HDCP troubles

[Oingofan]

Hello all! My HTPC is running smoothly on all accounts except for many instances of getting HDCP errors that my video card may not support it (which it does). Here is my setup:

Intel DH67GD motherboard (Intel HD 3000 graphics)
Intel 2500K Sandy Bridge processor
Ceton InfiniTV4 tuner
Hauppauge 2250 analog tuner
Denon AVR-2312CI
Sharp LC-70LE735U 70″ LCD TV

All hooked up through HDMI: HTPC -> Denon AVR-2312CI -> Sharp TV

All equipment is HDCP ready. When I get the error, I can Alt-Tab back to the Windows desktop and then I’ll be able to hear the audio of the station coming through (in the background). After I do that, I Alt-Tab back into WMC and the station is coming through just fine. I can then go off and view other channels (both analog and digital) for awhile, but soon enough the HDCP error comes back up.

After Googling this problem I found others and they seem to all be pointing to Intel’s graphic cards not handling repeaters (i.e. AVR’s) well in the driver. Well, they actually called Intel to explain the problems, but they end up with Intel’s support pretty much ignoring the problem. One Intel support person said he had a bunch of problems being reported like this, but does not forward them to any team that can fix it. If I would have known that, I wouldn’t have used this motherboard for an HTPC.

So, as a way around this, I may have to end up putting another card (graphics) into my HTPC. What graphics card is ideally used around here for HTPC and light gaming? Thx!

Wayne

[RehabMan]

One thing you might want to try is to change out your HDMI cables.  I had an incident recently where this popped up with a short HDMI cable (Gefen branded 1-footer that came with my HDMI Detective).  Before I was using a longer cable and had no troubles, then one day decided to use the longer cable to connect my Xbox360, and use the shorter cable from HTPC -> HDMI Detective, and then started getting HDCP errors.  I’ve heard that about HDMI cables, especially short ones, swapped it out for the longer one again, and so far the HDCP errors are gone.

Something to try…

[babgvant]

Use a longer HDMI cable.  12-15′ should do it.

[RehabMan]

You gotta wonder what kind of screwed up spec HDMI is, that short cables cause problems.  Longish cables are generally what give troubles with interconnects, not short ones.

Crazy stuff.

// Dean (As you guessed, not a fan of HDMI)

[oliverredfox]

[quote=RehabMan]

You gotta wonder what kind of screwed up spec HDMI is, that short cables cause problems.  Longish cables are generally what give troubles with interconnects, not short ones.

Crazy stuff.

// Dean (As you guessed, not a fan of HDMI)

[/quote]

HDMI is fine, it is HDCP tacked on to it that screws up most of what I do.  If not for the HDMIdetective I’d still be kicking walls.

[babgvant]

[quote=RehabMan]

You gotta wonder what kind of screwed up spec HDMI is, that short cables cause problems.  Longish cables are generally what give troubles with interconnects, not short ones.

Crazy stuff.

// Dean (As you guessed, not a fan of HDMI)

[/quote]

It’s actually not that surprising given that HDMI is based on Ethernet, which also has issues with short cables.

[Oingofan]

My HDMI cables are actually from MonoPrice and I got the THICK 22 gauge ones because one has a length of 25′. Here is my setup in more detail:

HTPC -> 3′ HDMI 24AWG High Speed -> Denon AVR-2312CI -> 25′ HDMI 22AWG High Speed -> Sharp 70″ TV

I just tried swapping out the 3′ HDMI cable for another 25′ HDMI 22AWG High Speed w/ Ethernet cable…same problem. I also tried swapping out the 25′ HDMI cable for another 25′ HDMI 22AWG High Speed w/ Ethernet…same problem.

After Googling around, a few people were able to fix this by putting a HDMI switcher in-line. What a pain.

Someone mentioned the HDMI detective. Is that some type of software I can run to truly find where the problem is?

Thanks guys!

Wayne

[RehabMan]

HDMI Detective is from Gefen.  It is a device that remembers the EDID information.  It is used to solve problems where EDID info is not transmitted correctly all the time.  Do a search on amazon.com and you’ll find it for sale.  I don’t know if it does anything to correct HDCP problems, although it does have a switch for HDCP compatibility.

[Aaron Ledger]

Disable WMC navigation sounds if you don’t already.

I have a DH67BL with Denon AVR-2112 to Samsung display working fine.

[Oingofan]

WMC navigation sounds? For real? Why would that impact HDCP?

I will disable it…and if that is the problem, then Microsoft should have it issued as a bug. No?

I’ll let you know my results. Thx!

Wayne

[Oingofan]

Well, I gave it a shot and I actually thought it fixed it, but I didn’t give it enough testing time and the same problem came back. It’s strange…as sometimes it seems to be timing based. Maybe I’ll need to log everything to try to see if there is any corralation.

Wayne

[mpatnode]

You may just want to pop in an NVidia GT430.   They are less than $100 and seem to have the best UI for controlling refresh-rates if the pure 23.970 trick for movie playback is important to you.

[oliverredfox]

Out of curiosity, which Intel HD 3000 graphics driver version are you running?

[Oingofan]

Thanks for the graphics card suggestion…I’ll give it a shot.

The current graphics driver I’m running is 6.​14.​10.​5374
…which I believe is the latest driver as of August 2011.

[Aaron Ledger]

Something else to try is flashing the latest board BIOS .BIO file in recovery mode. Intel vBIOS may not update properly in some cases outside recovery mode.

[Author]

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