Intermittent dropouts when streaming with an Apple TV with an A/V receiver, TV and cable DVR box?

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Level 1

12 points

Intermittent dropouts when streaming with an Apple TV with an A/V receiver, TV and cable DVR box?

When streaming on my newly installed Apple TV 3rd generation, the screen will intermittently go black, video and audio disappear, and goes back to the program. It will alternate like this seemingly at random; sometimes just a few seconds, sometimes a minute or more. I have a Spectrum DVR connected to an older (2014) Pioneer A/V receiver on the receiver's SAT/CBL HDMI port. I've connected the Apple TV to the Game HDMI port. I have the HDMI monitor out going to the ARC input on a Samsung TV. The Pioneer receiver has ARC enabled and CEC enabled. Our wifi network is GB fiber to the house connected to a Netgear Orbi router with two satellites. I've rebooted the router and satellites and the Apple TV. One of the satellites was about 8 feet away from the Apple TV, and I've moved it to within 3 feet. A speedtest shows that my iPhone 12 in the same room is getting 320+ GB, so the wifi speed is more than adequate.

I can't get the Apple TV to stream smoothly. To isolate the Apple TV from the receiver, I've connected the Apple TV directly to a non-ARC HDMI input on the TV and listened to programming over the TV's speakers, bypassing the receiver entirely; I experience no problems whatsoever when streaming this way. But when reconnecting the Apple TV to the Game HDMI port on the receiver, the problems start again. Sometimes, we will experience a flash of green over the whole TV screen along with the intermittent black screen video/audio dropout.

It's like something is causing a conflict with the Apple TV. The Samsung TV has wifi enabled, and I don't know if that could be causing a conflict. That would leave the receiver as being the culprit. The manual says that the receiver is 4K/60p capable. Finally, I can control the receiver volume with the Apple TV remote, but the receiver won't power off when powering off with the Apple TV remote. I want to believe a new receiver would solve the problem, but that would be an expensive mistake to make if the problem persists.

Has anyone else experienced intermittent dropouts when streaming with an Apple TV with an A/V receiver, TV and cable DVR box?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Apple TV 4K, tvOS 17

Posted on Oct 29, 2024 5:05 PM

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Answer 1

roxfan25 Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 30, 2024 6:40 AM in response to roxfan25

I think I found the dropout problem, if anyone is interested: After some more switching HDMI cables around, I seem to have isolated the problem to the receiver. The receiver came out (2014) before HDR (2016) and the circuitry can't keep up. I had to select 1080p SDR in the Apple TV settings. It appears to be stable now, but I'll probably end up getting a newer receiver that will handle HDR10+ so that I can use the default Apple TV setting (4K HDR10+). I imagine this will also take care of the Pioneer's wonky CEC power on/off issue.

FYI: I don't think this applies to Samsung TVs, but if your TV has a "Fast Audio Switching" feature, try turning it off. I was watching a YouTube video where someone was having the same type of intermittent dropout/green screen/black screen issue, and turning off Fast Audio Switching helped that problem.

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