Is anyone else having this annoying "HDCP Playback Error"????

Howdy Cowboys92,

It sounds like you are getting an HDCP error on your Apple TV. I would recommend trying these steps from the following article:

Apple TV (2nd and 3rd generation): About Apple TV and HDCP

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4428

If HDCP authentication does not succeed, you may see one of the following symptoms:

• A message may appear on your television stating "This content requires HDCP for playback. HDCP isn't supported by your HDMI connection."
• You may see periodic bands of static, or full screen static, flashing across your TV screen.

If you are experiencing either of the symptoms above, try playing the same content again for at least another ten seconds. If the issue persists, try the following steps until the issue is resolved:

1. Connect your Apple TV (2nd generation and 3rd generation) directly to your HDTV using an HDMI cable.
2. Set your Apple TV to sleep mode and turn off your HDTV:
   1. From the Apple TV interface, select: Settings > Sleep Now.
   2. Turn off your TV and wait for about ten seconds.
   3. Turn your TV back on.
   4. Press the Select button on your Apple TV remote to wake your Apple TV.
3. Some HDTVs may need a firmware update. Consult your TV manufacturer's user manual or online support pages for additional information about how to update your TV's firmware.
4. If available, try using a different HDMI to HDMI cable, such as an Apple HDMI to HDMI cable, directly between your Apple TV (2nd generation and 3rd generation) and 720p/1080p HDCP-compatible HDTV.

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

All the very best,

Sterling

Have tried numerous permutations to get this to work. We had absolutely no problems when we first purchased and set it up but now this is CONTINUOUSLY acting up. Following the advice above, we get vision and sound for a few seconds and then only sound with a black screen. Can someone at Apple please find a solution for us, before our faith in the product and the brand is entriely destroyed?

Just got the error opening Live link in the SkyTV app on a few month old 3rd Gen connected to a JVC DiLA projector via 1m Audioquest HDMI. Restarting the App fixed the issue so there ARE software (/firmware?) errors.

Cowboy.., I just had a pretty dramatic resolution of this problem that I wanted to share with people. I think knowing the tv and the apple tv makes/versions are very important here. I had an apple tv 2nd generation, os=6.1.? and a 4 to 5 year old samsung fairly high end tv (mite have been a 5500) with 4 hdmi ports. My 2nd gen apple tv worked well with the television for over a year and all of the sudden I started getting the HDCP Playback error on Netflix and even iTunes purchased movies. On another thread markndeb88 suggested that the new "auto" resolution setting on apple tv had upgraded was no longer in sync with most tv's purchased before 2012. The "auto" setting my atv found was 720 60 mghz for some reason. He suggested lowering the mghz to 50 to get it to work. That didn't quite work for me. But on the apple tv I went into Settings -> Audio and Video -> Resolution and the default is to be set to "auto". I tried to set what markndeb88 suggested and the apple tv rejected that and said the tv was not compatible to that setting. But the key here is to try different explicit settings until one is accepted by the apple tv and it will tell you quickly if the setting is incorrect, or that it's willing to use that setting. In my case the apple tv accepted 1280 by 764 60mghz. I rebooted the apple tv, checked to make sure my resolution setting survived the reboot, and then checked the netflix movie that was failing for me. The results were dramatic. The netflix movie worked the first time and it must have failed 15 times when I was playing with it last night. I was using an apple tv hdmi cable for all of this and a kinivo hdmi splitter just to add complexity. I personally feel that all the hdmi cable discussion you see on these threads are a red herring, even though some people report that different cables work for them. I do think this is an apple bug. My 2nd gen apple tv worked for a long time without this problem. Some upgrade changed the auto setting such that it doesn't work for a lot of people. I have never seen anything like this on my Roku's or Chromecast so someone knows how to dynamically adjust to the tv resolution they're talking to without a big problem.