# HR22 periodically displays a purple hued screen



## BreezeCJ (Jan 8, 2007)

Having own several models of HD-DVR, including one other HR22, I've come across an issue with a brand new, 2 week old receiver. Occassionally when I turn on my new HDTV connected through HDMI, my screen displays the picture & channel selected but with a purplish tint. When I attempt to change either the formattted resolution or turn off the unit it is unresponsive. After a reboot, everything works fine. But the problem always resurfaces either immediately or soon after this recent reboot.

I thought it might be the HDMI connection, but like I said, it refuses to change resolution when I cycle through available formats.

Currently running the latest national software release.


----------



## hilmar2k (Mar 18, 2007)

There are other similar threads around. I don't remember what the consensus was, but you might try searching to see if you can find them.


----------



## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Try switching to a HD channel if on a SD channel, or vice versa. If it will let you change channels, its a problem I had on mine. See if the new software being released this month fixes it. If not, try component just to see if it happens there. If not, check your HDMI connector on the receiver VERY carefully for bent pins, maybe try a different cable. If nothing fixes it, try returning it to the store for an exchange (or call DirecTv if you got it from them).


----------



## texasbrit (Aug 9, 2006)

there have been reports of similar problems with new models of TV from Vizio....


----------



## sonofcool (Dec 23, 2007)

Yes, I had a similiar issue with my Vizio TV. It turned out to be a TV issue. It only did this for a few minutes when the TV was warming up. So, if you have your TV on the whole time you are rebooting, that is probably enough time for the TV to warm up and the problem to go away. To make sure it's not a TV issue, you might want to turn it off for the reboot of the DVR


----------



## Nomo1 (Apr 17, 2007)

I have the same problem, one is on a vizio tv while the other is an emerson. If you turn off both the receiver and the television at the same time (with the little button that says "off") when you turn them both back on, it is not purple. If the televisions are turned off, but not the receiver, when you turn the tv back on, it is purple.

I actually found this information on another website, I can't even remember where, but the "fix" was to make sure both were turned off at the same time. This does address the problem. If someone forgets to turn them both off, then using this method causes the tv to come back on as normal. Apparently, it has something to do with the way the box is handshaking with the tv through the hdmi cord. I believe it is a problem with the box that directv does not want to acknowledge.


----------



## joed32 (Jul 27, 2006)

Nomo1 said:


> I have the same problem, one is on a vizio tv while the other is an emerson. If you turn off both the receiver and the television at the same time (with the little button that says "off") when you turn them both back on, it is not purple. If the televisions are turned off, but not the receiver, when you turn the tv back on, it is purple.
> 
> I actually found this information on another website, I can't even remember where, but the "fix" was to make sure both were turned off at the same time. This does address the problem. If someone forgets to turn them both off, then using this method causes the tv to come back on as normal. Apparently, it has something to do with the way the box is handshaking with the tv through the hdmi cord. I believe it is a problem with the box that directv does not want to acknowledge.


Hand shaking problems are a fact of life with HDMI. In my set up I need to turn on the AV recorder before I turn on my DVD player or I won't get a picture. It's partly because when they set up the standards for HDMI they were so vague that every one interpreted them differently. So we have to jump through hoops to get things to work together until everything gets standardized.


----------



## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

A pink, purple, or green screen is characteristic of (the output of) an MPEG decoder having no input data to decode, or a D-to-A converter having no input data to convert. Most of the time, especially on consumer equipment where that matters, the decoder or D/A will mute the output when there is no decoded data, so you either normally see either decoded video, or a muted (black) screen.

But not always. The D/A in your TV (which typically sits near the output of the HDMI receiver, and sometimes is built into the same IC) is fed by HDMI. HDMI is also supposed to mute the screen when there is no data. But in some cases and sometimes depending upon equipment compatibility and how elegantly the handshaking is coded, it is not completely bullet-proof. With certain combinations of equipment, you may see a flash of green or pink. But this is typically transient, and disappears as soon as the output device (DVR, DVD, STB) has data to decode or convert.

Solid green, pink, or purple while obviously having video or audio that should be playing back, well that's an indicator of a problem. But the reason you see the green, pink, or purple usually stems from the same sort of thing--a digital video processing chain with the input data missing.


----------



## V'ger (Oct 4, 2007)

Over HDMI, you can transmit video in several formats, primarily RGB and YCrCb. In the latter, there are 4:2:2, 4:2:0, and 4:4:4 formats. Most TVs can identify the data type properly over HDMI, but sometimes they mis-identify the format. This mismatch causes a green and purple/violet hue on image data that is transferred and often happens when devices are powered up.

Look on your TV's menu and see if there are settings for HDMI data format. If so, take it off 'Auto' and try one of the other settings until you get a natural picture. This will ensure the TV never guesses wrong.

If the TV's HDMI input is connected to an AV receiver before the sat box, then you have to make sure that all devices (DVD, Blu-Ray, sat box, etc.) that would be switched to the HDTV use the same output format. Most consumer gear won't have the option to set output format, or if so, it will only have RGB and YCrCb choices and not the varients of YCrCb. If you wind up with incompatible formats on one HDMI input, you have to leave the TV's HDMI in 'Auto' mode and live with the occasional bad guess.

Finally, I would expect many HDTVs to be set permenantly for 'Auto' format detection mode and not be user selectable.


----------



## Ed Campbell (Feb 17, 2006)

It's a "new" Samsung - but a model number that's been around for at least a year or two. Right?

If that's the case, notify Samsung customer service right away and get a replacement set. Or deal with the retailer you bought it from. I haven't heard of this problem from folks with latest models.

Sooner or later, it will refuse to turn on until you cycle it a few times, eventually it gives up altogether.

*There is a class action suit against Samsung for folks who had this happen out of warranty - and there are plenty of folks*. They built several models starting a year or so ago - still in the retail stream - with underpowered capacitors.

The fix is a new set or replacing the capacitors. Out of warranty? Samsung decided not to admit to the problem.


----------



## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

V'ger;2341380 said:


> Over HDMI, you can transmit video in several formats, primarily RGB and YCrCb. In the latter, there are 4:2:2, 4:2:0, and 4:4:4 formats. Most TVs can identify the data type properly over HDMI, but sometimes they mis-identify the format. This mismatch causes a green and purple/violet hue on image data that is transferred and often happens when devices are powered up...


Sounds like a fantasy.

First of all, all consumer HD and DT is 4:2:0 format. Every single frame of it.

Secondly, 4:2:0 color space can only be "misidentified" by the DAC circuitry. HDMI, while capable of transporting data coded in any of the formats, does nothing much more than transport the data from place to place. While it is smart enough for the HDMI transmit and receive chips to handshake and verify that the receiver has the signal, and while there is also a HDCP layer, HDMI is fairly stupid to what color space format the data it is transporting actually is. HDMI can't "misidentify" 4:2:0 as 4:2:2 or 4:4:4, because it does not have the intelligence built into it to "identify" any one of them. It does have the capability to carry metadata identifying _deep color _or xvYCC, but those are formats not found in consumer HD. Other than that, it's just a data pipe, so what it transmits to your TV set is GIGO, and it does not know nor care what the color space format might be.

Third, "misidentifying" the color space means that the DAC sees the coefficients that represent Cr or Cb for 4:2:0 and identifies them as the coefficients for 4:4:4 or 4:2:2. Well, guess what? For a given input pixel map the coefficients for Cr and Cb for all of these formats have virtually exactly the same ratios, meaning that "misidentifying" them would lead to an output manifesting virtually the exact same hues as being identified correctly, not something varying wildly from pink to purple to green.

The only difference between the "0" in 4:2:0, for instance, and the last "4" in 4:4:4, is that the single coefficient representing the "0" is the average of the four coefficients representing the "4". That will not be materially different as far as what color value is displayed. Misidentifying 4:4:4 as 4:2:0 in the DAC would only mean that it would take one of the 4 coefficients of (the last 4 in) 4:4:4 and generate it 4 times for (the "0" in) 4:2:0 (once for Cr and once for Cb). Or, it would take one of the four coefficients of the middle "4" and use that to represent one of the 2 coefficients of the "2" in 4:2:0, and again for the second one. Misidentifying 4:2:0 as 4:4:4 in the DAC would only mean that it would the single coefficient of "0" and generate it 4 times for 4:4:4 (or the two coefficients for "2" and generate each twice for the second "4" in 4:4:4). Not exactly what the system had in mind, but you could not ever see the difference.

And lastly, the DAC in consumer equipment has no business even being coded for anything but 4:2:0 capability, since that is all it will ever see.

The wild colors are simply manifestations of a decoder outputting garbage because there is briefly no input and the buffer is empty. HDMI may play a role in this, but it has nothing to do with HDMI or the decoder "misidentifying" the color space. HDMI's role in this is that it is supposed to mute video when there may be confusion of this order. But it sometimes does not mute video (due to idiosyncratic equipment incompatibilities) and the wild colors of an empty decoder buffer sometimes get through.


----------



## meblake (Sep 20, 2007)

I am seeing this issue as well with my HR21-100 via HDMI to a cheap Sylvainia 32" LC320SSX. I am now seeing it more frequently now with the 0x0395 firmware (coincidence?), and unfortunately the only remedy seems to be to reset the HR21. I haven't seen this issue at all with my Sony TV and an HR20-700. Very odd indeed...


----------



## Herdfan (Mar 18, 2006)

My parents had this issue on an R22 (with HD enabled) connected via HDMI to a Sony Bravia W5100. I replaced the HDMI cable with one from monoprice and so far, so good.


----------



## M$GUY (Oct 3, 2008)

Sorry to revive this thread three months later, but I keep getting the pink screen output from my DirecTV HR-21Pro at random when switching sources and nothing cures it but RBR.

I am pretty sure I know what is going on. It is completely losing handshake, and shutting down (well, ignoring at least) the HDMI port on my HR-21Pro. I have a Monoprice 4x2 HDMI switch and it did not do this before installing it. There is a trigger in common. It will only present itself when the HDMI switch has been switched to my Panasonic BD35K Blu-Ray player (B input) or my Xbox (C input). When the HDMI switch is switched back to the A input (the HR-21Pro), the pink screen shows up, but like I said, completely at random.

Today I noticed something that is a definite problem. I went into the HR-21Pro's menu to the resolutions setting. 1080P (HDMI) was not selectable as an output (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i all were). Back a couple software updates, shutting off everything (including the HDMI switch), then firing it back up cured the issue. Not so now. If I get pink, it stays pink until I RBR.

All of my sources are set for 1080P, and both the Xbox and the BD35K never give me pink. I repeatedly switched between them all, and the HR-21Pro is the only pink.


----------

