I bought a Yamaha RX-V665 Receiver (3-31-2009) to play alongside my Samsung LN46A750 R1F/XZA HDTV, purchased OCT. 18, 2008. We have Time-Warner Cable service with a DCH3416 Motorola Digital Video Recorder STB. For a little over a year with this Samsung TV, I have been experiencing blackouts from the TV averaging about 6 times per hour, and lasting about 7-10 seconds, at any given time of day or night. This does not happen when playing a BluRay or watching ON DEMAND movies. When it blacks out, I only get the audio, but no picture at all!
This is the way I hooked this up- ALL HDMI connections, and ALL going into the Yamaha receiver. I've contacted Motorola maker of the STB, they told me Time-Warner installs their own software into these boxes, I've talked to TW, and after replacing cables under house twice, exchanged about 5 boxes and about 6 service calls, they have never heard of this problem, and each time the signal was all 100% feed.
I called Time-Warner, Motorola, Yamaha and Samsung last year and talked to each of their customer tech support and they all pretty much told me they have never heard of this problem. So now I'm stuck in the middle of a blame game. Seriously?
*** Today, a Time-Warner technician came over to check box again, 100% signal, so he suggested we take the Yamaha receiver out of the equation by bypassing the receiver and ONLY connecting the TW Cable out from STB, into the side HDMI IN4 Input to see if that would cause the blackouts as well. (I usually have the HDMI 12' inside (wall-rated) usually connected to the receiver's HDMI 1 on the TV rear. That was around 8:30 AM this morning and it's now 7:40 PM, and has not ever blacked out since we connected this way! I do not have a TOS Optical Audio,(not needed,just use the TV speakers for now)
The tech did mention something about a 3' fiber optic SPDIF from receiver to Cable box..? How is that going to help the video from blacking out?
I had contacted Samsung back in June of 2009. They had me do a few troubleshooting things to prove it was not the TV.
Do you have any suggestions on what is causing these blackouts, and do you still think it's a possible handshake issue with the absence of a HDCP Repeater either from the Samsung TV or the Time Warner Motorola DVR box causing the VIDEO to go out and the AUDIO to remain on?
So as far as troubleshooting goes you have eliminated the TV as any source of the problem. I think you can also safely eliminate the cable box because you have swapped so many in and out but I have seen HDMI cables cause the boxes connectors to fail because they are so heavy. Check to make sure there isn't any major downward load on the connector and do some jiggling to make sure you cannot recreate the problem. If all is well at the back of the cable box all you have left is the receiver and an HDMI cable. Check the cable you did not use when running from the cable box to the TV and if you can eliminate that as a cause you have only the Yamaha receiver left. Running the HDMI direct to the TV and an audio signal to the receiver would probably solve the problem but not the mystery.