Very strange issues when setting up Onkyo HT-RC180

[bmixon1992]

I have volunteered to help my neighbor set up his a/v system in his mancave. As stated in the title, he has an Onkyo HT-RC180 unit that he is going to run his Dish HD DVR, PS3, and Blueray player (Samsung) at the moment. He is using the Vivitek D511 Projector as his display. When the A/V company wired the speakers and projector, they used an hdmi to ethernet adapter and ran the wire to his "control room", which takes about 30-40 feet of cable. He plugged the cable into the HDMI out plug, and all of his sources into the HDMI inputs, and he couldn't get anything to display. Yesterday we changed the HDMI cable from the ethernet extender to a 33' Accel ultraRun 1.3 HDMI cable. This cable gave us nothing on the screen as well. So we tested the projector by plugging in a blueray player to the projector using a 3' HDMI cable, and it worked. We figured it was the cable again, but we plugged the 33' cable in the control room into the blueray player and it worked as well. The strange issue is when we plug the 33' cable into either the Dish receiver or the PS3 nothing shows up. Sorry for the lengthy post, and any tests we can do will be appreciated.

 

[MDS]

The problem most likely lies with the HDMI setup in the receiver.

Make sure that each of the input selectors (the buttons marked bd/dvd, cable/sat, etc) are assigned to an HDMI input. By default they may be assigned to component video or even composite video. Likewise, for audio, make sure HDMI audio out is set to 'Off' so that the receiver strips the audio and processes it itself instead of sending the audio to the TV/projector.

 

[bmixon1992]

i checked and i do have the correct HDMI settings, but the problem i can't figure out is why the blueray player will show on the projector (i am completely bypassing the onkyo unit, and just plugging the long hdmi cable into the back of each source), but the ps3 nor the dish receiver will show anything. do they have more information going over the cable, as so the cable can't handle it?

 

[MDS]

The dish receiver and PS3 also have settings menus to configure for HDMI output. If they don't work when connected directly to the projector then those settings could be incorrect.

I don't know too much about the PS3 but it can be difficult to change HDMI settings on a typical set top box/DVR if it wasn't orignally configured to use HDMI. One thing you can do is use a composite or component video connection and see if you can get the menus to appear. If so, then change the output settings for HDMI.

 

[bmixon1992]

ok will try that when he gets back home. thanks for the help

 

[bmixon1992]

another issue i forgot to mention is the reciever is supposed to have on screen setup menus when you plug a monitor into the hdmi out. as of now nothing shows up on the screen except for no input found.

 

[MDS]

another issue i forgot to mention is the reciever is supposed to have on screen setup menus when you plug a monitor into the hdmi out. as of now nothing shows up on the screen except for no input found.

If no image from one of the source devices displays then it's no wonder that the on-screen menus don't display either.

Depending on whether it was the monitor or the receiver putting up that message it would mean one of two things:

1. The monitor is not set to the HDMI input to which the cable from the receiver is connected. Verify that the monitor is set to the correct input.

2. The receiver didn't see an image from the monitor and has nothing to overlay the menu on. Of course there will be no image to overlay on if none of the source devices are sending the monitor anything.

I would double check all the HDMI related settings in the receiver but one other thing to consider is that receiver has settings to upscale any incoming resolution to another resolution of your choosing. If the receiver were set to upscale to 1080p and the monitor cannot accept 1080p as input that would probably result in 'no input found' (or some other equally generic message that doesn't really tell you what is going on). If you can get the menus by using a component or composite video connection, set the receiver to 'pass through' and it will not touch the incoming signal and the monitor can do the scaling.

 

[bmixon1992]

ok, i think the hd upscaling is the issue. I looked up the projector and it can only support up to 1080i. I think the dish box and the ps3 by default output in 1080p over hdmi. I'm going to try hooking them up with RCAs and change the settings. Also, the onkyo unit like i said is supposed to display on screen set up options when the projector is plugged in and the setup button on the remote is pushed. Is the onkyo unit sending out a 1080p resolution for its setup menus, and if so how do i change it to a lower resolution?