HDMI 1.3 cable with Sony 40W3000 Lcd Tv

[budz]

I bought a Sony 40W3000 on Black Friday from Sears. I see it has the ability to use HDMI 1.3 cable. Would I be able to make use of this type of HDMI cable? I have a first generation SONY Upconverting dvd player and a cheapo Cyberhome upconverting dvd player. Can I use this HDMI 1.3 cable or does the upconverting dvd player have to be 1.3 capable?

BTW I'm on my second SONY 40W3000 lcd tv since the first one I bought had the infamous Sony clouding issue problem.

I'd appreciate any comments. Thanks in advance.

[edDV]

About the only things using HDMI 1.3 are recent Blu-Ray DVD players and Sony HDV camcorders. Not much to it yet.

[budz]

About the only things using HDMI 1.3 are recent Blu-Ray DVD players and Sony HDV camcorders. Not much to it yet.

edDV thanks for replying!
I guess the HDMI 1.3 cable I already received from monoprice.com will have to wait until I can afford a Blu-Ray DVD player. By that time that happens they'll be up to HDMI 4.0!

[Seeker47]

About the only things using HDMI 1.3 are recent Blu-Ray DVD players and Sony HDV camcorders. Not much to it yet.

I'm trying to troubleshoot an HDMI connection failure. I bought the larger of the two HD connection kits from Costco (probably could have done this much cheaper from somewhere online, but it was an immediate solution), and used one of the two HDMI cables included to connect the Motorola HD cable box to the Toshiba 32HL67. No problems with that. Next, I tried to use the 2nd. HDMI cable for the NAD 534 player. That connection is just DOA. "No Video Signal." The player is working fine over the component connection, though. But it can only upscale over HDMI, so that functionality is absent. (No idea if I'm missing anything there.) At first, I was worried that one or both of the other two HDMI ports on the Toshiba might not be working, but I've now eliminated that possibility. And you seem to have just shot down the HDMI 1.2 vs. 1.3 business. So, either the other HDMI cable must be bad (how often does that happen ?), or the HDMI Out on the NAD must be bad. I doubt it could be a setting I've missed somewhere, as I've looked for anything of that nature, but at the moment I can't find the NAD manual. The next thing would probably be to try the first HDMI cable with the NAD.

I've ordered an Oppo 980, which also has all of the connection options (though I believe it only upscales over HDMI also, unlike the 970), so that will be another test for this. Just posting this in case there may be something else I'm overlooking, and I hope this post is sufficiently on-topic for the thread.

[edDV]

The next thing would probably be to try the first HDMI cable with the NAD.

That's the first thing I would do. Also test the Moto box to the second TV HDMI to make sure that is working. Then try the other cable to see if that is working.

The Moto boxes I've used require active HDCP on the TV for HDMI or DVI connections. All HDMI connections are supposed to support HDCP encryption but maybe that is the problem with the NAD.

[Seeker47]

The next thing would probably be to try the first HDMI cable with the NAD.

That's the first thing I would do. Also test the Moto box to the second TV HDMI to make sure that is working. Then try the other cable to see if that is working.

The Moto boxes I've used require active HDCP on the TV for HDMI or DVI connections. All HDMI connections are supposed to support HDCP encryption but maybe that is the problem with the NAD.

Thanks for your reply.
The Moto box should have no involvement here at all, since what we're discussing is the direct connection between the NAD player and the Toshiba Regza LCD, via HDMI. Anyway, it's not the cable. I swapped cables, connecting HDMI-1 to the NAD, and HDMI-2 to the HD cable box. Result: the "regular" tv connection was then available on "2", and the NAD -- now on "1" -- returned "No Video Signal." So, I think we've narrowed it down to either a bad HDMI Out on the NAD, or your last idea. I don't think NAD would have included the HDMI option unless it worked -- at least in some setups. Am I following you correctly that some older tv (that had HDMI) might not require the HDCP encryption business, in tandem with the NAD, but because this current Regza model does, I won't be able to use it with HDMI ? I'd like to hear if NAD can suggest any fix for this. If not, I'd say this HDCP business is looking like a major pain in the rear.

In the meantime, the Oppo will be here shortly, and I'll see if there is any better luck with that., using HDMI. (One really nice thing about the Toshiba LCD is that they give you abundant connection options: 3 x HDMI, Compnent x 2, plus S-Video and Composite. I needed a switcher to accommodate everything on the older CRT set, which is unlikely to be an issue here.)

[edDV]

All suspicion focuses on this NAD.

[Seeker47]

One Question Answered, others arise . . . but now it is probably moot.

All suspicion focuses on this NAD.

On the other hand, never underestimate the potential for User Error ! I thought I had gone over the NAD pretty carefully, despite misplacing the manual a while ago. Once it went into the equipment stack, though, it became much less accessible. It turns out that there is a tiny switch on the back -- HDMI vs. Analog -- which is an either / or situation. Guess how that switch was set ? Once I flipped it over to HDMI, I got picture over the HDMI connection . . . but NO sound. (I seem to recall reading similar problem reports here, with other player makes & models.) This business with the exclusively Analog vs. Digital connect selection can't be some kind of player requirement: the Oppo and some other players I've seen let you have alternative working connections, and can automatically adjust between them.

What is then supposed to happen is that switching the tv input back to component (I had not removed the earlier cables) should bring up the "No Video Signal", and this was mostly the case, but I could still get the signal that way, occasionally. It is as though the NAD became confused. Lack of sound aside, I found the picture over HDMI to be relatively fuzzy / grainy, no matter how the NAD was set. The picture was definitely worse on HDMI than over Component -- a report I've also seen here a few times. The NAD's implementation of the picture upscaling feature was poor enough that I might have concluded that upscaling is just hollow hype, had I not had any other examples to compare it to.

The NAD 534 has a very solid build quality, rather favorable reviews, and I got it on the basis of a strong recommendation I read on VH. Now that I've hooked up the Oppo 980 in its place, I have to say I'm finding the performance and convenience of the Oppo to be clearly superior, in just about every respect. No problems over either connection, which can peacefully coexist, but now there will probably be no reason to leave the Component + audio cable set in place. The HDMI connection does look better. I haven't yet determined how much may be gained with the Oppo's upscaling (if anything), but at least it does not seem to be a minus. I've watched a couple movies bumped to 1080i (that's how the Toshiba 32HL67 is set at the moment, as I thought it looked a little bit better for certain things than at 720p), and thought they looked quite good. That would not have been the case at all with the NAD.

[edDV]

The Toshiba 32HL67 is a 1366x768 progressive panel.
http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/dvd/product.asp?model=32HL67

The Oppo is happy sending audio over the HDMI (for TV sound) or over the S/PDIF connection for 5.1 AC3 or DTS decoding in an audio receiver.