PC devices no longer work on system But Apple still works

[Kevin Statham]

Our stage has a cat6 cable run from stage to booth. It works great for our audio snake and we also use it to connect devices on stage into our switcher and projector.
For some reason PC Device no longer work when connected to the system. We have a transmitter and a receiver with the cat 6 in between.
All Apple devices seem to work as they have in the past. I also tested the devices using Cat 5 cable. Same result.
I think this has something to do with the PC output or something like that. This was happening with laptops and thinkpad type devices.

Any suggestions?

-K

 

[RonaldBeal]

Need more information.
What kind of "system"
What are the transmitter and receiver connected to?
What kind of signals?
What specific equipment is connected? (make and models)

 

[Kevin Statham]

Need more information.
What kind of "system"
What are the transmitter and receiver connected to?
What kind of signals?
What specific equipment is connected? (make and models)

HDMI Cable from device to HDMI Transmitter.Transmitter and Receiver are connected with about 25m of Cat 6 Cable.
Receiver is connected to our Roland VR50HD Switcher via HDMI cable which sends the signal to our Christie projector and Midas m32 soundboard
Not sure of the brand name of the receiver and transmitter. The Cat 6 cable is shielded, etc...

Normally we use the Cat 6 to connect our digital snake to the M32. That is all working fine.
Our problem is with audio and video signal coming from PC devices of differing brands. We are only trying to connect one device.

Hope that helps.

 

[ruinexplorer]

Is this a new PC or just after a recent update of some sort? Since you are having issues with the compatibility with the PC and the extender (most likely).
I am assuming that you have already tried the bypass of the HDMI extender and the PC still works with the switcher, correct?
Unfortunately, as HDMI needs to "handshake" with all connected devices for HDCP, if an update has occurred on one part that is not compatible with all parts, a failure will occur and prevent the signal from passing. This can even be outdated drivers for devices. I have a laptop that the integrated webcam no longer works when I upgraded to Windows 11 as the camera manufacturer did not provide drivers for the new OS.

 

[Kevin Statham]

The PC devices work if connected directly to the switcher. I am thinking it must be some sort of upgrade to the PC that is doing this. Also it could be time to get a new transmitter/Receiver. My theatre is at a school, so the last thing that the computer people think about is how something will affect me. Our student computers get totally cleared of all unauthorized software upon shut down. So everytime they start the computer it has deleted files that they may have downloaded.

 

[ruinexplorer]

It's likely that exact thing. The transmitter/receiver is most likely running a different version of HDMI and cannot communicate with the laptops to complete the handshake. Your only other hope is to get an emulator to put in line, but at that point, you may as well get the new converter.

 

[Vince]

I agree with Ruinexplorer. Probably some how the handshake doesn't succeed. You can try setting another (lower) resolution or refresh rate in your screen options.
Or put a simple HDMI-splitter between your laptop and transmitter. This was the only solution for me to get SCS send video over my HDBaseT-system.

 

[brucek]

It could be a HDCP (Digital Rights Management for HDMI) is preventing things from working. Usually it shows up as things briefly working then just stopping for no apparent reason. The basic premise is that the source interrogates the various switchers & converters that finally interrogates the final sink (the projector) that responds with a key that says "I'm allowed to receive HDMI because I'm not trying to rip it" that is then passed all the way back to the original source to allow it to transmit. It's all about making sure you don't try to copy and DRM'ed content.

I've run into this where everything will work just fine with a laptop...but as soon as you replace it with a DVD player, things fail. Or even weirder is where a UTube video will play just fine, but the injected commercials will not play because they are inserted by utube with different DRM.

Why we prefer Display Port?

 

[TimMc]

It could be a HDCP (Digital Rights Management for HDMI) is preventing things from working. Usually it shows up as things briefly working then just stopping for no apparent reason. The basic premise is that the source interrogates the various switchers & converters that finally interrogates the final sink (the projector) that responds with a key that says "I'm allowed to receive HDMI because I'm not trying to rip it" that is then passed all the way back to the original source to allow it to transmit. It's all about making sure you don't try to copy and DRM'ed content.

I've run into this where everything will work just fine with a laptop...but as soon as you replace it with a DVD player, things fail. Or even weirder is where a UTube video will play just fine, but the injected commercials will not play because they are inserted by utube with different DRM.

Why we prefer Display Port?

Display port or DVI, but... I must say that SDI or even NDI is far, far superior for our uses than re-worked consumer copy protection-embedded protocols like HDMI.

 

[FMEng]

Make sure the PC's video resolution and refresh rate don't exceed the capability of the extenders, the switcher, or the projector. Start low and see if it works.

 

[DuckJordan]

I'm going to ask a strange question, Did the HDMI cable get swapped out? Have you tried other HDMI cables?