sony kd49xg8396bu hdmi interferance

[Alan_Adams]

I have a Sony kd49xg8396bu TV with Sony STR-DN610 AV receiver connected via the Optical Audio input and a Sony BDP-S360 via HDMI port 3 ARC.
When I turn the TV on the AV receiver switches on automatically and sound is played via it with the TV speakers muting.
Just added Humax FVP-500T HD recorder (500gb hard disk) and each time I plug the HDMI connection the AV system disconnects, and the TV built in speakers come on – AV remains on just not working.
Access Humax has to be selected manually for some reason.
Have tried to plug it into both spare HDMI ports with the same result.
Disconnect the Humax HD recorder and everything returns to normal.
Can anyone help me with this problem? I like my surround sound speakers on.

[royabrown2 · Accepted solution]

@Alan_Adams 

Although you can usually get away with it, you aren’t supposed to hot-plug HDMI connections.

What happens if you turn all your kit off at the mains, make the HDMI connections and then power the kit up again?

[Alan_Adams]

Hi,

Thanks for that, it worked.

I switched everything off at the mains and then disconnected the HDMI and Digital Optical input, left it 10 mins, reconnected everything, powered up and it worked.

I have never heard of “hot-plug” HDMI connection problems before.

While Sony products come with instruction manuals and safety information manuals running to 500 pages each in 30 different languages (only 14 pages in my language) nowhere does it mention this may be an issue - it just says plug it in here or here.

You learn something new every day and this old dog can still learn new tricks.

Thanks again.

Alan

[royabrown2]

@Alan_Adams 

And this old dog can still pass them on 😛

If you look on the web, there are all sorts of posts about this, many mentioning that the HDMI Specification includes a Hot Plug Detect line, and so hot-plugging should be OK.

Which it is, largely, from the point of view of not causing any physical or electrical damage, but the devices being thus connected don’t always check the HPD line and repeat their handshake from scratch, as they perhaps should.

Certainly, I hot-plug like a good ‘un whenever I can, and it’s usually OK; but if it doesn’t work, I power cycle the connected devices so both come back from cold.

And whichever device comes back second is going to raise that HPD line (or the HDMI equivalent of that RS232 concept) with the first device, so the handshake then happens. But at this point, both devices are ready, and all pins are firmly connected at both ends of the HDMI cable; and this does seem to make a difference in some cases, which I conjectured might apply for you.

So, glad you got it fixed!