Receiver resets, HDTV turns on in the middle of the night.

[TheKrell]

I've got an issue with my brand new 722 and my brand new Westinghouse HDTV. When the 722 does it's guide download in the middle of the night (default is 3AM), it apparently turns off it's screen-saver video output for a few seconds. When the video comes back, my HDTV turns on by itself!

I have discussed this with Westinghouse technical support. I call this a bug, but they call it a feature of "autosource selection". When the TV has the autosource feature enabled, it will automatically switch between a half-dozen different rear-panel inputs. That's a nice feature, when the TV is on. But when the set is off, as it is in the middle of the night, any change in the state of the inputs will turn the TV on, as well as switch inputs (if necessary).

Westinghouse tells me to disable autosource selection, which I don't want to do. Another crappy workaround is to change the 722's reset time to 6 or 7 AM, so that the TV isn't on for hours before somebody gets up to turn it off (or use it) again. Yet another workaround would be to put the TV on a switched outlet and physically deny it power when we definitely want it to stay off.

Has anybody figured out a better workaround that costs less than a new HDTV without this perverse "feature"?

 

[Jim S.]

Does your TV have any sort of HDMI control settings whereby you can tell it to not turn on when you turn on the receiver? This should, obviously, be separate from automatic source selection, and is on other brands.

 

[TheKrell]

I haven't noticed such a control setting, but I'll look harder tonight. The TV does this (spurious turn-on) using either HDMI or S-video inputs.

 

[Jim S.]

Oh. Well then you probably don't have any choice, if it does it with S-video too. I was thinking of the CEC feature where devices can send commands to each other via the HDMI cable. Now that I think about it, the 622 doesn't advertise this, so it was probably a bad suggestion.

 

[tastim]

Other than what was suggested in your first post, or hooking the HDMI into a Stereo receiver with HDMI pass-thru, I don't see any other ways to fix this.

 

[primestar31]

Buy a universal remote that has timers, and that can control your TV set. Set a program at say 3:15am, to turn your tv set OFF. Place the remote somewhere it can aim at your tv, program it, and let it do the job for you.

 

[rdharper]

Personally, I'd turn of the autoselection and leave it off. If you turn off the power to the TV, wouldn't you have to reset the clock, or does it pick that up off your power or phone line.

How hard it is to just use the remote to switch to the input you are using? (having a hard time relating to this as a "real" problem, sorry)

One other possibility is to set the autotimer to turn off the TV some short time after the TV turns on... if there is that option... which their should be, ie: on at 3am, off at 3:05am. Something like that.

 

[TheKrell]

How hard it is to just use the remote to switch to the input you are using?

You're joking, right? This Westinghouse TV has about a dozen inputs, controlled by 8 separate buttons. If I turned off the autosource feature, my wife would probably divorce me.

Thanks everybody for your suggestions. The Power menu on this TV seems to have all the relevant settings. There's a DPMS Mode currently set to Off, but which can go up to 10 minutes. Don't know what that is yet. There is a Power on Plug, currently set to disabled. That turns the TV on when you plug it in. (What bird brain thought up that feature?) There is an Inactivity Off setting, currently set to 3 hrs w/max of 6 and min of 1 hr. I set it to 1 hr one afternoon, and of course later that same day it switched off in the middle of my daughter's movie. It's back to 3 hrs now. There is also a Sleep timer with 15 minutes minimum. Sounds promising, but I think it must be set manually so that it fires just once. (Otherwise it would make the inactivity timer pretty useless...) There is also a Power Mode which can be set either to E. Saver or Normal. I haven't tried that one either. And then there is the infamous Autosource setting, which can be enabled or disabled.

I am leaning toward a switched outlet.

 

[ZBoomer]

Westinghouse tells me to disable autosource selection, which I don't want to do. Another crappy workaround is to change the 722's reset time to 6 or 7 AM, so that the TV isn't on for hours before somebody gets up to turn it off (or use it) again.

You can set your 722 to update any time you wish; it defaults to like 3am because usually no one is watching, but if you want to change it to 7am, go right ahead. You can set it for noon if you want.

Just means your receiver will update it's guide, and reboot at 7am instead of 3am. It will also be offline for a few minutes, but who cares?

 

[Hall]

There is a Power on Plug, currently set to disabled. That turns the TV on when you plug it in. (What bird brain thought up that feature?)

Hmmm, if the TV is really "off", what tells it to turn on automatically when it's plugged in ?

 

[cparker]

If you use an AV receiver, it probably has a switched outlet on it. Use that for the TV.

Or get a universal remote that's smart enough to set the TV input for whatever device is sourcing it. I bought a Harmony remote.... my family can use our AV equipment without having to know ANYTHING about what's plugged into where.

 

[mraif]

You're joking, right? This Westinghouse TV has about a dozen inputs, controlled by 8 separate buttons. If I turned off the autosource feature, my wife would probably divorce me.

Thanks everybody for your suggestions. The Power menu on this TV seems to have all the relevant settings. There's a DPMS Mode currently set to Off, but which can go up to 10 minutes. Don't know what that is yet. There is a Power on Plug, currently set to disabled. That turns the TV on when you plug it in. (What bird brain thought up that feature?) There is an Inactivity Off setting, currently set to 3 hrs w/max of 6 and min of 1 hr. I set it to 1 hr one afternoon, and of course later that same day it switched off in the middle of my daughter's movie. It's back to 3 hrs now. There is also a Sleep timer with 15 minutes minimum. Sounds promising, but I think it must be set manually so that it fires just once. (Otherwise it would make the inactivity timer pretty useless...) There is also a Power Mode which can be set either to E. Saver or Normal. I haven't tried that one either. And then there is the infamous Autosource setting, which can be enabled or disabled.

I am leaning toward a switched outlet.

Sweet chicken! What the heck happened to just ON and OFF???