Sony Bravia and Humax Foxsat HDMI auto-detect - know how to make it work?

[jameswbottomley]

Hi, have enjoyed reading this forum for some time and it's been very helpful, so thanks everyone.

Now my question.

I have a recent Sony Bravia HD set (KDL-32E4050) and with it a Sony BD DVD player.

Now I have attached a Humax Foxsat HDR set with twin satellite inputs to the Sony TV via the HDMI-1 cable connection.

The system works fine provided you manually select HDMI-1 on the Sony Bravia TV handset each time. The TV does not auto-detect the presence of the Humax box and jump to that channel when the Humax box comes on. It did previously do this with the Sky+ box.

Any ideas how to reprogram the Sony Bravia TV to maybe ignore the other channels and jump to HDMI-1 when you switch it on? At the moment it only plays either Freeview on TV-1 or else jumps to the Sony DVD player, which it does know about. The DVD player is registered in the HDMI "devices detected" list, which is I guess where the problem lies. I have rerun the "detect HDMI devices" routine in the Bravia HOME menu, but still no effect.

Alternatively, is there a feature in Humax somewhere to make it announce it's presence to a digital TV via an HDMI connection?

Or is this just a weakness in Humax compared to the (generally terribly third rate) Amstrad Sky+ box?

Many thanks in advance for any help
James

 

[Lazarus]

I have the same issue with a Foxsat and a Bush 26" LCD TV.

IIRC from previous debate, Humax claim there is nothing wrong with the Foxsat as regards the way the HDMI Handshaking is implemented and consider that it is a whole raft of TV Manufacturers that do not comply with relevant Standards.

But perhaps they would say that .............. !

Bottom line: You're stuck with it.

 

[wod]

i thought hdmi wasn't like rgb scart where you could switch on the equipment and it would auto switch to the right tv input channel ?

i cant get it to work with a sony kdl32v4000 and sky+ hd box so i just select hdmi 1 and then switch on the receiver

 

[PaulR]

I have the same issue with a Foxsat and a Bush 26" LCD TV.

Ditto with my Foxsat HDR and Philips 42PFL9632D. Should we form a club?

i thought hdmi wasn't like rgb scart where you could switch on the equipment and it would auto switch to the right tv input channel ?

i cant get it to work with a sony kdl32v4000 and sky+ hd box so i just select hdmi 1 and then switch on the receiver

HDMI isn't like Scart insofar as there is no specific cable that goes "high" when attempting to take over the TV. The HDMI specification AFAIK relies upon messages as part of the handshaking process. If this isn't implemented properly, either at the receiver end or the TV end, then it won't get triggered.

Just a random thought here. There are revisions of HDMI and 1.3 is the current one. Is there anything to suggest that the Foxsat is an earlier version?

 

[Lazarus]

Here is a summary by Bob Hannent, Humax (UK) Chief Technologist, arising from previous discussion about this elsewhere:



"HDMI signalling is generally misunderstood by many people, including those who implement it. The product hardware is 1.3b capable but is conformance tested and running according to 1.2a. (I believe there is formally no 1.2b)

However this is a side issue because there is almost no difference between the different levels in aspects of signalling implementation. What I believe you are referring to is HDMI-CEC signalling of which the features are somewhat optional in all specifications of HDMI from 1.2a.

Remember people just because the version number increases doesn't mean it gets any 'better', in fact the difference between 1.3a and 1.3b is mostly in the testing specification.

That said, we are improving the support for CEC because of the DTR development and I have requested the work to be rolled back from the DTR into the Foxsat-HD. I don't have a timescale for that at all."

The HDR uses 1.3, whereas the standard Foxsat uses 1.2 .

But the HDR seems to suffer the same problem as the standard Foxsat, so I'm not sure what adapting the HDR implementation to upgrade the standard Foxsat will actually do?

 

[PeeBee]

I have a Humax with a Panasonic TV and frankly the auto switching to the Humax can be a pain since the Humax takes 20+seconds to deliver a picture. The TV screen therefore goes blank, then shows the Humax Logo while it boots up. I'd prefer to carry on watching the progamme and swith to the Humax once the boot up message disappears from its LCD display.

Nothing against the Humax, I'm very pleased with it but it does take a long time (relatively speaking) to start up.

 

[PaulR]

PeeBee

Have a look on your TV remote to see if there's a button to switch to the previously viewed channel. On my Philips it's marked P-P and if you press this as soon as the Hummy takes over the TV it'll take you straight back to what you were watching. When the Hummy has finally booted up press the P-P (or whatever it's called) and it'll take you over to the Hummy.

Not perfect but it's a good workaround.