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BeeBee wrote:
I just had a weird occurance.  I was watching an HD channel and all of the sudden the screen went to a blue background with a TV looking thing in white and a message that said something like HDMI viewing not available.  HDCP integrity check failed.  No matter what channel I switched to, be it HD or SD, the same message stayed.  I turned the STB and TV off then back on and then all I got was snow.  No message or anything.  Reset the STB and all seems back to normal.  I've never seen this before and had UV since Mar '08.  I hope this is not a bug in Phase 2!! 

Message Edited by BeeBee on 07-02-2009 02:43 PM

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I wonder if the HDMI cable came loose for a second and it failed the HDCP check (which occurs constantly) and when you rebooted it got reset properly again?  Or just a Uverse gremlin. 

Chris

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Beebe wrote:
I just had a weird occurrence.  I was watching an HD channel and all of the sudden the screen went to a blue background with a TV looking thing in white and a message that said something like HDMI viewing not available.  HDTV integrity check failed.  No matter what channel I switched to, be it HD or SD, the same message stayed.  I turned the STB and TV off then back on and then all I got was snow.  No message or anything.  Reset the STB and all seems back to normal.  I've never seen this before and had UV since Mar '08.  I hope this is not a bug in Phase 2!! 

Message Edited by BeeBee on 07-02-2009 02:43 PM

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I fired up the system this morning and got sound but no picture, running HDMI.

 Turned everything off and back on and everything good to go

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mibrnsurg wrote:

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BeeBee wrote:
I just had a weird occurance.  I was watching an HD channel and all of the sudden the screen went to a blue background with a TV looking thing in white and a message that said something like HDMI viewing not available.  HDCP integrity check failed.  No matter what channel I switched to, be it HD or SD, the same message stayed.  I turned the STB and TV off then back on and then all I got was snow.  No message or anything.  Reset the STB and all seems back to normal.  I've never seen this before and had UV since Mar '08.  I hope this is not a bug in Phase 2!! 

Message Edited by BeeBee on 07-02-2009 02:43 PM

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I wonder if the HDMI cable came loose for a second and it failed the HDCP check (which occurs constantly) and when you rebooted it got reset properly again?  Or just a Uverse gremlin. 

 

Chris

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Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-983-2811 to avoid Mr. Voice Recognition
YRMV IMHO Simply a U-verse user, nothing more

 

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Escapee wrote:
Something caused it to loose sync with one end and you found the fix to the problem. Reboot. 

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Do you know what HDCP stands for?  It's High-bandwith Digital Content Protection a.k.a Copy Protection or Digital Rights Management.  Every 2 seconds there is a negotiation between your TV and the STB that protects against making illegal copies of the HD content.  

You might find the following paragraphs interesting. I just wrote them on another thread in the forum.  My husband and I are new to U-Verse (we just switched from Comcast) and we've had lots of problems right from the start:

Apparently there is a handshake process, a negotiation between the AT&T STB and the TV about how they will communicate with each other, they want to find their common ground.  We were amazed to find out that this handshake process doesn't just happen at the beginning of the interaction it happens every 2 seconds continuously!  Also, this process is rather delicate and lots of information is being blasted back and forth quickly so if the cable is inadequate and fails to protect against interference and/or fails to flawlessly transmit the information, this can be misinterpreted by the DRM police as an attempt to circumvent and create illegal copies of the content.  That's why sometimes a new HDMI cable can fix the problem because it might provide a cleaner transmission of the handshake data.  

My husband theorizes that the processor has a lot of work to do negotiating every 2 seconds and every 2 seconds presents a new opportunity for something to go wrong.  (Actually when you think about it, things must be going right a lot of the time because there are approximately 1800 re-negotiations during a single hour of HD TV viewing.)  So, we were also surprised to find out that our remote control problems disappear when we use a component cable instead of the HDMI cable.  How's that possible?  Sounds ridiculous because you would think that the remote control talking to the box has nothing do to with the cable running to the TV, or does it?  Husband's theory is that the STB's processor is so overloaded when it's communicating with a TV over a noisy HDMI cable, trying to check and double check so much data every 2 seconds, that it just doesn't have much processing power left over for a 2nd tier issue, resolving the remote control's noise problem.  His theory is that the AT&T (or I guess Motorola or Cisco) engineers planned for the remote to be able to overcome some of the common environmental problems it was likely to encounter but that still takes processing time.  If the processor is already overwhelmed by the demands of difficult negotiations with the TV, the processor just doesn't have time to address the remote control issues.

I also saw posts about TV's and STB's having growing problems the longer they spend time working together.  Husband's theory is that the engineers built in a little forgiveness into the system.  However, as the STB and TV spend more time together and log more problems, the system becomes increasingly suspicious that there is an attempt to make an illegal copy and therefore begins to be more aggressive about interfering and might block SOUND and/or picture until it becomes convinced by a subsequent successful handshake that it can relax.

In SUMMARY:  

1 - Using a component cable instead of an HDMI cable resolved all the problems we were experiencing and I believe we were experiencing nearly every problem addressed in this forum.

2 - Component cables cause significantly reduced resolution particularly on a larger TV such as our 47" Philips LCD.  Smaller TV's may notice less observable reduction.

3 - Even the remote control issues were resolved by the component cable.

4 - Some lucky users may be able to resolve their problems with a high quality HDMI cable instead of having to use a component cable.

We are ordering a new HDMI cable that we hope will fix the problem because our component cable provides a MUCH less crisp and clear picture than the HDMI.  however, some people don't seem to notice a big difference between HDMI and component cables.

Final thoughts - this is an extremely complicated domain and this discussion doesn't begin to scratch the surface really but it does all boil down to the fact that copy protection is causing lots of problems for lots of innocent people.  There should be a better way!

If I may interject my 2¢. HDMI has been flawed from its earliest days. But it is getting better as manufacturers use better chips and implement proper testing procedures to ensure proper operation. That being said I have seen HDMI handshake issues with a 2yr old Samsung 750 series TV and the U-Verse box while using a premium HDMI cable. Switch to component and these issues go away. Same with a brand new Insignia LCD TV. Both of these TV's are a friend of mine. I have a Sony SXRD and these HDMI issues are virtually non-existent. I did have one issue after a U-Verse update but that went away in short time. So it appears that the UV STB's only have issues with certain manufacturers HDMI chips.

As for the handshake process I believe that the handshake only happens one time at the beginning of both products powering on. The handshake process has to happen within a specific amount of time before the devices can exchange HD content. Issues arise when the HDMI chips do not complete the handshake within the allotted time or when the host device sends the signal to fast. The encryption process happens constantly while the 2 products are connected together.

(Speculation) I believe that the remote issues can possibly be traced to the improper implementation of the CEC(Consumer Electronic Control) standard.

More often than not the cable is NOT to blame in these said issues. Sometimes firmware and software updates can improve or fix these issues. Hopefully manufacturers and the HDMI spec can implement it better and improve the many issues that plague this digital transfer of medium.

Here are some technical HDMI articles for your reading enjoyment.

HDMI HDCP Handshake Problems

The Ins and Outs of HDMI

CEC Whitepaper

AVS Forum Q & A

Clarifications on HDMI cables

Again just my 2¢.