S370 no longer turning on with HDMI control

[roger06]

Hi

My Pana TV, Yam Amp and Sony S370 are all connected via HDMI and have HDMI control on and this has worked brilliantly. If I flick the TV onto AV the amp changes input and the BD player turns on - well at least it used to until recently. I now have to grab its remote and turn it on separately.

When I hit the power off button on the TV remote the TV turns off, as does the amp, as does the BD player so they're all talking to each other. So why won't the BD player turn on with the rest?

Any ideas?

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

Roger06,

Lucky you. I've always had to turn mine on with the remote.

Ronald

 

[Anonymous]

This probably doesn't help but I have a smilar problem also. My panny tv remote used to operate basic functions on my s370 but suddenly stopped working and I hadn't changed any settings or anything. Only thiing I can think of is possibly the last firmware update that supposedly improved HDMI connectivity.

 

[roger06]

Yes I think you may be right. I did a firmware upgrade about 2 weeks ago and that's probably when it stopped behaving...

 

[d4v3pum4]

Personally I would forget HDMI control (CEC) and get a decent universal remote. These CEC functions seem to introduce more problems than they solve and it appears reliability and compatibility issues are the norm.

Logitech Harmony One gets my thumbs up.

 

[roger06]

Couldn't disagree more!! I've found (until now) the HDMI control a godsend.

I had the Logitech Harmony 555 (WHF 5 stars) and it was the biggest load of rubbish I've ever used. It would almost never put the TV on the right input and it drove me mad...

 

[professorhat]

roger06:I had the Logitech Harmony 555 (WHF 5 stars) and it was the biggest load of rubbish I've ever used. It would almost never put the TV on the right input and it drove me mad...

Bizarre, have had my 555 for 2-3 years now and it's been pretty much faultless. Had a couple of issues with inputs with my first Panasonic plasma but the support guys were great and sorted it.

 

[d4v3pum4]

OFF TOPIC

Sorry to hear about your universal remote woes but if your problem was with the Panny plasma, this was probably due more to the TV and the way inputs are chosen. I don't know if you have completely given up but there were/are solutions to this if you go to the right places. Did you ever speak to Logitech either via the web based program or on the phone as they're pretty good at sorting out problems.

 

[roger06]

Yeah I gave their support a call - freephone number, open on a Saturday and a nice chap in Holland so all good on that front.

He did 'something' on my profile his end. It resulted in a painfully slow input change when going to AV - instead of just switching over it would bring up the list and I'd watch it slowly crawl down each one until the right one was selected.

But it didn't solve the issue of the TV input which still only worked about 50% of the time so I had to go through that painful process on the remote - "is everything set up " - no. "Is the TV on... blah blah blah.

At least I knew what to do, but the main reason for getting it was for the other half who will never understand multiple inputs on a TV in a million years.

I'm telling you - I was this close to actually taking the thing outside and stamping on it.

I suppose I could give it another go - I was going to flog it on eBay but I can't find it!!!!

 

[professorhat]

If it's the same as mine (Panasonic TH-42PX800), the workaround was thus:

Each input was selected using one of the coloured buttons. There were two menus and you accessed the second menu by pressing Blue (when on the first menu) and the first menu by pressing Red (when on the second menu).

However, it was possible to use one of the remote commands in the Harmony software (which was InputHDMI1 I think) so that you got the TV in a known state. By getting every activity to choose InputHDMI1 and to then send the appropriate coloured button buttons from HDMI1 to get to the correct input, you were always able to get to the correct input on the TV.

Hopefully this is makes sense - if not, and this was the issue you were facing, let me know and I'll try and rephrase it!

 

[roger06]

Thanks Prof...

Er, think I vaguely understand! Think I need to dig the remote out, re-familiarise myself with it and update it with my latest kit then give it another try.

I think my TV's the same as yours.

 

[roger06]

Well thanks Prof and plum4...

You've inspired me to dig out the 555 and give it another go. My kit is a lot simpler now with everything going through the amp so the TV inputs are only TV or HDMI and it seems to work OK.

My AV amp has pre outs into my Naim stereo amp and course this would never switch over on HDMI control so at least reverting back to the 555 solves this.

I just hope it doesn't start messing around again!

Strange how things work out - I was determined to sell the 555 on eBa@y but couldn't find it but am glad I didn't and you guys have been a real help...

Thanks

 

[roger06]

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

It's already messing about! I watch a DVD and all's fine. I then turn it to TV - it behaves, turning the amp input over and the TV onto TV. I then decide to watch another DVD (the Blu Ray player is still on from last time) so hit the 'watch a DVD' activity. It turns the TV onto the right input, turns the amp onto the right input - but turns the BD player off completely!!!

This is what annoys me about this thing - it's just so blummin' dumb...

NOTE FROM MODS - please moderate your language, as we're bored with doing so.

 

[professorhat]

Well, unless you've set the Blu-Ray player to be on all the time (which you shouldn't have done), the problem there is it didn't switch it off when you went to watch TV after you'd watched the first DVD. So when you went to watch the second DVD, the remote is assuming your Blu-Ray player is switched off (as it should have been) and has thus sent the power signal again, switching it off. It's dumb because it's an electronic device and doesn't have the capacity to think I'm afraid, thus relies on what things should be according to its logic

Are you ensuring you hold the remote pointing at all devices until it's stopped flashing? If one device gets missed, then you're going to run into these sorts of issues I'm afraid so you need to ensure that when you switch from one activity to the other, the remote is pointed in the right direction so it can not only switch on everything it needs, but also switch off everything it doesn't need. If this isn't possible for some reason, then the Harmony isn't really for you I'm afraid as it needs this to happen for it to work effectively.

 

[roger06]

So I should set it to turn off the BD player when switching to TV ?

 

[roger06]

... and although it (mostly) worked yesterday, I've just used it to switch from TV to DVD and it selects the wrong HDMI input on the TV.. aaarrrrggghhhh.

 

[professorhat]

roger06:So I should set it to turn off the BD player when switching to TV ?

Well, yes, but not specifically. You get a choice when you setup a new device as to whether you want it left on all the time or switched off when not in use. If you set the Blu-Ray player to switch off when not in use, then when you select another activity which doesn't involve the Blu-Ray player, it will automatically switch it off for you.

roger06:... and although it (mostly) worked yesterday, I've just used it to switch from TV to DVD and it selects the wrong HDMI input on the TV.. aaarrrrggghhhh.

Did you manage to implement my workaround? Did it make sense? Essentially, when setting up an activity, you set each activity to use any input on the TV, doesn't matter which one. You then edit that Activity to say you want to send more infrared commands after this, then get the remote to send the InputHDMI1 command (changing the TV to HDMI1 input). You can then get the remote to send whichever colour buttons are needed to get the TV on the correct input from HDMI1 e.g. for AV1 from the HDMI1 input, to get to this, you would normally press any coloured button to get the menu up, then red to choose the first page of the menu, then red again to select AV1. So your extra commands for that activity would be InputHDMI1, then send Red (any coloured button to get menu up), then Red again (go to first page of menu), then Red again (select AV1).

If this still isn't working, let me know and I'll run through it again and do a step by step as I still have my Panny TV.

 

[roger06]

Hi Prof

Well it's actually been behaving itself reasonably well.

I've read and re-read your post and it's still not 100% clear. I did find this on the Logitech site. I assume it's a different method? But interesting they acknowledge an issue with Pana TVs.

http://logitech-en-emea.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14925/kw/panasonic

Thanks for you continued patience and help btw!!

 

[professorhat]

No worries, I'm likely to have a busy day today, but will try and get a step by step done on how I got mine working for you, just in case as I found it worked flawlessly for me for a couple of years.

 

[Anonymous]

This may sound stupid but have you tried a different HDMI lead from your blu ray player?

My tv wouldn't change channel from AVI to HDMI when I turned on my 570 and it really annoyed me. I went out and bought a more expensive HDMI cable (£15 from Asda), plugged it in and Voila!