Hi, has anyone else had a problem with a T810 "greying out"?

Occasionally, my unit will only display in black-and-white, and although the colour comes back by itself sometimes (after a long wait) and after a hard reset (power off/on), it's rather impractical to have to unplug the unit just to get the colour back!

This can happen either when watching live TV or when watching a recording, often after switching to use a different unit (eg DVD player) but sometimes right in the middle of watching.

I tried the output from the other SCART socket and the RCA output jacks while the fault was happening, but it made no difference - I still got a B&W picture.

My signal's fine as I always get a good picture and the recordings always have full colour (though it sometimes will only show in B&W until I reset!)

Any help on this one greatly appreciated.

David

PS. My unit is a Hitachi HDR 080, and I haven't upgraded to the twin-recording firmware though am considering it.

Have you tried a different SCART cable?

Are you using the unit with rgb or cvbs as the output ?

If the latter, try changing this to rgb (there should be a noticable difference in picture colour if the tv accepts this), and see if you still get the problem.

Sincerely.

Audiofi

Thanks to io and audiofi for the much appreciated suggestions.

I tried switching the output between RGB and CVBS but it didn't make any difference. (It was set on RGB originally.)

I don't have a spare scart cable to try switching, but I have previously tried taking the output from the phono sockets on the HDR straight into the phono sockets on the TV while the problem was occurring, and it didn't make any difference - still b&w output - so I've been assuming that this isn't a cable issue.

In every case, powering down (removing power) and restarting restores colour - so I'm assuming this is an internal hardware or firmware problem.

Has anyone else ever encountered this? And do you agree with my diagnosis - or am I missing something?

All further help/suggestions welcome.

David

Hey! I've found a way of reproducing the problem reliably! Woo hoo!!!



All I have to do is switch my TV from "TV" mode to "Video" mode (i.e. external input) repeatedly and hey presto, B&W hard disk recorder. Start playing a DVD and lo and behold, it's in colour - but the HDR is still in B&W. Bizarre. Restart (power down/up) the HDR, and hey presto, it's back to full colour again.

:-S

Wierd, huh?

My system is set up like this: Hitachi T810 HDR plugs into Samsung DVD/VHS combo via scart cable into one of two AV ports at the back (I've tried both). It's also now connected by phono into AUX sockets on the front. DVD/VHS combo plugs into a (very old) TV via phono leads (mono sound).

Nothing, nothing, nothing makes any difference after it's gone B&W except restarting the Hitachi HDR; I've tried using both the AV sockets and the AUX connection, and even plugging the HDR straight into the TV, but it makes no difference; the only way to get colour back is to power down/up the HDR.

So... my question is... how can switching the input selector on the TV possibly affect the HDR???? Could it be somehow messing with the mains voltage and causing a firmware issue? The mains is pretty dodgy around here so it wouldn't surprise me if there's the occasional brown-out, or if the TV could momentarily drop the mains voltage. I've tried unplugging the TV from the same multi-plug as the HDR but it still has to go into the same twin wall socket, and the problem remains. I could try a long extension cable from a socket far away... maybe that's the next thing to try - or a UPS!

Any ideas, anyone?

David

Very strange. I might hypothisise that the incoming CVBS and/or audio signals (from the device the PVR is connected to via scart) are interferring with the PVR. However, if the problem still occurs when using the phone connections and no scart cables physically connected to the PVR, then that rules out that theory.

Good thinking... after a brief test tonight I can confirm that it happens even when the PVR is connected by phono leads directly to the TV, without the intervening device, and with no scart cables attached. Does this mean the kind of interference you are suggesting is impossible (ie no reverse signals can come into the PVR)? If so, then there's only two other possibilities: the aerial cable (common to all three devices) and the AC power...

Pretty much. Scarts are bi-directional, whereas obviously the phone leads can only carry signals one way. As we're talking digital tuners, it's not a signal issue with the aerial, although if you have boosters and such like, it might be possible that the signal is too strong, causing some overload somewhere, but I would think that would cause picture breakup rather than affecting the video output circuitry.

Not sure if you've tried it on another TV or not, but that's worth a shot, if only to rule the TV out as being a possible cause.

How long have you had the T810? And has it always happened or only recently? To be honest, it sounds more like component failure in the T810, or maybe a dry/loose solder joint / bad connection on the video output circuit board in the T810. Might be an easy fix, but if your T810 is still under guarantee I'd be inclined to return it, if further troubleshooting doesn't reveal the cause to be something else.

I get something similar: I have a wireless media streamer hooked up to my T810's AUX Scart. To use the streamer I usually put the T810 into AUX mode (but sometimes turn it off). In both cases though the video from my streamer sometimes turns black and white after a random period of time. The only way to get colour back is to turn the T810 on and off again or to take it out of and back into AUX mode. It happens more often if the T810 is off than if it is in AUX mode.
This is definitely related to the T810 as the streamer never loses colour if connected directly to my TV.

Hey fishears... Great (well, terrible) that you have a similar problem; I feel so much less alone now! (And a bit less crazy.)

Futaura, thanks again for the response. My machine was second-hand off ebay so definitely no chance of a warranty repair, and I'm a bit wary of getting inside the box with a soldering iron... how would I find the dodgy connection? And how could I be sure not to fry other components on the board? I've definitely fried things before with a soldering iron and B&W is better than dead!



Advice appreciated...

I've been away from home for a week now, and am returning with:

a) A small but good flat panel TV
b) A new 160gb hard drive to upgrade the T810 (the trusty old WD160BB as recommended in another thread on this board, apparently no other drives work reliably), and
c) (Hopefully) a serial cable to upgrade the firmware to the twin-record version.

Maybe some/all of this will make a difference... stay tuned (no pun intended!) for further updates.

David

Forget about the soldering iron to start with . If my box were to develop this fault, the first thing I'd look at is the smallest PCB which is directly connected to the scart sockets, etc, and disconnect it from the main PCB by removing the ribbon cable which attaches the two. Now, I'm not an engineer, so I'd only be looking for obvious things like exploding components (e.g. capacitors, of which there are plenty on the video PCB) and the soldering work on the underside to see if any of the joints actually look loose.

If nothing is immediately visible, I'd reconnect it, making sure the ribbon cable (which might have been badly connected beforehand) is connected well both ends, and with the unit on I'd try flexing/wiggling that PCB a little bit when the display goes grey to see if colour comes back (if it does, then it could well be a loose solder joint somewhere).

That's about it really. I don't recall anybody with this problem before, so it's hard to say exactly what could have failed, if anything.

Oh, and good that you mentioned software - don't think we established which version your box currently has... v5.3 or something older? I suppose if your box was supplied with some prehistoric software version, it could be that, but generally v4.9 or better should be fine.

Two things to try

1. Try using the cvbs phono video socket rather than the scart. This will tell you if the problem is scart socket related.

2. Upgrade to the newer twin record firmware. It's possible that you have a really old version of firmware which may contain a video driver bug. What version are you using?

Sorry didn't read your previous post, you've already tried suggestion 1

Thanks for all the suggestions!



I had a good look at the video output pcb but stopped short of pulling it; the board is held in by screws and a plastic goody, and I was afraid of damaging the board in the process and doing more harm than good.

I managed to partially pull out and re-seat the ribbon cable (the video output pcb end) which seemed to help for a while, but then, guess what... the problem returned with a vengeance and I had the worst session of b&w-to-colour-and-back-again ever!

However, happy to say that all the components on the board all look fine - no obviously exploded capacitors, and no obviously dodgy connections.

I've just upgraded to the twin-record version of the firmware from v4.9 (UK) - and what joy! Lovely colours, great new options, and I think even the playback quality is better (or is that just me?) And finally I can set my time zone to Denmark (GMT+1) so my clock is real (local) time! Whew. It was quite disconcerting to have it an hour behind, though internally it worked fine and recorded everything at the right time.

The twin-record installation worked first time thanks to instructions at http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/vestel/update.htm (from a link elsewhere on this forum) and I'm happily recording two things at a time now, quite useful even though there are only 3 digital channels over here!



I've also installed my flat-panel TV which has multiple inputs, so now I can connect both the PVR *and* the DVD/VCR directly to the TV. The DVD/VCR goes into the TV via CVBS phono jacks, while the PVR goes in via the SCART socket.

The result - so far - is no B&W for a good couple of hours, touch wood. I'm not sure whether it's the new software or the different connection arrangement but if it holds out I'll go back to the old cable arrangment to see if I can get it to go B&W, which would be a clincher.

Interestingly, now switching the "TV out" setting on the PVR between RGB and CVBS gives a distinct colour difference, and switching it to S-VIDEO makes it go B&W. (Maybe this is what was happening before???)

Haven't tackled the HD upgrade yet as I'm waiting on some new hardware/software so I can transfer treasured recordings over to the new disk.

Will update in a day or so with more results - and thanks again for all the support.

David

Good news... no B&W since upgrading! Woo hoo. Haven't tested yet to see if the old cable arrangment can reproduce the problem, and almost haven't got the heart to try! Still, I think it may be useful to know just in case anyone else encounters this problem, so will report back on that in due course.

David

OK... the news is that switching back to the old cable arrangement (phono jacks through the VHS/DVD player) still produces the B&W signal, so it's definitely not the firmware.

It must be something to do with the cabling, or with the VHS/DVD player, cos even after it's gone B&W over the phono jacks, I can still get a colour picture by connecting a scart cable from the T810 directly to the TV, without having to reboot.

Anyhow, the scart to scart connection to the TV is stable in colour, so I've got a solution to the problem.



Thanks to all for the help. I hope no one else ever encounters this niggly problem, but if they do hopefully they'll find this thread and have an answer.

David