Arcade99

Q: HDMI Handshake problems every 20 - 30 minutes - Color Inversion Issue

Dear all,

I used the old ATV for a long time and never had problems with it. Yesterday my new ATV 2 arrived. The setup was very easy but after a few minutes a problem with HDMI Handshake occurred and repeats at least every 20-30 minutes:

I get a green screen for one or two seconds and then the picture appears again with some kind of inverted colors.

I use a Philips 40 inch 7664 LED LCD with the newest firmware installed.

Any idea what I could to to fix this issue?

Thanks

<Thread Title Amended by Host>

iMac (late 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jan 5, 2011 5:57 AM

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Q: HDMI Handshake problems every 20 - 30 minutes - Color Inversion Issue

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  • by fan232,

    fan232 fan232 Jan 14, 2011 7:25 AM in response to Coldfire
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 7:25 AM in response to Coldfire
    Yes please, do tell..
    At the very least it might be a cheaper short term solution until Apple fixes this issue.

    Yes I am still hopeful.
  • by itsmechris,

    itsmechris itsmechris Jan 14, 2011 9:18 AM in response to fan232
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 9:18 AM in response to fan232
    So sorry, 2 1/2 hour without problems but then colors switched. At least you just need to switch between the 2 ports to correct the colors. It's a bit faster then changing the TV input... So we still have to wait for Apple to solve the problem... but remember hope dies last
  • by dmp8591,

    dmp8591 dmp8591 Jan 14, 2011 9:53 AM in response to Arcade99
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 9:53 AM in response to Arcade99
    The unit I have is a replacement (by Apple) after the first one I had crashed during the recent update process. This replacement unit worked perfectly on one system (with a Sony LCD TV), but after moving it to another system, I get unreliable, inconsistent performance. And getting it to display on a similar Sony television takes some extra steps -- the ATV main menu screen never appears on startup. I have to reboot the ATV (using the included remote). Then it appears, but flashes on/off the screen, with green screens. I toggle the TV power off, then on again, and the problems disappear. No color inversions like others have reported, though. On two or three occasions when streaming music from iTunes, the ATV unit has stopped and gone back to the main menu screen, with no memory of the last song or playlist when I attempt to get back to the last track played.
  • by iLove-Apple,

    iLove-Apple iLove-Apple Jan 14, 2011 10:59 AM in response to dmp8591
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 10:59 AM in response to dmp8591
    Hi,
    I've had the color inversion problems and unfortunately neither Sony nor Apple seem willing to help. I don't have problems starting the AppleTV, but I did have some of those symptoms you just described, where the aTV was simply "resetting" and forgot what it did and threw me back into the menu, including but not limited to skipping and freezing issues with the TV. So sad... I'm really on the verge of giving it back for a refund. There might be hope though, as I might want to try passing the signal through a receiver (unfortunately I don't have one yet). Or by using one of the (interesting) DarbeeVision cables due out this quarter. Who knows, it might help... Or else I'll just get a Roku/Xbox?

    Message was edited by: iLove-Apple
  • by Coldfire,

    Coldfire Coldfire Jan 14, 2011 12:24 PM in response to itsmechris
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 12:24 PM in response to itsmechris
    That's a shame, pity. We're not going to spend more money on an expensive AV receiver just because that made the ATV2 happier.

    I am seriously going to pack this in and get a refund.
  • by Whitester,

    Whitester Whitester Jan 14, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Coldfire
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Coldfire
    Ok, So I've never posted in a forum before but feel I can offer a small amount of clarification. Based in the UK I work for a leading AV production company. Whilst I am not technical the people who support me are (incredibly!). The problem is certainly the HDCP element of the ATV2 and is certainly caused by a bad bit of code on apples side. Whilst Apple would almost insist on occasions that its not there problem and that the TV's affected are the cause this is completely incorrect. In the short to medium term the only way of sorting this issue is to strip out or trick the ATV2 into thinking that the handshake still exists. There are legal implications in doing this but it is a very grey area. The cheapest way to do this is to buy a product called HDFURY there are several versions each one does a slightly more advanced function than the next. The basic module lists over hear at £59.00. I have to say that whilst I wait for Apple to sort the Christmas present I bought for my wife I feel incredibly let down. Apple for years has had fantastic customer support and service. However since the large investment in Retail they seem to have lost there focus and whilst they'll struggle to get as low as there main competitors they are rapidly losing respect of people experiencing these basic problems.

    Apple, there really is no excuse for this. You need to post an update to this situation and start attempting to redeem your dwindling service.

    RANT OVER.

    Let me know if anyone has any updates
  • by iLove-Apple,

    iLove-Apple iLove-Apple Jan 14, 2011 1:40 PM in response to Whitester
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 1:40 PM in response to Whitester
    Hey, thanks for your post! So basically you're saying the color inversion should be gone by using one of those HDFurys? They're listed at about 80€ on Amazon Germany and unfortunately I don't think it's a viable alternative. It costs so much just to get a device running that is supposed to "simply" work!
    Isn't there a cheaper way? Are there any HDMI switches and/or converters that will do the same thing (and are cheaper)?
    I'm almost considering using FrontRow (via VGA) again if it weren't so filled with bugs. Apple has got a lot of work to do on the TV front... Any news on the new 4.3 update yet?
  • by tgibbs,

    tgibbs tgibbs Jan 14, 2011 2:02 PM in response to Whitester
    Level 1 (70 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 2:02 PM in response to Whitester
    Whitester wrote:
    Ok, So I've never posted in a forum before but feel I can offer a small amount of clarification. Based in the UK I work for a leading AV production company. Whilst I am not technical the people who support me are (incredibly!). The problem is certainly the HDCP element of the ATV2 and is certainly caused by a bad bit of code on apples side. Whilst Apple would almost insist on occasions that its not there problem and that the TV's affected are the cause this is completely incorrect.


    That's a pretty definite statement. Obviously, a handshake error can occur on either side of a transaction. The affected TVs work with most other HDMI devices and the Apple TV works with most HDMI TVs, with only selected models, and then only intermittently. So it is clear that the code on whichever side is at fault is "mostly" correct. These kind of intermittent bugs tend to be the hardest to identify and correct. Presumably, if anybody knew exactly what was going wrong, there would already be a fix. So how, specifically, did your "technically minded" friends manage to determine which side is at fault?
  • by billatmacccom,

    billatmacccom billatmacccom Jan 14, 2011 5:15 PM in response to tgibbs
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 14, 2011 5:15 PM in response to tgibbs
    I will contribute my two pennyworth on the cause of the problem.

    My wild guess is that this is being caused by legacy cruft in Sony and Philips HDMI firmware. HDMI was designed to be backward compatible with DVI. DVI was designed to be backward compatible with VGA and its extensions. VGA was designed to be compatible with the even older MDA (Monochrome display adapter) standard. So there is backward compatibility going back nearly 30 years.

    Now it strikes me that Sony and Philips are the ones who have been longest in the digital AV game. Philips originated the CD, together they designed TosLink and they were prime movers in the HDMI consortium. So it is sort of likely that there is more legacy support in their HDMI implementations than there is in the firmware of relative newcomers like Samsung, LG etc..

    Now DVI which potentially has the same issues generally works because it does not have the added encryption layer which basically the work of the devil. This encryption makes it super difficult to fault find in HDMI handshaking. You can't just monitor the traffic as you could with DVI because it is all encrypted or as the FSF would have it, 'Broken by design'.

    The real culprits are the content producers, including both Sony and Philips, who have forced this junk onto all their customers. HDMI tends to 'fail hostile' maybe Sony and Philips being content producers tend to write stuff that is more likely to fail hostile to protect their IP even if it stuffs up the customers.
  • by Coldfire,

    Coldfire Coldfire Jan 15, 2011 12:22 AM in response to billatmacccom
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 15, 2011 12:22 AM in response to billatmacccom
    Funny reply there since this problem occurs when the ATV2 is not used for anything there, just started up and I am just navigating the ATV2 menu.

    Just the ATV2 menu and I struggling with colour ****-ups.
  • by Gunken,

    Gunken Gunken Jan 15, 2011 1:21 AM in response to Homerecordman
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 15, 2011 1:21 AM in response to Homerecordman
    after a short testing period (5 minutes) i see the same result. the iOS 4.3 beta didn't solve this issu for phillips tv's
  • by lackofcolour,

    lackofcolour lackofcolour Jan 15, 2011 4:06 AM in response to Gunken
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 15, 2011 4:06 AM in response to Gunken
    The issue also persists for Sony Bravia TVs and iOS 4.3 beta 1.
  • by Maecky,

    Maecky Maecky Jan 15, 2011 6:06 AM in response to lackofcolour
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 15, 2011 6:06 AM in response to lackofcolour
    Also no luck with Philips 42pfl7404h and IOS 4.3 Beta ...
  • by Dale J,

    Dale J Dale J Jan 15, 2011 6:28 AM in response to Arcade99
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 15, 2011 6:28 AM in response to Arcade99
    I still have old TV and experienced similar problems last night for the first time. Inconsistent streaming when looking at previews, colour disorientation and taking forever to load rental movie. Rebooted but did not fix problem. Family and I gave up on it after a while. Not good! Don't know what to do? Hope apple is looking at this asap.
  • by Alan Dutton-Smith,

    Alan Dutton-Smith Alan Dutton-Smith Jan 15, 2011 7:16 AM in response to Arcade99
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 15, 2011 7:16 AM in response to Arcade99
    Hi, everyone

    I have been following the discussion avidly since my own first post about 10 days ago. Just to bring you all up to date, I use a Finlux 40" LED HD tv, and atv2. I have no problems with any other HD equipment, but the atv2 misbehaves, like all of yours, whether I am playing film downloaded from iTunes, or music from my own iTunes library, or tv programs and dvd content I have recorded myself, from discs that I own (recorded in H264 atv2 format).

    I wonder whether anyone has contacted the Trading Standards organisation relevant to their own country. In UK, this body has quite a lot of "clout", and might be able to talk to Apple on an official level, on the basis that what we have been sold is not fit for purpose. This might also generate some publicity about the problem, which, I suspect, would help us in our quest to get things sorted.

    Any comments?
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