Westinghouse and the blinking PS3: HDCP gone awry?

If the PS3 works fine on every other 1080p TV, i have a hard time believing it's Sony's fault. Way to take reponsibility Westinghouse

If their TV's are technically compliant (aka, they pass certification), then the issue is with Sony sending an uncompliant signal.

by all means, let's have another rant about how every other console rules. aaaad....go...

Problem #1: You bought a Westy.

Seriously, you get what you pay for. There are affordable Sharp or Samsung models that will provide you a more reliable set....provided the Sharp doesn't have banding issues.

You could always go for a Sony set, but those things are insanely overpriced and offer minimum (and many would say no) improvement over other, lower-priced but similarly-featured sets.

Can the unplugging fix also work to circumvent HDCP?

Well, Crono...

If you are correct and it is Sony's fault, then one would expect more than just Westinghouse tv's to have this problem. So, if it were really Sony's fault, their spec is just compliant enough to work on all other tv's and not on certain Westinghouse tv's. There are some westinghouse 1080p televisions that do not have this problem. I'm sorry, but you are reaching quite a bit.

My samsung LCD has this problem as well

... Or much easier just switch back to another input and then flip back to hdmi. May need to do it a time or two, but it always resolves it. Much easier then fumbling with unplugging crap.

oh my bad, i misread, :) I didn't read the "If their tv's are correct part" Ignore the reaching comment :)

I have the LVM-37W3 1080p Monitor and I was about to return my PS3 because of this problem.

It is the most frustrating thing I have ever dealt with and I am a Tech Support/system admin.

Everything else like my Cable box through HDMI or my 360 through VGA work perfectly.

It's great to see they are working to fix this.

watch the video guys, the person says that its probably the tv's fault

Given the fact that the display works properly after yanking the cord out and plugging it back in, I also suspect the TV is at fault.

Of course, since everything that currently uses DVI, VGA, component and/or composite cables works fine, one could also place the blame squarely on HDCP, since it's that handshake that is screwing this up and is the only significant difference between HDMI and other cables.

I also thought this happened on other HDMI/HDCP-compliant displays too.

Its probably a combination of both. Westinghouse TVs probably use cheaper components that are just BARELY compliant, and thus a bit more picky. However, it is still compliant, meaning that Sony's signal is probably right at the edge of compliance as well, only in the opposite direction. Its kinda hard to explain.

On a line of compliance between more compliant and less compliant it might look like this

more compliant--------------less compliant
s w

With sony being S and Westinghouse being W. Both are still technically compliant, but sit just outside each others connectivity.

This is at most a very small problem that's as easy to fix as unplugging the signal and plugging it back it to resync.

This actually happens from time to time with my PS2 component and my Westinghouse TV. The picture is all weird and not properly synced horizontally. I just turn the TV off and turn it back on and it fixes itself.

Its likely the Westinghouse guy knew just how close to incompliant their TVs were, and thus initially blamed it on themselves and said they could fix it. Probably, upon closer inspection by his engineers, they found Sony's signal to be lacking when this happened as well, and tried to shift the blame

Both parties are to blame.

My line didn't work out

more compliant--------------less compliant
.................s....w...................

Still didn't work out.

But I think you get the idea

Canher --

It should be noted that the video was made after they claimed fault and before they retracted said fault. The written piece is the most recent news on the topic.

Say it together now: DRM blows.

It means you don't actually own the TV, game, or media you just "bought" at the store.

woops, clicked wrong box

Anyway, this is what you get for trying to micromanage all signals

Too much security is bad.. (almost as bad as no security at all)

I have a 42" 1080p Westy (but no PS3). I can tell you that I had a hell of a time trying to get a Samsung upscaling DVD player to output 1080p over HDMI - for some reason, the Westy just wouldn't accept the signal and kicked the whole thing back down to 480p.

I called tech support for both companies, and just like here, each company blamed the other one.

I never figured out how to get 1080p over HDMI, but it doesn't really bother me that much because I recently purchased the HD-DVD add on for the Xbox 360, which, thankfully does 1080p through VGA.

Moral of the story - my money's on Westinghouse being the liar.

I can believe that Westinghouse is correct to blame Sony. They have known about the issue for a few months and are good with firmware updates, though it is a hassle to GET the firmware once it gets out. I've known about this issue for a while now and so has Westinghouse. They probably did all they good and finally figured out the problem with HDCP from Sony's side

No matter who's fault it is, I totally agree with SecondChance. DRM can suck it

No issues whatsoever with my PS3 on HDMI on my 2004 Toshiba DLP. That's what happens when you buy an American TV.

Okay, as a firmware engineer, I am going to take a guess because I see stuff like this all the time.

Very simplified: The PS3 is asking the TV set if it's HDCP compliant (doing a handshake), and is waiting exactly the spec time for the response. The TV is replying right on the edge of the spec time. If the PS3 gets the response before its own internal cutoff, then everything works. Otherwise as far as it's concerned the TV doesn't have HDCP.

Now they can both be right (and wrong). The TV may respond in the spec time as measured from when the TV sees the request from the PS3. The PS3 may be starting its timer when it first decides to ask instead of when the request packet eventually 'exits' the port - there shouldn't be much difference, but who knows what they're doing internally.

This problem could have been avoided if the PS3 would allow a little timing slack in the spec and/or if the TV would make a little more effort to respond faster to the request, substantially less than the spec time (and I'm sure this is what the firmware upgrade does).

Generally as the gatekeeper on the timing side (the PS3) you want to allow some slack on the spec because there's not a whole lot to be gained by being a tyrant about it. In many cases timing has to be rock solid, but not for something like this. As the respondent (the TV), you don't want to be anywhere near the actual spec time - you want to be well below it to allow some safety margin in case the gatekeeper is being hardnosed.

So they're both 'right', they're 'both' wrong, and they're both too busy waving their dicks around to come to terms. This happens allll the time with hardware interoperability.

I'd blame the TV slightly more because being right on the edge (or over!) of the timing spec is just dumb, but the PS3 is also being stupidly obstinate and only hurting itself by snubbing the TV if it's a bit slow in responding.

It's not just Westinghouse...reading their blog a few people posted about the same problem with different TVs and also joystiq had a post up about CheapyD from cheap ass gamer that was having similar problem with his 720p TV.

Man, I sure wish my 360 had HDMI so I could deal with HDCP.....

Hey HDMI lovers, I though HDCP wasn't going to be utilized until at least 2009, and it was only going to apply to HD movies, not games, as that was what you guys were posting here.

In my opinion, the marginal improvement in image quality over VGA doesn't make up for dealing with crap like this.

I have one of these Westinghouse 1080p TVs. I had the same exact problem with my cable box using a low-end HDMI cable. I later got a higher end cable and replaced it, and never had the problem again.

I have no idea if this would solve the PS3's problem with the TV, I'm rather happy with the 360 at 1080p through VGA with no DRM to screw it up.

DRM blows.

Whoops, I missed my cue.

You mean other than the fact that the signal is digital AirIntake?

and yet the rumor mill abounds about there being an HDMI spec'd 360 coming out soon. So no matter how much you love your analog signals, there's nothing wrong with a digital signal every now and again.

Plus this is only a small setback that can be fixed with firmware or something of that nature, its not like this is the first time EVER someone has had bad connection problems with a TV you know.

This problem is not limited to the PS3 or Westinghouse TVs.

Monster Cable company wrote a scathing article about HDCP in Widescreen Review magazine. Consumers often return their cables for a refund when they encounter HDCP-related problems, but there is nothing wrong with Monster's cables (except for being over-priced).

EDN magazine concurs with Sizer's explanation. EDN magazine blames the problem on "a disruption in the supposed-to-be-continuous HDCP hand-shake between source and destination, which the video source incorrectly interprets as a DRM breach".

Now, why PS3 game screens are crippled with DRM is beyond me!

For what it's worth, apparently you can call Westinghouse and they will ship you an HDMI -> DVI converter free of charge as a stop-gap until an official fix is rolled out.

I've got an Olevia 42" HDTV and get a similar problem, that unplugging/replugging seems to fix.

Pain in the ass though.

I have a Winbook 37" and I have the same problem when using HDMI. The screen will start blinking and going crazy for a couple of seconds and than it will go back to normal.

You can just TURN OFF your TV then turn it back on instead of unplugging the HDMI cable then plugging it back in, which can be a hassle. Also if you run HDMI through a receiver then it never blinks.

Oh but my Winbook only goes to 1080i

This is weird im going to tryand unplug the HDMI from the back of the tv and plug it back to see if that solves the problem

I would be interested to see if they tried a shorter HDMI cable, maybe they have cheap cables, paid 4.99 or something online. I know you can get HDMI for under 5$ and people say "digital, it either works or it doesnt"

but that isn't the case, latency is a big deal with displays and cheap cables cause lag.

To anyone with this problem: Just turn the tv off, and then back on. Works every time.

I remember someone said they were about to return their lvm-37w3, and thats what i have, so just do what i said. This is NOT a serious problem.

turning your screen off then on is hard on the monitor though, and it should be completely unwaranted had Westinghouse used better materials, then again when you see a tv of that size with such nice specs and low cost you must know something is up.

Well actually a lot of hdtvs do this.I was puzzled by it when I first tried it as I have a 52"RCA, hdtv when I play in 1080i over dvi- hdmi it does the samething.(ps3)

Now i believe that its problem with the playsttion 3 because my hd cable box is often hooked up by monster component, but when I use a dvi cable I dont get a problem what so ever.

And to the genius that keeps talking about cheap hdmi cables and what not, it doesnt matter what you pay for the cable as its only 1's and 0's coming through(digital) better cables and such is true with analog and component, but hdmi is hdmi.Just ordered a hdmi to dvi cable from monoprice.com for 7.85 cents with shipping and handling and its no different than monsters dvi cable.Except in price.Be a sucker if you will.

This is a problem with the ps3 as i SAW IT DO THE SAME THING ON MY FRIENDS HDTV WHEN i BOUGHT MY PS3.

Its nothing to cry about as it doesnt last long, but hey I guess its news.I just sit through it as its only like 3 seconds.But I will admit that the first time I saw it I was like what the hell?

I've had this problem with HDMI on my Sony SXRD connected to my Cox Scientific Atlanta cable box. I enjoy having a digital signal, but the tradeoff is simply not worth it. I will take an analog component signal that works and looks great over a problematic digital connection that is riddled with DRM any day. If HDCP is taken out of the equation, then I'm ready to be on board. I agree that there are certainly benefits to HDMI, but to say that it is a wonderful standard that we are lucky to have is misleading and does not take the into account the darker aspects. Proponents are quick to tout all of these great features of using HDMI, but don't tell you all of the negatives that come along with it. Obviously, anybody trying to push something is going to do this, but I just want to point out that HDMI is not as wonderful as some like to think it is.

34: "but that isn't the case, latency is a big deal with displays and cheap cables cause lag."

No, they don't. Metallic conductor cables transmit signals at about 60% to 90% of the speed of light. For any home theater interconnect, that's fast enough as to be instantaneous (60% of c on a 6m cable means you have a transmission lag of 0.00000002s.

You might be thinking of a degraded signal leading to some sort of packet loss and introducing lag waiting for the transmission to catch up or rebuild from parity data, but DVI (and thus HDMI) are not packetized, but strictly digital streams, and so signal degradation would lead to display corruption, not lag.

There certainly are sources of lag in some HD setups, but the interconnects are not one of them.

There was an article late last year about a similiar problem with the PS3 when connected to a Panasonic plasma HDTV

This is not an isolated incident.

And to my knowledge, it's not an issue if you're using something other than HDMI.

HDMI, even though it's an easier connection, is a real pain when it comes to DRM and HDCP.

When will Sony stop treating customers like thieves? DRM is there to keep paying customers from stealing. Think about that. If you were desperate enough to steal, why would you bother dropping 2+ grand on an HD set and a PS3? And if you really wanted to pirate HD video,you'd learn how to program and get around DRM like all the pirates that post HD films throughout the week.

Best overall solution: Don't buy a piece of garbage Westinghouse. It'll make the world a better place.

instead of taking out the HDMI cable i just switch the tv mode over to YPBR1 or Component or something and then switching it back using the remote. it works every time but it is still very annoying.

No matter whose fault, HDMI and its DRM blows. I had similar problems with my satellite box when I first got it and I have a pretty high end plasma (for when it was new less than a year ago). Something goes wrong with the stream and voila, audio with no picture. At first, I thought it was my dish, but nope, it was just the HDMI connection. Switched to component like the rest of my equipment and I haven't looked back. I already weep for when this crap is mandatory.

HDMI's HDCP is a pain in the ass that no consumer would want. The only nice thing about the HDMI generation is the form factor and all-digital interface. I only use HDMI for my upscaling DVD player b/c there's no other choice.

Just drop HDCP... nobody wants it anyway.

actually this issue has been fixed in the latest firmware of the TV

Hi all,
I am curious about the dialog referencing HDCP issues between ps3 and Westinghouse via hdmi inputs. I recently purchased the LVM47w1 (Feb 02) and discovered I get absolutely no signal between these two devices via the hdmi port. Zippo, nada...no video, no audio, nothing. I also have a hdmi switch (HDX-501) I use. Initially thinking that was the problem, I passed the cable directly from the hdmi port of the ps3 to the hdmi port of the Westy, It wasn't the switch. I would love to see a blinking screen or something other than "no signal".

Has any one else encountered this problem or am I the only one. Any advice ??? Is this a firmware problem that an AVAILABLE upgrade would fix, either Westinghouse or Sony ???

The problem doesn't just lie with the Westinghouse 37"... this is also a problem on Sharp Aquos 37" as well as some Vizio sets. Sony... FIX THIS!