HDCP problem with Philips DVP-5960 and Samsung 5500

[ThomasOkken]

Every now and then, when I'm playing a DVD, the TV will suddenly announce that the input source is not HDCP-compliant, and after a few seconds the screen turns to static. Unplugging and replugging the HDMI cable does not clear up this condition.
I've tried resetting the TV, by pulling the power cord and then plugging it back in. That seemed to do the trick, at least once, but yesterday it happened again and resetting the TV did not fix it that time.
I didn't try resetting the DVD player then -- stupid, I should have tried that, I know -- just popped the disc into my Mac (which is also connected to that same TV) and finished watching it that way.

Is HDCP flakiness a known problem with the Philips 5960 or the Samsung 5500? Should I try upgrading the DVD player's firmware?

[jman98]

The exact issue you describe has plagued Samsung HDTVs for years. I speak as a satisfied former owner of a Samsung LCD HDTV. Loved the TV, but I had the exact problem you describe. I usually had the problem at the beginning of power up, not during playback. My solution was to power up the TV first and wait for it to be on and only then to power up my playback device (ie. DVD player, BluRay player, etc.). Doing that stopped the problem.

I doubt that upgrading the DVD player's firmware will help as other have reported this issue with many different Samsung models and it does seem to be specific to the brand. Your DVD player apparently can be made region free (we have a hack for it listed under our DVD Players section) and upgrading the firmware will very likely break that, should you care about it. You could try using higher quality HDMI cables. I've had good success with some cheap HDMI cables that Amazon sells like these:
http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-High-Speed-HDMI-Cable-Meters/dp/B003L1ZYYM/ref=sr_1...rds=HDMI+cable

[ThomasOkken]

That's a pretty serious bug for them to leave unaddressed for so long. And my opinion of Samsung was already dented by how incredibly awful the factory screen settings were -- I had to tweak dozens of settings using a guide I found on-line before the picture finally looked normal. (I bought this TV based on how excellent all the Samsung computer monitors I've ever seen are, but their TVs must come from a different factory!).

But I digress. Thank you for your advice; I'll try to remember to turn on the TV before the DVD player (I did usually do it the other way around). If that doesn't help, I'll try using component video instead of HDMI -- at DVD resolution, that should work fine, too, I guess.