Tech people please help !

[geo]

Right this has got me baffled.
Had Virgin media installed yesterday Tivo box and vhd box in the extension. As i wanted all cables hidden I decided I'd run the extension cable in myself. The installation engineer assured me that once I'd run the cable and connected the HDMI lead to the Tv all would be good.
However all I received was a no signal message, to cut a long story short after a weekend of fault finding it appears that my HDMI lead is faulty, This was initially dismissed as I connected my laptop to the TV via the HDMI lead and it worked perfectly.
So the question is why does my laptop work via the HDMI lead but the Virgin TV doesn't
Any help greatly appreciated as I'm totally confused and dont want the same thing to happen when I buy a new HDMI cable.

 

[ian turner]

quote

It would appear that the TiVo periodically handshakes with devices connected to it via HDMI and if initially set up to use HDMI then it fails to output anything if it doesn't detect any activity via the HDMI connection.

Whereas chance is that the laptop doesn't care.

 

[ausalex]

Try connecting via SCART as well and if it works go into the settings to tell it to output to HDMI, if this then works you can then disconnect the SCART cable.

 

[geo]

Thanks lads,update is works with scart lead works with a 2metre hdmi lead but not the 5 metre one im using. Can get away with 4 metre so I'm going to order a 4 metre one and hope for the best !!
Tried 5 metre lead on main tivo box and lounge tv and it doesnt work on that either but still works on laptop. all very odd

 

[ian turner]

Signal drop over that distance and the laptop being capable of handling a more degraded signal I suspect. See here and check 5m cables for the latest compliance ratings so 1.3b or later.