RCA HD50LPW162, HDMI and HDCP?

[WCSRK]

OK then. One of my purchasing decisions for the RCA HD50LPW162 DLP was the fact that it had an HDMI connector on it. I was successful in getting my hands on a Cox Cable / Atlanta Scientific 8300HD STB but when I tried to connect the two via HDMI, I got the dreaded "your tv does not support HDCP". I spent about 2 hours this morning being bumped all over RCA technical support and they finally came out and said "No - this TV is not HDCP compliant". Dead in the water. I ended up hooking up the video via and Component cables and am VERY pleased with the picture so I wasn't too crushed over whole thing.

Then what to do with the unused HDMI port (not to mention the $120 Monster cable that I purchased)? "Hey", I thought, good excuse to purchase new upconverting DVD player especially since DVD picture quality is the only one I'm not happy with on the new TV. I went to the Sony site to look up the specs. for the DVP-NS975 and found a copy of the user's manual. Downloaded it and scanned and found that in order to use the HDMI connection (required for the 1080i signal) I must connect to another component (the tv) that is also HDCP compliant!! And I've now been told that the RCA television is NOT HDCP compliant.

So the question is, is there any way around this HDCP stuff? Did I buy a TV with an HDMI connection that is already outdated and will not connect to anything? What are my options?

WCSRK

[kdog044]

I spent about 2 hours this morning being bumped all over RCA technical support and they finally came out and said "No - this TV is not HDCP compliant". You need to call them back as they don't know what they are talking about. ALL HDMI devices are HDCP compliant and they wouldn't have been able to release the set if it wasn't.

[WCSRK]

OK, now I'm confused. You say that ALL HDMI connections are HDCP compliant and that they can't be sold / distributed otherwise?

RCA (two different "technicians") both said that the set was NOT HDCP compliant and that in order to be compliant I would need a "static IP" connection. I said that this didn't make sense to me because as far as I knew a "static IP" related to Internet connections and not video / cable connections but I'm just talking from the base of my limited knowledge of the subject. Do you know what they were referring to?

Second, the text out of the Atlanta Scientific 8300HD user's manual states:

Do not connect the HDMI (DVI) output to an HDTV that does not support High-Definition Copy Protection (HDCP). If you connect the HDMI (DVI) output cable to an HDTV that does not support HDCP, you cannot see any video output. A message appears instructing you to disconnect the HDMI connection and watch video output through the PrPbY component connectors.

When I attempted to make the HDMI connection between the STB and the TV I got exactly this message. Why would they put this message into place if there were not supposed to be any "non-compliant" HDMI connections out there. If this is just a "handshaking" problem between the two components then is there a workaround for it? Please, teach me a little bit here.

WCSRK

[kdog044]

The reference you cite relates to DVI as not all DVI devices are HDCP compliant. Here is a paragraph taken right from the RCA web site.

http://www.rca.com/content/viewdetail/1,,EI700617,00.html

The Digital Cable Ready RCA Scenium HD61LPW162 and RCA Scenium HD50LPW162 include SRS Focus® audio technology which raises the sound stage to ear level, providing more lifelike audio. The two models also feature HD Connectivity with Dual SYNCROSCAN™ Plus Component Inputs and HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) with HDCP copy protection that adds digital audio to the digital video to provide an uncompressed digital audio/video input on a convenient single cable. The HDMI interface easily connects to DVI-HDTV video and separate audio connections on set-top devices with an adapter cable.

I do have a question for you. In regards to HDMI, are you sure it is active? If so, it could be a handshaking problem. Have you tried changing the sequence of powering the devices and connecting. Try turning on the STB, then the TV. Or, turn on STB, connect the cable, and then turn on TV. If that doesn't help here's another response I found that you may want to check.

After much fiddling with my HLP4663 and 8300HD connected with an HDMI cable, here's what I have found:

With HDMI, only 1080i, 720p, and 480p widescreen modes work. 480i standard, 480i widescreen and 480p standard modes don't work and the TV will display the error mentioned above when the 8300 is powered up and attempts to use HDMI with these modes.

So what you have to do is disable 480i standard, 480i widescreen and 480p standard on the 8300 using the the setup screens that you get by holding down the info and guide buttons on the front panel. The easiest way to do this is to use component cables so that you can see all the screens for modes that don't work with HDMI.

A problem with this is that 480i SD channels will now be upconverted by the 8300, so you will no longer have the panoramic, stretch or zoom modes available from the TV (you can still zoom using the # key on the 8300 remote). I don't like using panoramic or stretch on 4:3 pictures, so this limitation doesn't bother me.

Oddly, if you set the 8300 Set: Picture Format setting to Auto DVI/HDMI or one of the Upconvert settings, 480i SD channels are upcoverted to 1080i, or 720p if 1080i is disabled. I was expecting them to be converted to 480p widescreen.

I have also disabled 1080i mode in the 8300. Here's why: In 1080i mode, the TV allows you to set the picture size to 4:3 or Wide, but in 720p mode, there are four settings available: 4:3, Wide TV, Wide PC and Expand. Wide PC mode displays the 16:9 picture with a very narrow black border (picture box) around the picture, so there is no overscan. The intent of this is that if you are viewing a PC screen you will be able to see the whole screen. Expand mode gives an overscan of approximately 2.5% instead of the approximately 5% that Wide TV mode (which is called Wide in 1080i mode) gives. I like to use Expand mode so I see more of the original picture. Disabling 1080i mode means that 1080i HD channels will be downconverted to 720p by the 8300 instead of the TV, but I can't see any difference in the quality of the image whether the TV or the 8300 does the conversion.

One thought I had was to leave all modes enabled and hook up both component and HDMI cables at the same time, since both remain active. That way I would be able to watch 480i with the component inputs and 720p and 1080i using HDMI. Unfortunately, this doesn't work because when the 8300 is powered up it first attempts to establish the HDMI link using 480i. This fails and the error message is displayed on both the HDMI and component links with no way to proceed to other modes

Although I haven't done a thorough comparison, I have a gut feeling that the quality of a 480i picture upconverted to 720p by the 8300 is not as good as the TV can do it. But if there is a difference, it's very slight and I can live with it.

Once the unsupported modes are disabled in the 8300, there doesn't seem to be any HDMI synchronisation problems. You can power up the 8300 or the TV in either order and the HDMI will still connect.

[WCSRK]

This is great! You were able to provide me with information that I couldn't glean out of a half dozen calls direct to RCA! I did indeed search their website but I was unable to dig out this particular article. I am going to print out your response as well as the article you directed me to and keep both for future reference.

Since I am quite pleased with all the video I'm getting except DVD, I think I'll keep the STB on the components and look more into the upconverting DVD players using the HDMI (now that I know it IS HDCP compliant!) connection.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions so fully and with plain language. The people on this forum have been wonderful!

WCSRK