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[toadleyb]

I have a HTPC with an Asus P7H55-M Pro motherboard and a core i3 processor.  I have the HDMI (using the processors onboard sound and video) out on the PC connected to a Denon AVR-789 and then the Denon connected to my Samsung Television.  I have several DVD-Audio rips in Flac format that I am able to play through Wasapi and get multichannel sound on my Denon.  It sounds wonderful.

Here is my problem.  Sometimes I like to listen to the music with the Television off.  If I fire up the computer and start media center and then shut off the television Media Center Crashes.  I would like to be able to start it up and then control it using webremote without having the television on.  Is there a setting I can change somewhere to make this possible.

Thanks for any help any one can offer.  I searched the forums and could not find anything on this issue.

[JimH]

That may be a driver problem.  You could try updating.

Make sure you have a recent build.  MC15.0.164 is at the top of this board.

For a test, try connecting directly to the TV to see if it still crashes. 

I use MC with and without the TV all the time, and I don't see this problem.

[fitbrit]

This is an HDMI handshake issue. It happens to me too with my Onkyo TX-NR5007. Somehow the HDMI detects that the TV is connected via the receiver. When you turn off the TV, there's panic, confusion and suspicion! The connection between PC and receiver seems to be severed, and MC may or may not crash at that point. Does any other software allow you to do what you're asking. e.g. can you play a movie in MPC-HC, turn off the TV and continue to hear the soundtrack?

[jmone]

Firtbrit is correct in that it is a HDMI handshake issue.  To be specific, EDID information is being sent to your PC (from both your AVR and your TV) that tells your PC what Video and Audio formats they can accept.  The issue is when you power one (or both off) this information either stops being transmitted (if you power everthing off) or is changed (by powering off one of the devices).  Different chipsets on the PC handle these events differently, and to make matters worse different AVR's also have different behaviour.  The crash is caused by MC losing the Audio renderer at this point but other typical issues can be the Video being reset to Windows Default eg 800x600,  only getting Stereo etc.  You have a couple of options:
1) Check out if anyone has an EDID Override working with your setup http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1091403
2) Get a new Video Card that has (less) of an issue eg ATI 5xxx series seems to be better than the embedded stuff (I really had issues with Intel G33)
3) Get a DVI Detective+ (or similar) which sits between your PC and the AV Equipment and keeps broadcasting the EDID data even when stuff is turned off or changed.  I used this to fix my issues with the G33 (worked perfectly) and while I've upgraded several time it still sits there (so I don't really know if I still need it with my HD5450).

Thanks
Nathan

[JimH]

I've added this to the wiki:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/HDMI_Problems

[toadleyb]

Thanks for all the really quick responses.  I will try out some of the options here and let you know what happens.

[toadleyb]

Okay so I just updated my Intel HD graphics driver to the latest version.  I can now shut off the TV and Media Center will stop playing but then using webremote I am able to restart it.  I am now listening to music with the TV off and typing this on my laptop.

Thanks again for the help