Wobbly picture with ATV2 - anyone else?

Well, it is official. The "Senior Advisor" support guy at Apple says apple are NOT supporting ATV2 on DVI TV's.

"Compatible with high-definition TVs with HDMI and capable of 720p 60/50Hz"

Kind of crazy since ALL OTHER devices work fine (Roku, Tivo, DVD, etc).
And since the ONLY difference between DVI and HDMI is that HDMI carries sound. The video specification is identical.

He said not to expect any patches or updates to fix the issue. And there are no "special" cables that will solve it either.

Guess it's return time. Bummer.

Shirley,
What brand and model of cable are you using? Maybe there is a difference?
What brand and model of TV?

Thanks,
jck

I have a Sony 42" HDTV KDF-42WE655. I can confirm this wobbly effect. While my PS3, MacMini, MacPro hooked up via HDMI2DVI dongle works 100% in 720p. This is clearly ATV2 related issue.

I might have to return this back to the store.

i really hope it is a bummed set of Apple TV's, I love this one it looks awesome is small its perfect, i just hope when i talk to the apple techs tonight that they can either fix the problem, or if getting a new ATV will fix it. Come on Apple! Don't let us down!

I am in the US but have a German-made TV, Loewe. I have a fabulous picture (now that the ATV is working) via HDMI - DVI and audio through a separate cable and device.

I also have the wobbly picture on my TV. I have a Panasonic Wide Screen TV CT-34WX53 with a DVI input and using a HDMI to DVI connection. I was using this cable and DVI port with no issues on my high definition PVR. I also noticed that the picture is not in the widescreen format. Is this an issue for others as well?

Mine arrived today and has the wavy line issue as well. The television is a Panasonic TH-42PX25 with a HDMI connector; but "after further review" I see it only does 480 and 1080 in HDMI. Bummer! I never even thought this would be an issue since anything else we have ever connected to this TV including Macbooks work like a champ.

I am having the same issue. I purchased a brand new HDMI cable for $80 still wavy. I am getting sea sick

I too just came home with ATV2 and have the wavy issue on my older TV. It only supports 1080i via DVI. I have it connected to a relatively new Yamaha receiver with HDMI switching (works fine on everything else) using an HDMI->DVI adapter. When I connect ATV2 directly to the TV, I get snow, which the user guide says is because of the lack of 720p. When I connect it to a newer Vizio that does support 720p, no problem. So, it looks to me that I'm out of luck with the older TV, which *****, as that's where I want the device.

So, two questions:

- is it odd that Apple would be so restrictive as to the devices they support? Do the own stock in TV manufacturers?

- assuming this isn't irritating me enough to stay away, would it make sense to put an original ATV on the older TV and put the ATV2 on the newer so both TVs have the similar content?

Thanks.

Bryan

Ok so i just talked to tech support, they said that my tv doesn't support 720p, he totally agreed with me when i said you would think a 1080i tv would display 720p. But it seems thats the reason, our tv's are too old. I told him i wasn't going to return it, in hopes of apple releasing a firmware update which includes a resolution setting. this *****...

Another Panasonic TH-42PX25 with the wobbly pic on ATV2. I already knew this TC doesn't natively support 720 in HDMI (it only does 480 and 1080)... but since everything else I've ever hooked up to it via HDMI has worked great, including other 720 devices and other Apple devices, I foolishly assumed this would work also. Okay, Apple - you want to only support 720 input streaming for bandwidth reasons, I'm okay with that. But only supporting 720 OUTPUT? in 2010, that's just stupid.

This particular TV DOES support 720p through the PC (VGA) input... but a converter that does HDMI to VGA while maintaining HDCP is way seriously pricey.

I'll keep this ATV2 until the day before I can return it for a full refund. If Apple hasn't fixed this output issue in that time, I'm returning it... and my friends who tried to talk me into the Roku instead will win.

"It just works." NOT.

randydog wrote:

This particular TV DOES support 720p through the PC (VGA) input... but a converter that does HDMI to VGA while maintaining HDCP is way seriously pricey.

Got a link to the converter you mentioned? I went looking for a new A/V receiver that upgrades 720P to 1080i but haven't found one that does that conversion.

randydog wrote:
I'll keep this ATV2 until the day before I can return it for a full refund. If Apple hasn't fixed this output issue in that time, I'm returning it... and my friends who tried to talk me into the Roku instead will win.

From my recent experience with a TH-42PD25, the current Roku HD XR will NOT sync properly with the TV using the HDMI connection either as it seems to output 720p only on HDMI without regard to what the TV's side of the interface "says" it can handle. Perhaps the newly announced but not yet shipping Roku XD or XD/S which purport to support 1080p can also easily drop down to 1080i but that is pure speculation.

avid_dk wrote:

I went looking for a new A/V receiver that upgrades 720P to 1080i but haven't found one that does that conversion.

I find it hard to think of conversion from 720p to 1080i as an upgrade. More lines perhaps, but not a better picture. It seems to me that 720p provides way more picture information for the TV to process per unit time than 1080i since interlaced takes two full scan cycles to cover all 1080 lines, or effectively only 540 lines in the same amount of time as 720p. With that in mind, these older TVs simply don't and can't support the processing load required to handle 720p. Note that then can do 480p which, if you think about it along these lines, is approximately the same in terms of the amount of "picture information" as 1080i.

The only solution will be for the ATV2 to properly sense the interface in use and drop back to 1080i or make it somehow selectable within the ATV2 user interface. Or, punt and get a newer TV.