy ones around that IMO would barely work at VGA res.

Richard rich.ms

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#339061 7-Jun-2010 17:08

Brunzy:
But that does not eliminate the Cat5e,/ wallplate connection.
Sounds like Interference, can you hook up a temporary HDMI from the Rec to the proj?

Actually, I think I can eliminate the Cat5e / wallplate connection. When I said I hooked the blu-ray up directly to the projector, I did actually mean via the Cat5E/wallplate - not via a single short HDMI cable. However, that is still the one definitive test that I need to do over a full couple of hours to be really sure if it's the HDMI output on the receiver.

Also, another thing I should add, is that about 18 months or so ago, before I got the current wall plates and Cat6 installed, I tried Jaycar's equivalent baluns (which are powered at the source end), with some RJ45 terminated Cat5e cable, and had the same problem with those two. Since this was well before I had the blu-ray player, and therefore had no other source to try A-B tests with, I thought it was those baluns that were faulty, so returned them. So that was with different baluns, and different Cat5/6 cables, and the same problem.

I agree that it seems to be an interference issue of some sort - trying to identify the source of the interference is another thing entirely!! :-)

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#339066 7-Jun-2010 17:18

richms: are the cat-5 wall plates proper active ones, or just taking the hdmi and directly connecting it to the cat-5 cables. Seen some pretty lousy ones around that IMO would barely work at VGA res.

The wall plates are passive (these ones), and show a 1080p picture fine - no sparkles or other problems at all - aside from this intermittent dropout problem. They draw some power from the display - the display end plate has two lights on it, which come on to confirm signal verification. The fact that they seem to work 99.9% of the time leads me to believe that they're okay (but true, the same argument could be said for the other components in the chain too).

I'll post results from the blu-ray player connected direct to the source plate, with only sound going to the receiver, once I've done it.

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#340441 10-Jun-2010 22:04

Okay, so last night I connected things up so the blu-ray player was doing video straight to the projector by HDMI via the HDMI-Cat6-HDMI wallplates. Connected a couple of RCA leads for left/right audio to the receiver for sound.

The result? Perfect. No drop-outs at all, during a 2.5 hour movie. Even flicked the lamp on a few times to test, and the image didn't flicker once.

So this tells me that:

The HDMI-Cat6-HDMI connection is fine (all cabling and both wallplates).

The projector is also fine.

The blu-ray player is fine.

The receiver's HDMI output is fine if connected to a local TV by a short HDMI lead (I've tested this too with no image drop-outs).

The receiver's HDMI output is not fine if connected to the projector (by the HDMI-Cat6-HDMI)

Therefore, this brings me back to the original question of the HDMI voltage inserter. Is it simply a case that the receiver's HDMI output is not sending as strong a signal as the blu-ray player's output, with the result that any interference that enters the signal path from receiver to projector may result in a drop-out? The blurb relating to the voltage inserter seems to suggest that it will solve this problem.

I'm going to contact the Denon distributor also though, and ask them if there are any updates of any kind that can be applied to the receiver in relation to this issue.

richms

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#340461 10-Jun-2010 22:38

There are many HDMI amplifiers available, but if there is active electronics in the wall plate then it will negate any boost provided before them since they will be regenerating the signal.

They do help with long single cables, or with the el-crapo passive hdmi to cat6 wallplates.

Try pulling all external connections like phone, antenna, sat and ethernet from the home theater and try it again with just power to it, I still think its a groundloop issue more than the cables picking up interference.

Richard rich.ms

smarsden

118 posts

Master Geek

#340467 10-Jun-2010 23:08

richms: There are many HDMI amplifiers available, but if there is active electronics in the wall plate then it will negate any boost provided before them since they will be regenerating the signal.

They do help with long single cables, or with the el-crapo passive hdmi to cat6 wallplates.

Try pulling all external connections like phone, antenna, sat and ethernet from the home theater and try it again with just power to it, I still think its a groundloop issue more than the cables picking up interference.

As far as I'm aware, the only electronics in the wallplate are in the display-end one. I think the source-end one is passive.

Can you point me in the direction of an HDMI amplifier available in NZ that you think might boost the signal? I have already tried this from Jaycar, putting it between the receiver output and the source-end wallplate, and it made no difference.

I just tried disconnecting phone, aerials, and sat from other devices (left ethernet, otherwise internet connection drops!), and tested it, with no difference. Note that the only cables connected to the receiver are normally power, speaker cables, 1 x HDMI in (from blu-ray), 1 x composite+l/r audio (from Sky), and component + HDMI out to projector. So the phone, aerials, and sat connections I disconnected where actually those to the Sky box. No other boxes are normally connected to the receiver other than Sky and the bluray, so for this test I removed all external input connections, leaving only the speakers, the video outputs and the power. The picture still intermittently dropped.

Jaxson

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#340536 11-Jun-2010 09:45

Why are you using Cat cable?
How far is it to your projector from your receiver?
How about a straight hdmi cable if it's 10m or under, or an amplified cable if it's 15m or so?

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