Strato C Black Screen

[Sasquatch]

I have an issue with one of my Strato C's where the picture goes black 5 - 15 minutes into watching a movie, but I maintain audio. I've swapped it with my other strato C that works flawlessly in the theater, and the issue persists. As a result, I think it is something in the chain rather than an issue with the strato C, but I don't have any issues with the AppleTV 4k, UHD bluray, PS5, or Xbox Series X also running through this same chain.

Setup is as follows:

1. Strato C
2. Zeskit Maya 8 K HDMI Cable (same cable type as the theater)
3. Anthem AVM 70 8K on latest firmware w/ the Kscape fix
4. Audioquest Pearl 8 K HDMI
5. Samsung 75 Q90T

Any thoughts on what may be causing the issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated as it makes it unuasable.

 

[Substance]

I am not familiar with Samsung TVs. Are they Android based?

I would start with full power cycling it. Unplug TV from power, give it a minute or two and plug it back to power. If it’s Android based or similar, you might need to go into settings and find restart.

I have Sony TVs with Android TV OS. They never really reboot the OS completely, even if you unplug from power. They go into some sleep mode and wake from sleep when you plug it back to power. Only in the settings, you can fully restart and reboot the OS which fixes temporary glitches.

Unplugging all connected devices from power for a min can help if there is a grounding issue. The outside shield on the HDMI socket is ground.

Try these and let us know.

 

[Sasquatch]

No, Samsung TV's run on their own proprietary OS that is not Android based. I think I narrowed it down to the Zeskit Maya 8K cable. I swapped it out for a new one that was also shorter. The previous one worked fine with my UB820 UHD blu ray player, but I guess it either went bad in the swap to Kscape or the Kscape is pickier. Either way, I've been up and running for 30+ minutes since the HDMi cable swap.

 

[Substance]

Makes sense. I was under the impression the exact setup was working fine before but recently started having issues.

 

[Sasquatch]

Exact setup worked fine with a Panasonic UB820, and I recently switched over to Kscape. I had the issue ever since I hooked up the strato c. Guess I should have known to try a HDMI cable swap right off the bat. Stupid cables are always finicky.

 

[Mark H]

Cables, a real hit and miss affair. Recently I needed to extend the distance between my disk vault and my Lumagen / paired strato so went for new cables (Ruipro) as I have them elsewhere and they always worked perfectly but in this case connecting legacy equipment they failed (black screen) so in the end I joined 2 old HDMI cable with a simple €10 inline connector and everything worked again.

 

[Sasquatch]

Well, after 1 movie, it’s back to doing it. Any thoughts?

 

[MikeKobb]

The HDMI status and capabilities tool in your system’s browser interface may provide some insight. Go to the components page in the browser interface, click the Settings button for the affected player, and then on the Video tap, click the button at the top for HDMI status & capabilities. You can refresh that page to show the status when you’re getting the black screen, and it might shed some light.

If that doesn’t yield fruit, I would contact our support team. They have more tools to analyze diagnostic reporting from your system, and may be able to determine what’s going wrong.

 

[Sasquatch]

@MikeKobb No changes to the HDMI status and capabilities screen when the picture goes out...screen shot attached. I also swapped out the HDMI cable from the AVM70 to TV. Any additional thoughts?

 

[MikeKobb]

Definitely tends to support your earlier suspicion that something downstream is unhappy. It also makes me think that the diagnostic info that the support guys would be able to see might not yield much, since the player seems to think all's well.

Unfortunately, the usual HDMI troubleshooting pattern is to start removing things from the chain, which is a real chore but may ultimately bear fruit. For example: you could try connecting directly to the display instead of going through the Anthem. (You could plug the secondary HDMI into the Anthem to maintain audio.)

When you've used the Panasonic, I assume that you were playing 4K HDR as well? Is there any difference with the Kaleidescape source if you play HD or 4K non-HDR content? Just trying to think what else might cause handshake problems. Is your Panasonic set to output 24fps, or is it outputting 60?

 

[Sasquatch]

Hey Mike, I talked to the support folks Friday, and they had me bypass the AVM and go directly to the Kscape. No picture drop, which is what led me to replace the AVM to kscape HDMI. I travel for work during the week, so a bit hard to triage M-F.

As for with the Panasonic, no issues outputting HD, 4k, 4K HDR, or 4K HDR10+ content. I also use an AppleTV 4K as the main day to day source, and it runs through the same chain without issue.

As for 24 hz vs 60 hz, I realized when I changed the AVM70 to Samsung HDMI cable the TV noticed the change and disabled the extended bandwidth setting for that input. I just turned it back on, so the Kscape is outputting at 60 hz now.

Any other thoughts, or just wait until Monday and email support?

 

[MikeKobb]

I'm afraid not, sorry. Maybe somebody else will chime in with some ideas. I'm far from an HDMI expert personally.

I realized when I changed the AVM70 to Samsung HDMI cable the TV noticed the change and disabled the extended bandwidth setting for that input.

That's weird.

 

[Bigmoviefan]

Did you ever get a resolution to your issue?

 

[Sasquatch]

Yes, I swapped out the TV to AV Processor HDMI cable, and it fixed the issue. Standard finicky hdmi handshake problems.

 

[Bigmoviefan]

Yes, I swapped out the TV to AV Processor HDMI cable, and it fixed the issue. Standard finicky hdmi handshake problems.

Thanks! Glad it is resolved for you!