HTPC becomes jealous when I watch TV.

September 5, 2010 12:25 AM

I've got an Acer Aspire Revo hooked up to an HDTV. When the Revo is powered up, the digital channels (coming in through a coax cable from an outside antenna...for free, over the air signals) do not come in. When I power the Revo off or put it to sleep, then the digital channels come in and I can watch TV. What gives?

I'll try and describe my setup as best I can.

On the right side of my room is my HDTV, an DVD/BluRay/HDD, my amp, and my Acer Aspire Revo. All are hooked into an extension cord for their power. The Revo is connected to the TV through an HDMI cable and to the amp with a digital out. The DVD/BluRay/HDD is connected to the TV by HDMI and the antenna coax. The TV is connected to the amp by digital out. A coax from the DVD/BluRay/HDD goes to the TV. I have 2 internet cables, one hooked up to the Revo and the other the TV.

On the left side of the room is the outlet for the antenna's coax, a power outlet, and a switching hub. The extension cord, coax cable and two internet cables go from the left side of the room along the bottom of the wall to the right side of the room. They are all wrapped in one of those plastic snakey-thingies that keep your cables all together nice and neat.

That's the physical set up. Again, when the Revo is on the TV doesn't display the digital channels. When the Revo is put to sleep or turned off, the digital channels return.

I tried disabling the Wifi in the Revo, thinking that might be the problem. It wasn't.

Ideally I would like to use the Revo as a media hub (after hooking up an external hard drive to it), so it would be on all the time. But if I can't use the TV while it's on, that's a bit of a problem. Any ideas what could be the problem here?

Help me, hive mind, you're my only hope

posted by snwod to technology (6 answers total)

There might be a setting for that on your TV; it is possible that when it detects an HDMI connection on a certain input, it switches to that video signal, automatically. What model is your TV? (and the rest of your stuff - DVD/BluRay/HDD and Amp)
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 12:33 AM on September 5, 2010

Could it be old-school RFI? What happens if you unplug the Revo's HDMI-out and/or digital-out cables? If it still interferes with the tv reception then, what happens if you unplug it from the shared power strip and power it from an extension cord from another room? If you unplug its network cable?

Since you don't specify, I assume that the Revo doesn't stop the DVD/BluRay/HDD from working?

The other thing that comes to mind is that your tv might be set to automatically prefer the signal from the Revo's input (on preview, what Monday said): unplugging the Revo's HDMI-out cable and powering it up will also test that possibility.
posted by hattifattener at 12:38 AM on September 5, 2010

What make and model of HDTV do you have?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:20 AM on September 5, 2010

Is there a button on your TV remote control labelled 'Source' or 'Input'?
posted by robertc at 2:46 AM on September 5, 2010

Heh. In my rush to post I completely forgot the details of the equipment. I apologize.

Here they are:

HDTV - Panasonic TH-L37S2
DVD/HDD - Panasonic Diga DMR-BR580-K
Revo - ASR-3610-A44

Unfortunately for me (and my shitty Japanese reading ability) everything in the manual and on the remote is in Japanese. I'm usually pretty tech savvy, but that's when I can read the manual and how-to pages on the internet. The Japanese I can fumble my way through using what little kanji I know and the katakana. But I know I'm missing something.

Unplugging the cable from the Revo made the digital come back on. So it is obviously a setting somewhere that I need to click. I will try explaining to my wife, but she's not tech savvy at all and me trying to explain (in either English or Japanese) is gonna be like a foreign language. :D

So, I guess my question has been answered (in that unplugging the HDMI cable worked), so now I have to find the setting.
posted by snwod at 3:42 AM on September 5, 2010

Can you take a picture of your TV remote control and upload it somewhere? Someone might know which button changes the input signal.
posted by afx237vi at 6:20 AM on September 5, 2010