HDMI 5 to 1 switcher issues (1 Viewer)

[JP$]

My Onkyo receiver broke for the second time in eight years so rather than repairing it again I’m moving on. Rather than getting a receiver again I decided to get a Helios HDMI 5 to 1 switcher, because all I used the receiver for was as a switcher. But only my Apple TV 4 will actually pass any signal. Computers and blu ray player (Samsung) are not showing up on the tv. I’ve tested multiple hdmi cables and that doesn’t appear to be the issue. The switcher led switches to the active device so it appears the switcher is getting signal. It’s just not passing through. Is this common? Any troubleshooting advice?

 

[JP$]

Oh so plot thickens—and makes it more of a home theater question. I should have mentioned I use a balun that sends cat 5 cables under the floor to a balun at the tv. So the switcher out hdmi plugs into a balun which then sends the signal to the tv through cat 5s. The Apple TV has no problem sending signal through the switcher to the balun and the cat 5s to the tv. The other devices do. For example, when I bypass the balun and go from the blu ray to the switcher to the tv, it works fine. But it can’t be anything wrong with the balun or cat 5s because the blu ray to balun to tv works just fine. It’s only when I add the switcher and balun together that certain devices don’t work. But like I said, the Apple TV works fine with both the balun and the switcher in the system.

Any thoughts?

 

[JP$]

Bump. Can anyone offer advice? Or is this just not a topic for this community?

 

[David Norman]

It's a fine topic, but it's a really narrow specific issues that may not be diagnosable from distance or nobody has experience with a similar chain of items (I certainly don't)
I'd almost certainly suspect the switcher/baluns is the issue, but I'm not sure why --? voltage issue over the distance.

Switch the inputs of the Bluray/AppleTV on the switcher and see if now the BD works and not AppleTV,.
It's possible a different Switcher might work better which is more compatible with the various pieces of the chain.

 

[JP$]

Thanks @David Norman. The ports on the switcher don't make a difference. Do you (or does anyone) have experience with a more sophisticated switcher?

This is the switch I purchased: https://www.nfm.com/helios-home-theater-hdmi-5-in-1-out-switch.

Here is the balun pair I'm using: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-yknA8...CAT-5 HDMI baluns,your main home theater room.

The cat 5 cables are actually Cat 5E (enhanced).

I posted my question in a dedicated A/V forum (avsforum.com). If this Home Theater forum doesn't cover these kinds of topics, does anyone have any other resources you'd recommend I visit?

Thanks!

 

[David Norman]

I'm way over my head other than knowing how finicky HDMI switchers can be. The fact that the switcher to TV direct seems to works SEEMS to narrow it down to the switcher/balun interface, but I have zero experience with HDMI baluns.

I'll assume you've tried just connecting one input at a time to the switch input that the Apple is using. If each individual works, but only when multiples are connected does if fall apart that seems to change all sorts of variables in trouble shooting. I'd love if you had just a HDMI to balun. You mentioned bypassing the balun, but did you bypass the switcher and just go direct BD HDMI to the balun what happens? If the individual sources all work direct with the balun, but not with the switch, again that narrows things down drastically.

When you had the receiver, were you going through the baluns to the TV or is the whole Switch/Balun setup new? I'm not sure where all the sources are/were in relationship to the TV. If the receiver was switching everything fine and feeding the same baluns, then the key is obviously something with the new switch output or at least with how it handles the signal internally for switching.

Robert Zohn from Value Electronics do aton of HT installs, so maybe he could see an issue or run it past one of his HT guys and see if they see an obvious issue. Might try to get his attention and see if he'll check the thread -- mostly he posts in the Displays thread, but maybe a PM will

The new poster forum is also sporadically read so it can take a bit of time for some of the correct people with a LOT more experience to pick up on a new thread esp over a weekend so hopefully a couple of the hardware folks will pick up on this over the next 24 hrs

I haven;t posted or read AVS is quite a few years, but when I was there it did seem they had a lot more Hardware geeks there than here which was more interested in the software/discs/Movie forum. I just jumped over there for a quick look and shockingly my profile is not only still active, but password hasn't changed. It says I joined 2002 and last post was 2012

 

[JP$]

@David Norman, super helpful reply--really appreciate the insight. @Robert_Zohn--I am sorry to bother you but if you don't mind offering at least a lead I could follow I would so appreciate the guidance! I am trying to get my HDMI switcher + Balun set up to work properly--right now only one device is working with the set up.

David, to answer some of your questions...

When I used the Onkyo Receiver, all devices would run first into the receiver via HDMI, then from receiver to balun via HDMI, then balun to balun (and TV) via cat 5e. That set up worked for all of my devices.

Basically take the receiver out of that set up and substitute the switcher. Apple TV works. Other devices don't. And that's the case even if I'm only testing one individual device at a time. And which port a device is plugged into doesn't make a difference. The Apple TV works plugged into all ports on the switcher. The other devices don't pass signal no matter which port they are plugged into.

In my new set up, if I plug any of the devices directly into the balun (therefore skipping the switcher), the devices work. So I can for example plug the Blu-ray into the balun and pass the signal fine through the cat 5s to the TV. And then I can unplug the BD and plug a PC into the balun and pass the signal just fine.

If I move all the devices out of my cabinet and over to my TV and then plug them all into the switcher (therefore skipping the baluns), the devices work. They work individually and they work if I have 5 devices plugged into the switcher at the same time. Signal still passes just fine.

So it's clearly a handoff issue between the switcher and the balun, and yet the Apple TV is having no hand off issue, and the port on the switcher makes no difference as to whether the Apple TV works or another device doesn't work. So it's not the ports. Something about the devices passing signal and then the interaction between the switcher and the balun.

 

[David Norman]

I think that's a huge start in narrowing things down to where the issue lies.

Unless someone has some other suggestion, my next step would probably be to try a different upgraded switcher -- one that is at least HDMI 1.4 if not 2.0 compliant and passes 4K signals. Even if you aren't 4K capable now, I would think a switcher that could handle the newer formats might also handle the current devices more like your Onkyo Receiver did.

I'm not sure what the switcher is doing to the output of the non-AppleTV devices, but it'd obviously something the baluns don't like

I was actually looking at getting a new HDMI switch a couple weeks ago and the more I read, the more confused I got. Reading reviews it does seem painfully obvious that many of these switchers at incredibly setup dependent and almost all of them had 10-15% comments of some sort "This switcher doesn't work for my system, but (some other device) worked great" I couldn't find any brand or specific product that seemed to work for everyone. Even looking under BEST OF reviews sites, the large majority of switches were names I'd never heard of -- no Sony, No Panasonics, no Cisco/Arris, etc. When Monoprice and Rocketfish become the Name Brand instead of the generic company I recognize it's starting to get thin

 

[JP$]

@David Norman, really appreciate you. Ha! You said it. Well the local bestbuy has a rocketfish switch that supports 4K 60hz and hdmi 2.0 so I think I’ll take your advice and try this one. If this one works better I’ll take the Helios back. I’ll let you know!

 

[JP$]

@David Norman, closing the loop here and hopefully giving you some advice to repay all that you gave me. I bought this rocketfish switcher to test:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/rocketfish-4-port-4k-hdmi-switch-box-black/5055100.p?skuId=5055100&ref=212&loc=1&extStoreId=1093&ref=212&loc=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlZbqyK_I6wIV5B6tBh3LpgNKEAQYASABEgIdsfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Everything in my set up now works perfectly. All devices can pass signal with no issues. The switcher seems to interact just fine with the balun set up. I've done testing with visual and audio with blu-ray discs and streaming content and things look and sound great. Fingers crossed that things stay that way! My problem clearly was with something with the Helios switcher and the baluns. The Rocketfish switcher and the baluns seem to be playing nicer together. If you are in the market for a switcher then obviously I'd recommend this Rocketfish one over the Helios one! I got an opened one for about $75 at Best Buy ($15 off brand new price).

Thanks again for your help!

 

[David Norman]

Excellent. I had looked at the Rocketfish which has gotten a couple nice reviews, but really was hoping for something more in the $30-40 range since it was meant to be used on a small ancillary TV assuming I don't upgrade that set sooner rather than later anyway -- TIVO, BD, and Roku at least. Just for ease of return if nothing else compared with all the Amazon units I may eventually go that way

I wish I knew more why these HDMI switchers are so twitchy, but at least it's a rather easy fix in your case since you ruled out almost every other problem