Got my HDMI cable, but it no workie!!

[IPvFletch]

UPDATE: Got a working cable from Sprint: http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g/106539-hdmi-amzer-vs-sprint-cable.html#post986876



Well, I'm really bummed!

I *FINALLY* got a Micro 1.4 Type D HDMI to standard HDMI cable!!

I got the Amzer cable from these guys: http://www.wireless4cheap.com/Micro-HDMI-High-Speed-Male-To-HDMI-Male-Cable-5-Feet-P88375.htm (althought I bought it from them through eBay and the link was

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160438986842).

They show a video of it working with the EVO and even say it is FOR the EVO.

But I plug it in and nothing happens. I quadruple checked my TV settings.

I have a Samsung 52" Widescreen 1080p 120Hz TV. It's about 3 years old but works like the day I got it.

Then I began to wiggle the cable around and IT WORKED!!

For like half a second.

Then if I wiggle it any more, it never works again.

If I reboot, I can get it to do it again, but just for a split second. Then it either goes black until I unplug, or it goes back to on the phone.

I'm pretty sure it was wiggling it in the phone port, not the cable itself, and not the TV's HDMI port. It could either be the port itself, connector itself, or maybe the crimped part at the base of the connector on the cable.

I tried both Video and Photo. I can't seem to get Photo working at all, but I got a video to work (for about a second) even while it was in the middle of playing.

So I think I'm "close" but no clue just "how far" I really am. Is it a bad cable? Bad port? Bad OS/bug? Bad TV??

Note: I have used the TV and the very same HDMI port numerous times for my HTPC (motherboard has native Blu-Ray capable HDMI out and supports full 1080p playback).



Any ideas on what I could try?

I'm thinking if the metal isn't connecting inside the connector, I could somehow thicken it up so it does (I'm guessing the ring of the connector port part is (-) ground?)

 

[pingpongboss]

Sounds like either a bad plug, or a bad port on the Evo.

 

[IPvFletch]

I know, I'll be really ticked if it's the EVO because I have a TON of apps and customizations on here now, and I lucked out in terms of the EVO not cracking, screen not coming up, battery not exploding, battery working amazingly, wifi signal is fine, etc, etc... So I REALLY don't want a new EVO!

Maybe I could test this cable on another EVO somehow. You think if I go to a Sprint store they'd let me try one of theirs and a nearby Sprint display TV?

 

[archercc]

I had the same issue with my Nikon camera and it was the cable, swapped out cables and it works like a champ.

There is no "for the evo" microHDMI, its a standard. The issue with digital is it does still need a consistent signal, especially now that everything has to be HDCP compliant.

 

[pingpongboss]

If it makes you feel any better, you can make a nandroid backup (if you have root), which will preserve the phone's state 100% so it's very easy to restore if you get a new phone.

But yea I'd definitely go to a Sprint store, just to make sure.

 

[IPvFletch]

Update: I noticed this cable has "better HDMI 1.3 cable" and also "E234411" on the side, but the website says this exact cable is Amzer Micro HDMI cable and the only micro HDMI cable Amzer makes is 1.4 Type D connector (micro HDMI). The wrapper it came in also says Amzer Handy and the only number on the wrapper I could find is 9043p on the side in small print. No model number but it was part 88375 from the site above.. *shrug*

What does it say on YOUR Amzer cables (for those who have a working HDMI cable now)??

And do I need to have USB plugged in charging it for HDMI to work??

 

[seigex]

And do I need to have USB plugged in charging it for HDMI to work??

No.. I plugged it in the first time and it didn't work.. so I rebooted and it came up and worked prefectly .. no usb .. only tested it in Youtube though.. no other programs... I thought powerpoint was suppose to output through HDMI but *shrug* guess I'll have to research that

 

[IPvFletch]

I will keep rebooting and trying different apps, like YouTube and I have a PPT already which I've loaded in QuickOffice, so I will try that via HDMI too. I am feeling like the software (Android OS HDMI interface, I suppose) is detecting it, then crashing and therefore it doesn't try again.

 

[prodriver]

Well, I'm really bummed!

I *FINALLY* got a Micro 1.4 Type D HDMI to standard HDMI cable!!

I got the Amzer cable from these guys: Micro HDMI High Speed Male To HDMI Male Cable - 5 Feet - Wireless4cheap.com (althought I bought it from them through eBay and the link was

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160438986842).

They show a video of it working with the EVO and even say it is FOR the EVO.

But I plug it in and nothing happens. I quadruple checked my TV settings.

I have a Samsung 52" Widescreen 1080p 120Hz TV. It's about 3 years old but works like the day I got it.

Then I began to wiggle the cable around and IT WORKED!!

For like half a second.

Then if I wiggle it any more, it never works again.

If I reboot, I can get it to do it again, but just for a split second. Then it either goes black until I unplug, or it goes back to on the phone.

I'm pretty sure it was wiggling it in the phone port, not the cable itself, and not the TV's HDMI port. It could either be the port itself, connector itself, or maybe the crimped part at the base of the connector on the cable.

I tried both Video and Photo. I can't seem to get Photo working at all, but I got a video to work (for about a second) even while it was in the middle of playing.

So I think I'm "close" but no clue just "how far" I really am. Is it a bad cable? Bad port? Bad OS/bug? Bad TV??

Note: I have used the TV and the very same HDMI port numerous times for my HTPC (motherboard has native Blu-Ray capable HDMI out and supports full 1080p playback).



Any ideas on what I could try?

I'm thinking if the metal isn't connecting inside the connector, I could somehow thicken it up so it does (I'm guessing the ring of the connector port part is (-) ground?)

I bought one from ebay also Micro HDMI cable 6.5 ft (2m) Sprint HTC EVO 4G by Molex - eBay (item 190402136332 end time Jun-12-10 05:33:47 PDT) it's 6.5 Ft and works flawlessly. I plugged it on started a video and BOOM it showed up on the TV Screen. You have a Cable or EVO problem.

 

[jcthorne]

I got my Amzer cable yesterday in the mail. Ran off to try it and was also very dissappointed at first. I could not get it to work. Then with the fiddleing I found the problem.

The cable was not seated all the way in the phone. There is a bit of a snap and once seated the black plastic housing is flush up against the body of the EVO. Then it worked perfectly on my Vizio TV. Better than my Dell laptop that will still not output audio on the HDMI cable.

Let the EVO play an entire 2.5 hour high definition movie on battery power and it completed with about 40% remaining. Was quite surprised.

 

[cooper1010]

I got my Amzer cable yesterday in the mail. Ran off to try it and was also very dissappointed at first. I could not get it to work. Then with the fiddleing I found the problem.

The cable was not seated all the way in the phone. There is a bit of a snap and once seated the black plastic housing is flush up against the body of the EVO. Then it worked perfectly on my Vizio TV. Better than my Dell laptop that will still not output audio on the HDMI cable.

Let the EVO play an entire 2.5 hour high definition movie on battery power and it completed with about 40% remaining. Was quite surprised.

i'd like to talk about how you got a 2.5 hr hd movie on your phone.

 

[jcthorne]

No problem, I used MeGUI to encode to h.264, level 3.1. Used predefined CRF of 23 to keep the file size just below 2GB. Transcoded the audio to AAC Stereo and then muxed into an IMSA compliant MP4 file. The built in player in gallery plays it without hickup in very nice detail. I can see a few encoding artifacts on the big screen but to go higher bitrate would require the movies to be in 2 parts. No idea why the 2GB limit, seem arbitrary so perhaps a software fix could update this.

Let me know what else you need to know. Did take quite a bit of trial and error to get there and some help from folks in the MeGUI developers forum.

 

[cooper1010]

No problem, I used MeGUI to encode to h.264, level 3.1. Used predefined CRF of 23 to keep the file size just below 2GB. Transcoded the audio to AAC Stereo and then muxed into an IMSA compliant MP4 file. The built in player in gallery plays it without hickup in very nice detail. I can see a few encoding artifacts on the big screen but to go higher bitrate would require the movies to be in 2 parts. No idea why the 2GB limit, seem arbitrary so perhaps a software fix could update this.

Let me know what else you need to know. Did take quite a bit of trial and error to get there and some help from folks in the MeGUI developers forum.

this sounds way to complicated for me. i was hoping you'd say "i used anydvd and set it to htc hero."

 

[IPvFletch]

jcthorne: Good info, thanks. Mine snapped in OK so I knew that wasn't it.

But, my update is, I think I have a bad cable. I looked with a magnifying glass and I found one of the middle pins looks smashed down below the rest of the others. Not sure if this is how it is supposed to be or not, but it's only the one pin, so I'm inclined to believe it is just smashed/bent down too far and thus not making contact. I don't know how to fix it, I think MAYBE I could sneak a needle in there and pry it up, but I may just be SOL and have to get a new cable instead. Still haven't gone to Sprint to try a cable in the store or to try one of their phones with my cable.

 

[seigex]

I got my Amzer cable yesterday in the mail. Ran off to try it and was also very dissappointed at first. I could not get it to work. Then with the fiddleing I found the problem.

The cable was not seated all the way in the phone. There is a bit of a snap and once seated the black plastic housing is flush up against the body of the EVO. Then it worked perfectly on my Vizio TV. Better than my Dell laptop that will still not output audio on the HDMI cable.

Let the EVO play an entire 2.5 hour high definition movie on battery power and it completed with about 40% remaining. Was quite surprised.

regarding the dell laptop just like with my sony there should be an audio driver for audio through HDMI.. give me the model and I'll see if I can find it for you.. i had the same problem till i found that driver and enabled it in control panel

 

[jcthorne]

regarding the dell laptop just like with my sony there should be an audio driver for audio through HDMI.. give me the model and I'll see if I can find it for you.. i had the same problem till i found that driver and enabled it in control panel

That would be great if you found something. Its a Lattitude E6400. Thanks.


As for the preset for encoding, MeGUI allows presets to be stored, I created one for me to use for EVO, what I rattled off above was the important settings to create your own. Once set, its open the file and save as....wait. Done.

 

[IPvFletch]

Ok back on topic... Anyone have any other thoughts or work-arounds for this??

 

[Mabster]

I just posted this in another thread but I'll go here too:

I've seen TVs not recognize many things plugged into hdmi outputs, ps3, blue ray players, DVRs etc. Resetting the TV fixes it usually. Try unplugging the TV and plugging it back in with the EVO plugged into it. Many people never think about resetting their TV but it works.

I realize that some tvs don't recognize the EVO or vise versa but it's worth a try.

Edit: I have to do this with my TV periodically. It won't recognize my PS3, and my tv is made by sony so it's not really a compatibility issue. TVs are computers now too so it makes sense to have to reboot them sometimes too.

 

[BODHi]

All these HDMI problems remind me of when the port first came out and people had to deal with HDCP compliant handshaking problems.

*shrug*