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[bunglemebaby]

I've been having an issue for a while now that I can't figure out. When I leave Media Center open in Theater View and turn off the TV, when I turn it back on again later only the top left portion of the screen is populated with anything. The problem is remedied by exiting Theater View and going back again, but it happens every time I turn the TV on.


Note that if nothing else is open "behind" MC, there is just black where the Spotify interface can be seen in this picture.


Any ideas what could cause this? Settings? TV/AVR? Bug? Other?

EDIT: Also, is there a way to set the image size on the forum here? That pic is huger than need be.

[MrHaugen]

I've had this problem for a long time, but I did solve it in the end.

The reason for this behavior is some kind of problem with HDMI handshakes on wakeup of the TV. The PC goes to default low res when the stream is cut off, and only a theater view exit will reset the handshake and correct resolution.

I've solved this by alway putting my PC in sleep when I turn of the TV. This is done with the Harmony 900 remote with macros. The important thing here is to turn on the TV BEFORE the PC. Then everything is good. Except for the background in theater view. This will stay at the small size until a new image is shown. If yo do not have a remote, this might not be a good solution. I can understand that.

I would suggest two things. I suspect only JRiver is able to do something with the root problem here...
1. Is it possible for Theater View to check if the display is at it's normal resolution every couple of seconds or something? If not, send a refresh signal or what ever to the TV.
2. When waking up from sleep, do the same resolution check and refresh the background image.

[Visth]

I recall I had a similar hdmi hand shake issue with another computer. Graphic cards were different. Now I don't on my htpc. HDMI handshakes are buggy as hell. You have a Sony tv by chance?

You may also luck out by running the pc hdmi through an amplifier with hdmi in and out.

[bunglemebaby]

Thanks for the info. I don't think I'll be able to use your work around MrHaugen, as my HTPC serves double duty as my media server computer, so even if I were to get a fancier remote and automate as mentioned I would have times when the computer would be woken when connecting from clients. I do most of my music listening from another machine, so this would be fairly common.

My setup is currently the onboard graphics from a S.B. i3 going HDMI to a Denon 1712 AVR, then HDMI to a Samsung LCD TV (circa 2009-ish). Could there be any handshake problems arising from the order in which I turn on my AVR and TV? The thing that makes me wonder about this is that there was definitely a period of time where I did not see this issue at all, plus a brief respite of a week or so after it first began. I'll test this out when I get home tonight.

It would definitely be nice to have MC check for this though, as having a set process to follow to start watching TV is not ideal (nor is buying a $150 remote). When I want to watch the tube, I don't want to have to think at all   

[mbagge]

If your monitor and your TV are using same screen resolution, you might get rid of this behavior.
Otherwise you have to get a 'HDMI box' that remembers the EDID info from the TV when it is turned off.

[MrHaugen]

Otherwise you have to get a 'HDMI box' that remembers the EDID info from the TV when it is turned off.

Does not Receivers have this function? Mine are old, but I hpe new receivers have this function. If so, I might replace mine.

[CountryBumkin]

There is a long thread on the AVS Forum on how to set up the EDID .inf file on your computer to circumvent the handshake issue. The EDID topic was focused mainly on adding EDID info to the computer so the system would know the correct AVR info (number of channels and formats recognized/played) at start up but I think it would also help in your case.
See http://www.avsforum.com/t/1091403/edid-override-thread

[bunglemebaby]

Thanks for that AVS thread link. I do think that route would probably help me out, but I just haven't had the time to really investigate that path.

On the brighter side, I just wanted to mention that if I turn my TV on first (and let it initialize completely) then turn on my AVR, I don't see this issue. So if you've stumbled upon this thread with a similar problem, give that a try if it's an acceptable enough solution for you. Until I've got time to learn how to properly modify EDID config files, it'll have to do for me.