Sorry in advance for what is sure to be a long post. PLEASE STILL READ IT!!! I am at my wits' end! Okay...here's the situation: I have a Panasonic S97 DVD player. It is Panasonic's flagship model. It has a 1080i upconverter that is supposedly superior to other DVD players costing over $1000. With such great reviews, I was eager to buy this player and thought it a bargain at almost $300. I connected it via an AudioQuest HDMI-1 cable (a very high end cable) to my Sony KDSR50XBR1, which is Sony's LCOS (they call it SXRD) set. I also have Dish Network HD satellite service utilizing their new HD-DVR receiver. I also connected that via an AudioQuest HDMI-1 connector. Both are hooked directly into the HDMI inputs in the back of my Sony TV. For the first month the DVD player and satellite receiver worked great using the HDMI inputs. One night my parents watched an old movie on DVD, called My Man Godfrey. The next morning they couldn't get the satellite or the DVD to show a picture. I unplugged everything and plugged everything back in. After some wrangling with power cords and HDMI cables, the satellite picture came back up, but the DVD player was still showing no picture. It was as if the TV couldn't receive the HDMI signal from the DVD player anymore. If I plugged it in via S-video, it worked perfectly (I don't have component cables to try with it, so I don't know if those would work). But for some reason the HDMI signal wasn't being received correctly from the DVD player anymore. I contacted Sony and then Panasonic and spoke with both companies' tech support personnel at length about the issue. I tested different HDMI cables in both inputs on the TV. The satellite worked fine in both HDMI inputs, but the DVD player didn't work in either. Naturally, it seemed the problem must have been in the DVD player. Sony said maybe there was a compatibility issue with the DVD player. They admitted to having HDMI compatibility issues with Samsung DVD players, but at the time weren't aware of a problem with Panasonic products. Neither, of course, were Panasonic's tech support agents and engineers. After speaking with Panasonic's customer service, I exchanged my DVD player through Panasonic for a new S97 (remanufactured). I received it Monday and tried connecting it using the HDMI inputs, but again it wouldn't work! I was so upset. I took my DVD player and cables to the Best Buy store where I purchased the equipment and plugged them into a Sony display TV just like mine. Of course, to my chagrin, the DVD player worked just fine! So now I am scheduling a service call with Best Buy to have them come and look at the Sony TV. I am so confused at this point. Why would the DVD player work on a like TV and not on mine? Why would the HDMI inputs work on my TV with the satellite receiver but not the DVD player? Why would the DVD player have worked fine with HDMI for a month and then stopped suddenly? Why would this replacement DVD player not work on my TV with the same HDMI cable, but it will work on the same TV at Best Buy? HELP ME!!!
