HDMI 2.1 Chipset Bug in AV Receivers Causing Gaming Problems

[gene]

Yesterday a German audio website discovered a bug in the latest HDMI 2.1 chipsets sourced by Panasonic and utilized in the new Denon, Marantz and Yamaha HDMI 2.1 AV receivers. This bug can inhibit pass through of 4k/120Hz HDR and 8k/60 HDR for some devices like NVIDIA's newest graphics cards and the latest XBOX Series X gaming console. When engaging these resolutions with these source devices directly connected to an HDMI 2.1 capable receiver utilizing the Panasonic HDMI 2.1 chipset, the user can experience a blank screen. This is a potential problem for any other manufacturer planning on using this HDMI 2.1 chipset in their next generation of HDMI 2.1 AV receivers as well. We inquired with Sound United and Yamaha to see what their solution would be to resolve this problem to determine if a hardware or firmware fix would be needed.

Read: HDMI 2.1 Bug in AV Receivers

 

[Gmoney]

Since I'm not using my V6A for gaming or 4K/120 I'll stay pat till Yamaha comes up with the fix.

 

[juma]

If no real fix is found, I assume we could return our unit under the 1 year warranty. Most of us are already out of the classic 30 or 90 days return policy ...The only reason I got mine is to pass through of 4k/120Hz HDR, because whitout this feature I would just have a 2019 model at 50% off instead. I bought a model that support HDMI 2.1, and now I learn that its not the case, I hope my warranty claim will actually work even if the unit is not "broken".

And there is no way that I will be hooking my Xbox X to my LGCX and use eARC instead, the CX dosent pass DTS via eARC and other HD audio coded and since I plan to use the Xbox X as a media center its a no go.

Poeple that still buy AVR ( vs soundbar or internal TV speaker ) usually plan to use them with next gen console or PC, the number of user that will only use if for home theater and dont need the top of the HDM1 2.1 features is what ... around 50%. Still it is a lot of claim and return if no real fix is found, a BS eARC use will not be acceptable for at least all the LGCX owner.

 

[bruts]

This has been an issue for years as there is no standard for HDMI across all devices. I actually have this same type of issue on the Marantz 4k version of the receiver thats 3 years old, its very frustrating. I get the "This resolution is not supported" blank screen on the samsung tv after changing channels on the direct tv. Only solution I have found is to turn off the Marantz and then turn back on and the problem stops. Direct tv and Marantz dont work well together it seems.

 

[Gmoney]

Even though I don't game or have anything that uses the 2.1 Features. I'm in the camp with everyone else on this. I still want what I paid for. Thing is I really like this AVR, the audio is really good on it.

 

[TLS Guy]

Yesterday a German audio website discovered a bug in the latest HDMI 2.1 chipsets sourced by Panasonic and utilized in the new Denon, Marantz and Yamaha HDMI 2.1 AV receivers. This bug can inhibit pass through of 4k/120Hz HDR and 8k/60 HDR for some devices like NVIDIA's newest graphics cards and the latest XBOX Series X gaming console. When engaging these resolutions with these source devices directly connected to an HDMI 2.1 capable receiver utilizing the Panasonic HDMI 2.1 chipset, the user can experience a blank screen. This is a potential problem for any other manufacturer planning on using this HDMI 2.1 chipset in their next generation of HDMI 2.1 AV receivers as well. We inquired with Sound United and Yamaha to see what their solution would be to resolve this problem to determine if a hardware or firmware fix would be needed.

View attachment 40953

Read: HDMI 2.1 Bug in AV Receivers

As I understand it, this problem will not be correctable via firmware update.

HDMI is reverting to the jungle it was back in the early days of implementation.

There needs to be a change of law. Third party testing of HDMI standards, needs to be mandated by law. It should be illegal to sell any device with an HDMI socket that has not been independently lab certified.

If the industry rebel, than the fix is to abolish DRM. The studios will still make their movies, but they will have a big hissy for a while.

DRM is turning into a massive fraud, and hassle for the consumer, just like I always thought it would. Cast iron, headache free DRM is an unattainable goal, and its time the industry admitted it.

 

[gene]

As I understand it, this problem will not be correctable via firmware update.

HDMI is reverting to the jungle it was back in the early days of implementation.

There needs to be a change of law. Third party testing of HDMI standards, needs to be mandated by law. It should be illegal to sell any device with an HDMI socket that has not been independently lab certified.

If the industry rebel, than the fix is to abolish DRM. The studios will still make their movies, but they will have a big hissy for a while.

DRM is turning into a massive fraud, and hassle for the consumer, just like I always thought it would. Cast iron, headache free DRM is an unattainable goal, and its time the industry admitted it.

Good article topic. Wanna write it up?

 

[snakeeyes]

If the flaw can’t be solved in firmware then it would be a recall. At some point you send the AVR for repair at the cost of the manufacturer.

It seems like it would also mean they would stop sales of the defective models immediately. It should be fixed before more defective units leave the factory.

 

[Gmoney]

Good article topic. Wanna write it up?

Thanks for posting up your article Gene. I have Yamahas new RX-V6A, it is a nice AVR at very Affordable price. I'm sure Yamaha, Denon and Marantz will fix the Panasonic chip problem. My AVR isn't having the "banding" issues that others are having or am I getting video drop outs. My V6A outside of not up converting to 4K all is good with everything else. I'll hold up and wait for the fix, I have a good backup AVR for use when the time comes to send in my V6A for the fix.

 

[Desk]

If the flaw can’t be solved in firmware then it would be a recall. At some point you send the AVR for repair at the cost of the manufacturer.

It seems like it would also mean they would stop sales of the defective models immediately. It should be fixed before more defective units leave the factory.

What I have read suggests the supplier to Denon/Marantz and Yamaha may need to create a new chipset to solve this - something that wouldn't be immediate.

Question is what do these companies do in the meantime? Continue to market products with a borked feature which is a very distinct selling point and with no prospect of when and how it will be fixed?

Only thing I could see they could do is reclassify these existing products as not having this feature and market and sell them on that basis. Don't know what they do for those people who have already bought them, other than offer a refund or money off.

Either that or keep selling them with a promise to either fix all these AVRs or replace them next year with new equivalent versions that work properly (would be my preference, especially if you're having to live for the better part of a year without this feature).

Desk

 

[slipperybidness]

As I understand it, this problem will not be correctable via firmware update.

HDMI is reverting to the jungle it was back in the early days of implementation.

There needs to be a change of law. Third party testing of HDMI standards, needs to be mandated by law. It should be illegal to sell any device with an HDMI socket that has not been independently lab certified.

If the industry rebel, than the fix is to abolish DRM. The studios will still make their movies, but they will have a big hissy for a while.

DRM is turning into a massive fraud, and hassle for the consumer, just like I always thought it would. Cast iron, headache free DRM is an unattainable goal, and its time the industry admitted it.

Yup, DRM and other such protections simply harm the common consumer. Always have, always will!

The people that want to break DRM and produce copies, will break the DRM and produce copies. The honest people that pay the $ are the people that suffer from the over zealous studio protections.

I am a fan of the "pay what you think it is worth" model, which has shown to be (surprisingly) a reasonable approach.

Here is an item that was very refreshing on the topic. I recently purchased a new CD, directly from the artist, on the day it released. At the time of purchase, the artist supplied a link to his drop-box, with high quality downloads of all the tracks available, and absolutely unprotected! Wow, what a way to do business. And, I would not even consider sharing those files with anyone else. It just makes it incredibly useful and much easier for the end paying user when you take this approach and have a little faith in the people that are willing to put their $ in your hands.

 

[TLS Guy]

Thanks for posting up your article Gene. I have Yamahas new RX-V6A, it is a nice AVR at very Affordable price. I'm sure Yamaha, Denon and Marantz will fix the Panasonic chip problem. My AVR isn't having the "banding" issues that others are having or am I getting video drop outs. My V6A outside of not up converting to 4K all is good with everything else. I'll hold up and wait for the fix, I have a good backup AVR for use when the time comes to send in my V6A for the fix.

Wishful thinking. They will not fix it because they can't. I doubt you will see money back. If you are outside the return period you are out of luck.

Another issue is that this highlights the 2K, 4K and 8K race. In my view we never needed to go over 2K. I absolutely can not tell the difference between 2K and 4K and that is with a top end screen. My two older 2K screens have just as good a picture as my 4K one. I think telling the difference between 2k, 4K and 8K is like trying to tell the difference between 0.1%, 0.05% and 0.025% THD. This has just brooked a boat load of trouble.

This AV technology is in actuality reaching, or at maturity and these "improvements" are now essentially futile and counter productive.

What needs to happen now is a drive to reliability and better ways of doing things. That means active speakers, with DSP corrected time delays, so most will actually hear the dialog, and not have to turn up center channels and ruin the balance. These sort of advances will make a real difference and improve the experience. Whether a screen or AVR is 2k, 4K or 8K is of zero consequence.

 

[Irvrobinson]

There needs to be a change of law. Third party testing of HDMI standards, needs to be mandated by law. It should be illegal to sell any device with an HDMI socket that has not been independently lab certified.

Mark, HDMI is not within the regulation purview of any US federal agency I'm aware of, and since most of these products are designed and manufactured outside the US you'd be talking about regulation in each individual country. (I'm honestly not sure what would happen in an entity like the EU.) Having had a lot of experience in these industry specification groups for computing, they operate for the benefit of "adopters", and while they mandate testing to protect their specification brand, the testing they specify is usually not rigorously monitored or enforced. Here's the testing policy for HDMI:

HDMI Resources for Testing

HDMI Compliance Test Specifications provide a suite of testing procedures, HDMI 2.1b

www.hdmi.org

Full of more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. I especially like this quote:

"Successful completion of the Compliance Test Specification or ATC Testing does not guarantee that any product will conform to the High-Definition Multimedia Interfaces, function correctly or interoperate with any other product."

I can't speak with experience about these standards for audio/video, but in the computing industry a lot of prototype interoperability testing is in "plugfests" that are organized by the industry specification group, but they are interoperability workshops, not compliance enforcement venues. These industry groups assume that non-compliant products will get fixed or die from failed integration testing in higher-level device engineering. In computing these industry specifications developed by private "trade associations'" include PCI Express (PCI SIG), NVMe (nvmexpress.org), DDR (JEDEC), IPMI, InfiniBand (IBTA)... I could go on and on, there are so many of them. The associations all look alike in a lot of ways. You join and pay to become a member to contribute to the specs and get a license, or you can just license them as an adopter for so-called reasonable and non-discriminatory (RND) license fees for the intellectual property.

Also, it is important to differentiate between "industry standards", which are developed by independent groups, like the IEEE, IETF, ANSI, INCITS, etc, and these pay to join industry groups. HDMI is not an industry standard as is, say, IEEE 802.1/.3 Ethernet, it is an industry specification that is owned by a trade association.

 

[Gmoney]

Wishful thinking. They will not fix it because they can't. I doubt you will see money back. If you are outside the return period you are out of luck.

Another issue is that this highlights the 2K, 4K and 8K race. In my view we never needed to go over 2K. I absolutely can not tell the difference between 2K and 4K and that is with a top end screen. My two older 2K screens have just as good a picture as my 4K one. I think telling the difference between 2k, 4K and 8K is like trying to tell the difference between 0.1%, 0.05% and 0.025% THD. This has just brooked a boat load of trouble.

This AV technology is in actuality reaching, or at maturity and these "improvements" are now essentially futile and counter productive.

What needs to happen now is a drive to reliability and better ways of doing things. That means active speakers, with DSP corrected time delays, so most will actually hear the dialog, and not have to turn up center channels and ruin the balance. These sort of advances will make a real difference and improve the experience. Whether a screen or AVR is 2k, 4K or 8K is of zero consequence.

Doc, I feel your right, so I just got off the phone with World Wide Stereo they sent me a return label I'm boxing it up as I post up. I was undecided about returning it. But after my 2nd cup of coffee decided why take the chance so back it goes for a full refund.

 

[snakeeyes]

Probably was zero testing with the new Xbox since it was just released.

 

[WookieGR]

Gamers can kiss DTS:X goodbye unless they buy the Sony X900H or newest Vizio's. Most all other TV makers providing gamer centric TV's have abandoned DTS via EARC. Glad I didn't jump the gun on a TV or AVR yet since single HDMI 2.1 inputs on any device completely turned me off to buying them... Dodged a bullet. I suppose we need to wait another year for new models now.

 

[TLS Guy]

Mark, HDMI is not within the regulation purview of any US federal agency I'm aware of, and since most of these products are designed and manufactured outside the US you'd be talking about regulation in each individual country. (I'm honestly not sure what would happen in an entity like the EU.) Having had a lot of experience in these industry specification groups for computing, they operate for the benefit of "adopters", and while they mandate testing to protect their specification brand, the testing they specify is usually not rigorously monitored or enforced. Here's the testing policy for HDMI:

HDMI Resources for Testing

HDMI Compliance Test Specifications provide a suite of testing procedures, HDMI 2.1b

www.hdmi.org

Full of more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. I especially like this quote:

"Successful completion of the Compliance Test Specification or ATC Testing does not guarantee that any product will conform to the High-Definition Multimedia Interfaces, function correctly or interoperate with any other product."

I can't speak with experience about these standards for audio/video, but in the computing industry a lot of prototype interoperability testing is in "plugfests" that are organized by the industry specification group, but they are interoperability workshops, not compliance enforcement venues. These industry groups assume that non-compliant products will get fixed or die from failed integration testing in higher-level device engineering. In computing these industry specifications developed by private "trade associations'" include PCI Express (PCI SIG), NVMe (nvmexpress.org), DDR (JEDEC), IPMI, InfiniBand (IBTA)... I could go on and on, there are so many of them. The associations all look alike in a lot of ways. You join and pay to become a member to contribute to the specs and get a license, or you can just license them as an adopter for so-called reasonable and non-discriminatory (RND) license fees for the intellectual property.

Also, it is important to differentiate between "industry standards", which are developed by independent groups, like the IEEE, IETF, ANSI, INCITS, etc, and these pay to join industry groups. HDMI is not an industry standard as is, say, IEEE 802.1/.3 Ethernet, it is an industry specification that is owned by a trade association.

Thanks for those insights Irv. Then we have a more serious situation developing than I thought. The complexity of the available HDMI interfaces continues apace. So with that will come more errors, and pieces of equipment not working with each other. Then each manufacturer will blame the other when the result is a black screen, or "not Supported" message. From posts here, it seems Samsung is a way down that road.

This will kill home AV if something is not done to check it. People will just go for sound bars and HTIBs if for no other reason than that they will at least work until they blow up.

My advice to members is NOT to buy new gear unless you really have to. Have to means a piece of equipment fails. Otherwise keep what you have. Your major focus should be reliability. In order to really work the bugs out, I think we should go to 10 year model replacement cycles and not yearly.

I do not intend to replace any of the equipment I put in last year. I will not replace the older equipment in the other two systems until they fail. Most of those items are coming up to the 10 year mark. I do provide good protection though and strongly believe in engineering longevity and protection in.

From what you have said, and what I see happening, the worst decision members could probably make now is to upgrade anything with an HDMI input on it. I'm pretty certain we are in for troubled times and a bunch of hard knocks.

 

[TLS Guy]

Good article topic. Wanna write it up?

I will think about it, but it will require a lot of research.

 

[snakeeyes]

I agree with TLS Guy. Stick with current gear and wait for hdmi2.1 issues to be fixed before purchasing an AVR. Possibly the same advice for TVs capable of 4K/120 and 8K also. I even wonder on PS5 and the new Xbox if they have any glitches on their gear.

Otherwise it’s really not hdmi2.1. You really can only trust that it does hdmi2.0 features until all these issues are worked out with hdmi2.1.

 

[TankTop5]

I agree with TLS Guy. Stick with current gear and wait for hdmi2.1 issues to be fixed before purchasing an AVR. Possibly the same advice for TVs capable of 4K/120 and 8K also. I even wonder on PS5 and the new Xbox if they have any glitches on their gear.

Otherwise it’s really not hdmi2.1. You really can only trust that it does hdmi2.0 features until all these issues are worked out with hdmi2.1.

New rumors Xbox is affected. Not ready for prime time.