An electronical equipment conundrum (HDMI switchbox.)

Northlander

OK, so if anyone could explain this mystery to me, I would be very grateful.

See, I recently purchased a new Bluray player for the sake of being able to play Bluray discs region-free. (It's the "Oppo" label, if that helps.) Here's where things take a turn for the strange, though.

See, since my monitor screen has only one HDMI socket, I got a HDMI switch for the sake of being able to connect both my old Bluray player and my Xbox360. So when I got my new Bluray player and plugged it into the HDMI switch, I had some problems getting the image on the monitor screen until I found out that it would only show if either my old Bluray player or my Xbox was switched on as well, even when the switchbox was set to my newest Bluray player. (And yes, I tried connecting it directly to my screen. There was no problems there.)

Needless to say, I find this extremely puzzling. If any of you guys have an idea what's doing this and can explain it to me in "electronics for newbies" terms, I would be very grateful.

Rekrul · Master of C64 Joined: 05 Aug 2009 Posts: 1121

This is just a guess since I know virtually nothing about Blu-Ray and HDMI, but could it be because of the HDCP DRM?

Maybe the new player doesn't include it and you need one of the others to provide that signal before the monitor will display an image?

technoid · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:56 pm Post subject:

I don't own an HDMI switchbox, so imo it's rather weird that it would behave in such a way. What does the switchbox's manual say?
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~techie

mistermsk · Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 12:18 pm Post subject:

I am with Rekrul. If all your old HDMI equipment works on the switchbox and if you connect the new blu-ray player to the monitor/tv and it works fine, just not on the switchbox, it does sound like HDCP copy protection. This is the single most reason companies love encypted HDMI! Here is a URL in reference to it. The reason companies love it is that encrypted HDMI prevents people from coping what ever is playing over it.

That would be my guess.
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Northlander · Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 12:35 am Post subject:

Somehow, I've managed to completely miss these replies. ^^;;

Anyway, as an update; I tried another HDMI switchbox, and this one worked just fine. This one is one of those remote-controlled kind that had to be plugged to the power grid, though. It had a... signal enhancer thing, apparently, but whether that had anything to do with this one working like it should, I have no idea.

Bottom line; it works with the new HDMI switchbox that I got. Maybe the Bluray player I got just didn't like cheapass switchboxes.