HDMI Advice from DirecTV: Use Component Video Instead
Integrator records tech-support call with DirecTV case manager who advises client to give up on HDCP and HDMI and use component cable instead.
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By Julie Jacobson | 08.15.2012
The guys at RemoteCentral.com are having a good chuckle over some technical advice from DirecTV that illustrates everything that’s wrong with HDMI.

After troubleshooting extensively a video-dropout issue -- probably an HDMI handshaking problem -- integrator Jeff Madden of Safe 'n Sound in Santa Maria, Calif., recorded a conversation with a DirecTV case manager who said to just give up on HDMI and use component instead.

The DirecTV rep says:

Pretty much the issue what’s going on is … the DHCP compliance problem with the television there. My advice that he can switch over to using component cables instead of HDMI. Um, you would not lose any picture quality. It’s broadcasted in 1080i anyways so you wouldn’t be losing any quality as far as picture or sound is concerned. …

It doesn’t matter what type of receiver we bring out there … HDCP is not something we enforce. I mean it is something that we enforce, but it is something we are required to enforce.

Dear oh dear, oh dear.

Check out the complete conversation below and then head to the RC forums to get more details on this particular case.




Julie Jacobson, Editor-at-large, CE Pro
Julie Jacobson is co-founder of EH Publishing and currently spends most of her time writing for CE Pro, mostly in the areas of home automation, networked A/V and the business of home systems integration. She majored in Economics at the University of Michigan, earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and has never taken a journalism class in her life. Julie is a washed-up Ultimate Frisbee player with the scars to prove it. Follow her on Twitter @juliejacobson.