Volume issue on Media Center PC & HDMI Receiver

[Dragonwyntir]

Hello All!

After a rather harrowing tale of switching from my Xbox 360 Extender setup in the living room to lugging my Media Center PC out there (I was attempting to eliminate the 360 from the living room equation in preparation for the Xbox One's arrival). I was running Windows 8 with the Media Center add-on in conjunction with the Extender, and everything was fine, but moving the Windows 8 Media Center PC to the living room was a nightmare. I ended up rolling back to Windows 7 a few weeks back (I HATED doing this, because Windows 8 is otherwise more living-room-friendly), and things have been far more steady/reliable. I am running into one troubling thing, however, and I'm hoping someone else has come across this (and an associated fix)...

When starting up the PC (using a combination of MST and the Power Toggle IR command from my Logitech Harmony remote; the PC sleeps for most of the day except to wake up for TV watching and recordings), the PC will boot into Media Center, and roughly 30% of the time, the sound will be completely muted on the PC. If I break out a mouse and manually click the mute button in Media Center, that will bring back the sound, but that's hardly the seamlessness needed for the WAF we all craved here at TGB.

Any thoughts as to what might be causing this?

Thanks for reading, and cheers all!

[newfiend]

I have approximately the same set up as you and have had this issue as well. All HDMI between HTPC > AVR > TV and I use a Harmony One.

Try setting your Harmony remote to Power on the TV First, AVR second and HTPC Last. You may have to adjust the delays on the harmony remote so there is a longer delay before the HTPC powers on. Basically you want both the TV and AVR ON prior to the HTPC waking up and initiating the Handshake between the HDMI connected devices. If one of the components (TV or AVR) isn't ready for the handshake it can cause the HTPC HDMI handshake connection to fail and it mutes the audio.

I adjusted the delay on my Harmony One for the HTPC power on from 1500ms to 2000ms (you could also try setting it to 2500ms) and see if that's enough time for the TV and AVR to be fully ON prior to the HTPC waking and trying to connect.
Another option is to use HDMIYo and map a button on your Harmony remote to trigger HDMIYo which will reset the HDMI handshake if it fails. I added this to my Harmony One Touch Screen so if for some odd reason I need to reset the connection, this makes it really simple to execute. Since adjusting the HTPC power on delay I really don't use HDMIYo much unless one of the kids gets things out of whack.

http://mymce.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/hdmiyo/
newfiend~

[barnabas1969]

I've experienced this too, on my old HTPC anyway. Hasn't happened (yet) on the new one. I tried everything. I finally just setup an EventGhost macro that triggers on resume from standby, waits a little while, and sets Mute OFF.

Delays in your programmable remote's macros are troublesome... because you must point the remote at the IR receiver the entire time the macro is executing, unless you use an RF-IR bridge.

[newfiend]

While delays in programmable remote's macros may be troublesome for some, the added 500-1000 milliseconds isn't an eternity and with the Harmony remotes it's required to point it at all the devices until the macro executions are finished anyway.

[barnabas1969]

Yeah, but try teaching that to my wife and kids. I used to use macros in the remote with delays, but it never failed that someone would walk between the remote and the device just when a command was sent from the remote, or they would put down the remote before the macro finished. It's sooooo much better to set it up so that EventGhost detects events on the PC (like standby/resume, an IR command, etc). Then, the rest of the commands are executed in EG, and the remote doesn't need to be pointed at anything.

[newfiend]

So your insinuating that women and children can not be taught? How dare you sir! (inserted comment to win points with the female crowd) lol while I understand completely what your saying I have managed to train my wife and kids to work the remote just fine. I can see where EG would simplify things for you though.

[Dragonwyntir]

newfiend,

This has been helpful. I'm no longer experiencing the audio issue that I was before. Thank you so much!

Cheers,
Tim

[newfiend]

newfiend,

This has been helpful. I'm no longer experiencing the audio issue that I was before. Thank you so much!

Cheers,
Tim

No problem, You're very much Welcome