Hey hey. There is a MacBook Pro in the house which hasn't been playing nice with the 990. The path is mini DVI to HDMI directly into an HDMI input on the TV. What always happens is there is static that looks like the analogue static from days of old. The only way it goes away is when the 990 is shut off.

What's odd is the 990's only connection to the MacBook Pro is an optical cable for the sound. (There is an adapter for the mini port / headphone jack connected to this cable.) However it must be noted that the static is there even with the optical cable unplugged.

The static has been isolated to the 990. When the 990 is on, the static rears it's head. When it's off, it goes away.

The TV goes back and forth from the living room system (990) and an ancient system (Pioneer - 20+ yrs old) in the bedroom. With the bedroom config there are no problems.

The troubleshooting has been done. (Components removed, inputs switched, different system, etc) If anybody has some sort of resolution and has seen this issue before, and can help out, I send my gratitude in advance.

Frank

Does the 990 interfere when the Macbook is out of the picture like when using another source. I can not think of a good way the 990 could interfere when just connected via an optical audio cable since there isn't a good transmission path.

XenonMan, I got a little ahead of myself stating that "the troubleshooting has been done." Sorry about that. My troubleshooting got a little scatter brained but I think I found the cause. At least what's looking like it.

I missed the part where the 990 is connected to the HDMI input on the TV. The MacBook is also connected via HDMI but directly to the TV bypassing the 990. When the cable from the 990 is disconnected at the TV the static goes away while streaming video on the MacBook.

The only component using the 990's video switching is the Oppo. There are audio components but their power cords were disconnected while working on this. There's no cable box or satellite box due to my refusal to pay for TV. The TV gets a signal OTA and for the 990's menu a composite video cable is connected to an AV port on the TV.

The next step is to go HDMI - HDMI directly from the Oppo to the TV to completely remove the 990 out of the video path. We'll see what happens from there. The obvious other connections from the Oppo to the 990 are the optical and the 7.1 but it's doubtful they're causing any trouble.

With Oppo being Oppo, and Outlaw being Outlaw, one can speculate that its the TV. (Vizio) But I won't know for sure until I set up the direct Oppo to TV via HDMI config.

I'll keep you posted.

Since the 990 does no video processing and the OPPO is the only input to the DVI ports it would be better to remove the 990 although it really should not degrade the video signal.

Sure enough, with the Oppo connected directly from the player to the TV via HDMI, everything cleared up.

So the fun began. I wanted to see what would happen if I ran everything through the 990. (Probably should've done this in the first place.) There was/is a DVI cable laying around from the cable TV days. I put the MacBook on the DVI 1 port on the 990, then hooked the Oppo back up to the DVI 2 port thus utilizing the 990's switching.

Commenced to putting it through the paces switching back and forth with eyes peeled for the static which hasn't shown up.

I haven't an explanation as to why the static was happening but if I were to point fingers at anything it would be the TV.

Thanks for the input.

The TV may preferentially select the HDMI port if it is connected and it may have been seeing the blank screen of the disconnected port on the 990.