So, about a week ago we had a pretty serious lightening storm. Lightening either hit our house or hit very close to it. After the hit, the plasma tv I was watching lost its picture, as did a computer screen my wife was using. When she re-booted the computer the screen started working again. The tv, however, still is not working.

Given that getting at the cords and connections is a bit difficult, I am trying to get a feel for the most likely culprit of my problem before I start playing around with diagnosing the issue.

Normally, I would just figure that the TV itself is damaged. However, the menus for the TV itself show on the TV. I just don't get a picture. Is the fact that I can still see the menus from the TV an indication that the TV itself may not be the issue? I would have thought that if the screen was damages such that I can't see a picture, I'd also not see the menus.

Is it possible the receiver was damaged and is the problem? I get sound through the receiver, so it is not completely dead, but as noted, no picture on the TV. Finally, is it possible that a power surge of some sort could actually damage an HDMI cable, causing the issue?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Try connecting a source (cable box, DVD player, etc.) directly to the TV (bypassing the receiver altogether) and see if it works. If not then I'd say the TV itself is damaged.

It is unlikely the HDMI cable was damaged (everything else around it would be in much worse shape if there was enough power to melt the insulation between the wires). Although it could be possible that the HDMI input on the TV, or the output on the receiver, was damaged.

If the TV has multiple HDMI inputs, try using a different one.

Unfortunately, you're going to have to get at all the wires to properly troubleshoot this. You have to pull different components out of the chain, and see where the loss is occurring.

Hi,

I concur with Club Neon. Try unplugging the TV, leave it for awhile, then reboot it, using ideally, a separate DVD player as an input signal.

If you can see the menu, and any colors that are used with the menu options, I rather think the TV may be OK. I'd agree also that one of the HDMI inputs might have been damaged, so try other connections---component video, if the TV has one (component video uses three analog RCA cables, and the inputs are color-coded red, blue and green).

Regards,
Alan

Thanks everyone. I'll start with Club Neon's idea and go from there. I'm pretty sure the TV only has one HDMI input, so I may have to use component if the HDMI input is damaged. Anything short of having to buy a new TV will be a victory, though.

Stupid lightening.

Hmm... Now thats a reason for multiple HDMI inputs I would never have thought of.

I am constantly breaking new ground in bad ways!

Sorry to hear about that, I agree with you... lightning is very rude and really has no manners what-so-ever!

Well, I finally was able to play play with this, and the problem ended up being the HDMI input to the TV. I connected a different component directly to the TV with a different HDMI cable, and still had the problem. So, now everthing is connected with component and working just fine. I frankly don't see much or any of a difference in picture quality as between HDMI and component, so in the end it was just a pain in the neck and I lost the convenience of using HDMI cables. (It seems that my receiver won't pass a signal it receives through HDMI out to the TV via component, so I had to reconnect everything via component. I don't know if that is the case with all receivers, but I do feel like I've read about that on a number of occassions.)

Thanks again for the thoughts on the problem, as they were right on target. All's well that ends well.

Glad everything is working for you. Things like this can be very frustrating to get that last final detail worked out.

My other thought on the matter is that I'm not sure that the phrase "the convenience of using HDMI cables." isn't more of a conundrum than truth. HDMI seems to add very little except complexity to most things I do.

While component works for you now, try Googling, "analog sunset", and "image constraint token".

Thanks guys. Club: Not sure I understood what I read quickly, particularly on the results when I searched analog sunset, but what I did understand seems like a bummer. Oh well, it's not my main TV viewing area, and I am at least covered for now.

Well, the analog sunset isn't so bad, provided you already own equipment with component outs. It just sets the date for when no new players can be made with component video connections. So as long as your player keeps working you can keep using the component video, just don't expect new players to still have them.

The ICT (Image Constraint Token) is something that has already be included in any Blu-ray player with component connections. At any time, a disc maker can include a token on the disc which says, "the image output over an analog connection must be constrained to SD resolution only". So while you're getting a good picture over component now, any time in the future (people are saying December 2010), discs can start showing up with the ICT set, and you'll only get 480 lines instead of 1080.

My impression was that the content providers had the ability to constrain or turn off any connections they chose to. So, they could choose to turn off component completely for content on a given disc.

I'm surprised this isn't already happening.

The ICT spec doesn't allow the turning off of outputs, only constraining the resolution. I was wrong about the resolution, it just has to half the 1080 lines, to 540, so not quite as low as DVD's 480, but definitely not HD.

It's the player which has to do the resizing (which is why it was kept a simple 1/2 so no complicated scaling has to be done).

OK, maybe that only applies to computers, or it may have been dropped all together. My source was an old Microsoft white paper from 3 or 4 years ago.

The whole "works with Vista" thing for monitors was a scare tactic from Microsoft together with monitor and video card makers to sell more hardware. Still, it wouldn't turn off the analog or other none HDCP outputs, only limit the resolution at which they could be used. Too, that would only happen when a program, like BD playing software, requested an HDCP protected connection.

And as long as your at it, Add "Anydvd HD" to that list of terms.

Yup. And I don't think they are going away any time soon. It doesn't matter much for me as I rent movies so I don't have a library I want to digitize and store online.

It just bugs the hell out of me that big business wants to tie us up in DRM knots so their senior execs can continue to give themselves huge bonuses.