Vertical hold issue

In a nutshell under certain conditions a video signal passed through the 1070 will not maintain vertical hold.

To date this has been noticed with only two pieces of software, both video games, but on different systems, and each using different inputs on the 1070.

The first time I noticed this was on my Nintendo Gamecube with the Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition disc. Most of it worked fine, but on the first two games in the set I would persistently get an issue where the vertical hold was off and the picture would constantly scroll off down the screen. The system is connected with the standard composite cables included with the console and is hooked up to the Video 2 input on the 1070. All video signals coming from the 1070 are routed to my TV via Component video alone.

Since I had purchased the game used I wrote it off to bad software and counted it off as bad luck until now.

Earlier today I purchased (also used) Ico for the Sony Playstation 2. When I put the disc in and it booted up I got the exact same problem. One of the opening cinematics did not have the vertical hold problem, but everything else did. This system is likewise connected via composite video, but to a different input (Video 4 for the moment). This time since the cables were right up front I had the bright idea the composite video cable out of the 1070 and just hook it up to the TV using the front inputs I have up there. Lo and behold it worked perfectly. No vertical hold problems at all. I disconnected the Gamecube at the Gamecube end and using another cable (since I didn't really want to pull the 1070 out of the rack) I connected it to the TV's front inputs. Again, the problematic software no longer had any issue with vertical hold.

Thus, the common factors are that both had the same type of vertical hold problem, but it was not pervasive throughout the entirety of the software, both were connected using composite video, and (likely irrelevant) both were video game systems. Since connecting directly to the TV solved the problem in both cases it clearly seems to be the 1070.

Has anyone else had any problems of this type to date? If so is there any convenient workaround (i.e. going directly into the TV is not an option)? If not, is this something the Outlaws could get working on? I can understand it might be hard to replicate, but there clearly seems to be something awry with the video processing.

Hi Belgand,
I'm not sure that your problem is solely the 1070...
the only time I had video problems with mine wires were the guilty party...
I do not have a playstation...but I do have a gamecube hooked in composite and component to my 1070...I also do not have the zelda special edition you mention...but I do have two Zelda games for the gamecube...''Wind waker'' and ''Ocarina of time Master Quest''...and as far as I know neither...or any other game on the gamecube for that matter, have given me (I should say my son ) any problems except the obvious limitations...
( I personnaly find the video quality of the gamecube questionable on large displays even with a progressive signal)...

All this to say...maybe your problem is WIRE related...
or
Have you done the upgraded firmware ''thingy''
on your 1070 ?
hopefully you'll find the guilty party soon...
Good luck !

I haven't heard of anybody else running into this problem, and my various dealings with video switching hasn't yielded anything similar either. It's odd that it only affects certain games (and even odder that it affects certain games on different consoles). I don't believe that Outlaw's working on it currently, but you might give them a call or open a support ticket to see if they can help work it out.

One thing that occurs to me is to try an s-video cable from each console (or even component, although the GameCube component output was apparently dropped and of course you may already have all of your component inputs hooked up to things). It doesn't address whatever oddness is going on with the composite input, but it would probably give you somewhat better video quality and would be an interesting test to see if it still yields any vertical hold problems.

I've wanted to move to component inputs, but availability and expense have been the mitigating factors so far.

To me the most unusual part is that it didn't just affect different games on different consoles, but that it only affected certain parts of them. Trying to play The Legend of Zelda I or II on the Collector's Disc would trigger the problem, but playing Ocarina of Time on the same disc was problem-free.

That's honestly why I originally assumed it must just be a problem with the software or the disc itself. Perhaps the NES emulator being used was the issue. But then when I tried playing Ico and I had the same problems in the opneing cinematics (except for one), the title screen, and in-game it seemed that something else had to be going on.

I'm likely going to call in for support today, but , at the very least, it's probably a good idea to solicit information on other cases here and get everything down in an easily-readable format.

Cables have also been more or less ruled out as the issue for a number of reasons.

First, the problem only occurs on specific parts of specific software. A cable issue would most likely be continuous. I've tested about 20 or so titles on the Gamecube and about 10 on the Playstation and these were the only two that gave it problems and even then, there were particular parts that didn't have the problem.

Second, removing the Playstation cable from the 1070 and connecting it directly to the TV's inputs removed the problem. Going back to the 1070 the problem resumed.

Third, the chances of identical failure on two completely different cables seems very unlikely to me. I have two sets of cable for the Gamecube (since Nintendo uses the same format for SNES and Gamecube) and while the problem alleviated when I switched cables and plugged it directly into the TV, when I then used that same cable and plugged it into the 1070 to confirm that the problem still existed, it still did even with a different cable.

I agree that cables don't seem to be a factor. It'd be curious to hear from anybody else with either of those games and a 1070 or 970 - both to find out if the vertical hold problem can be reproduced with composite video connections that are then transcoded to component and if the problem appears using s-video or component video connections.

Another curious thought: does the 1070's composite video monitor output exhibit the rolling as well, or is it just the transcoded component output? That could be a useful bit of diagnostic information.

Yeah, I've been meaning to check with the composite output, but honestly, I never bothered to hook it up ("Everything's transcoded to component as it is, why use it another input on the TV for lower quality", I thought when setting it up) and considering the huge pain in the ass that it is to wrest the 1070 out of my rack and get access to the back of it (which basically requires unplugging everything just to get it out all the way) I haven't checked yet. I'll see if there's a way I can easily get into it and check for results shortly.

I suspect that recreating it is going to be a bit of a problem for anyone else. While Ico is generally available it's still an out of print game. The Zelda Collector's Edition, however, was a one-shot promo title and typically sells for around $40-50 if you can find it in shops.

I know how it is to try to add cables - definitely no fun. In my case, the TV is the biggest headache (32" CRT HDTV, weighs something like 150 pounds)...

Yow!

Thankfully it was less of a PITA than I recall it being in the past. Which is nice to know since I have a new center channel on its way right now.

Anyhow, I tried running composite video from the monitor out jack on the 1070 to the TV (again, the front inputs that work without problems when the devices are connected directly) and the same problem occured.

Something interesting I noticed while working on all of this is that when the scrolling takes over it doesn't just affect the game, if I pull up the OSD menu it will scroll along at the same rate. I guess it makes sense since the OSD is just processed onto the normal signal, but it would seem to further indicate that the 1070 and it's processing is the source of the error as I suspect that if it was just a bad disc or such the game would scroll, but the OSD would not.

Yeah, I agree - something is causing the 1070 to have a problem with the source signal. Is the scrolling slow enough to see if the OSD is being overlayed onto the source before the vertical hold is lost, or are the OSD and source both scrolling separately? I'm guessing from your description that it's the former, which may help Outlaw figure out where in the video signal path things are going awry.

Another question: is the video input set to "Composite" or "Auto" in the 1070's menus? You might try changing that setting to see if that makes any difference.

The OSD and the source are both scrolling perfectly in synch and the OSD is positioned correctly.

I also changed the video input from "Auto" to "Composite" for both and it didn't affect things. Unremarkably if I switched to an unused input type (i.e. S-Video or Component) the OSD snapped back into place properly.

I called earlier and spoke to Steve. He informed me that apparently they've had problems before with particular video games causing problems with the video transcoding. After discussing the issue he suggested that I isolate the devices causing the problem from the signal path and check again. Apparently someone else had a problem with their video due to a bad ground on their satellite receiver coming through into their signal path. After removing everything else feeding a signal in I tried again and there was no change.

Steve also suggested that I try feeding in a different source on the same composite inputs that are causing the problem. I'll probably eventually run a good dozen or so DVDs through it, but honestly I doubt whether I'll be able to recreate it. Out of about 20 some-odd Gamecube titles only this small part of one game has ever caused any issue. Likewise the input itself seems to be unrelated since it has occured with two different sources on two completely different inputs.

It also bears mentioning that aside from the vertical hold the video is transcoding correctly. I stil get a good picture with proper color and everything. It just won't stay still!

That someone was me. I worked with Steve for weeks trying to resolve my problem. However, I still have the vertical hold problem.

To make a long story short (I hope), I moved into a new home. So I sort of completely changed out my entire stereo/HT system. I brought the 1070 about 3 months b4 the house was ready for me to move in, so it sat in my garage in the box during construction. Also, I had a 50" Toshiba plasma hung over the fireplace, Def Tech RLS II in-wall speakers installed, & I divorced myself from Comcast, by going w/DirecTV.

The day my local audio techs installed my in-wall speakers & plasma TV, the DirecTV technician was here installing the satellite. After hanging the plasma & installing the speakers, the audio guys couldn't get my 1070 to play. I couldn't either. I thought maybe I needed to calibrate/adjust/setup something first because it was new, so I told them to leave it, I'll figure it out later. Strangely enough, it played later after several power off & on's. Even until yesterday, occassionally I would still get the "no audio" problem (I just installed the new firmware, hopefully that solves that problem).

Back to the vertical hold issue. I begin to notice a scrolling color bar in my video. The video itself did not scroll, just a "reddish" color bar would continually scroll on the screen. However, this scrolling color band, only appears when playing the signal through my 1070. The local audio guys told me it was a grounding problem. So they gave me some 3-prong to 2-prong converters... that didn't work. I had DirecTV back out to rerun the cable from the Satellite to their box, which actually helped some, so I thought. Until last week I tried to watch a football game in surround sound mode, w/both the video & audio coming from the 1070. I immediately begin to get the scrolling color band. So now, I just don't view the video signal through the 1070. Although, Steve has been very helpful & I love the sound quality of the 1070, I still don't feel quite good about it.... Because of the "no audio" problem, I think I blew my in-wall Def-Tech speakers. One day I turned the 1070 on, to listen to a CD, but I got no audio. So I turned up the volume, still no audio... then I switch inputs... still no audio.... turned up volume some more... still no audio... so I powered it down & back up.... boy did I get audio.... since that time I swear, the highs don't sound clear, they sound very static-like (i'm contacting my local audio guys to see what's up)... Prior to that I really loved the audio sound that I was getting from the 1070... I guess my overall dissatisfaction comes down to, I have a TV that's mounted on the wall, it's a chore to get to the inputs to make changes; speakers that are mounted in a wall, so if I have problems I have to call a technician for a home visit and possibly a carpenter; and an AVR that I brought off the Internet, the only technican is a voice over the phone...not someone that I could bring to my house to show my problems, or go to their store so I can be shown what to do. Then to top that off, I can't used the AVR for what it was intended (I can't pass the video signal to it)..

The best thing is Steve gave me the link to the saloon.. I will keep watching to see if someone post a resolution to the vertical hold issue.... I apologize for this being so long... But I've been holding in my frustration for so long....

While I doubt it will shed much more light on the problem, I'm trying to get my hands on a different cable to test (specifically and S-Video or a relatively inexpensive component video) and I'm going to try to get a friend to bring by their Playstation and see if just changing the source (but not the cables) makes any difference to the 1070.

I also noticed this problem when using my VCR. The VCR is connected to the 1070 via a composite cable (Video 1 input). The 1070 is connected to my TV (approx. 12 year old 32" JVC tube) via an S-Video cable. If the video signal goes through the 1070 and gets transcoded to S-Video the vertical scrolling is always off.

I also happen to have one of these video game devices:
Namco Arcade Game
which also caues the problem when connected to the 1070 via the front composite inputs (I haven't tried the back but suspect it wouldn't make any difference). Pssst...Outlaws, this might be a cheap way to try and diagnose the problem

My son's Vtech VSmile Pocket does this as well.

We only tested his 'Spiderman & Friends' cartridge as that is the only one he plays right now.

We used to hook it up via the front panel on our receiver without problems. This summer I upgraded to the 1070 and now it has the sync issue. The only change in the system is the 1070. Hooking the Vpocket up to the TV directly works without problem. I am using the front panel composite input, and I am outputting SVideo to the television.

Honestly we only do this once every few months, so I'm not hugely concerned, I just wanted to add my experience to the list.

Now if I get another device (DirecTV is getting installed this weekend) and have issues, I'll make sure to get with Outlaw on it.

To me the most interesting part is that it's not necessarily a problem with transcoding video from a composite input to another, higher quality, output. I had the exact same problem when I passed a composite signal into the 1070 and got my output on composite as well. Likewise it's only certain pieces of software that cause the problem. In my limited experience only two titles have ever caused this problem so I'm going to classify this as relatively rare. But the fact that multiple types of hardware are all showing this to be a problem is what really starts to get to me.

At this point I've been testing and trying everything I can in order to try and get it fixed on my end and I have come to the conclusion that this is most likely a problem with the 1070 and something that the Outlaws need to be looking into.

I just received my SMS-1 and connected it to my system (including my 1070)! I used the provided composite cable for the video connection and used the Video 3 input on the 1070. I turned on the SMS-1 and wouldn't you know it, I too had a constantly scrolling picture! You should try to make adjustments to the SMS-1's "sliders" when you having a moving picture. It certainly isn't easy! By the way, my video out from the 1070 to my monitor is via component cables. I have to assume the problem is with the 1070's conversion. I only have this problem when using the SMS-1 (I don't have any game system connected). Outlaws, please help me out!

You know, I was about to post saying that I've never seen this on my 1070 with my gamecube, but then I just realized that I have no video connections running through the 1070 anymore, and I'm just using the TV's inputs. However, there was a time not too long ago where I had a Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, and dvd player all running through the 1070, and I never had this issue then. I was only converting from composite inputs to S-video though, my old tv didn't have component inputs.

I have the same issue, reported several months ago:
http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/37/t/000099.html

As it appears that many people are experiencing this problem, does anyone know if the good folks at Outlaw are working on a fix?

I haven't had any problems with my game systems. I have a new sony VCR and when I go to the on screen menu it scrolls vertically. It's connected via composite cable. That's the only time it happens though. I wonder if the VCR is sending a weak signal because sometimes while changing channels my projector (connected by component cables) loses the signal.

I have had the vertical hold problem for over 6 months. I called phone support and couldn't get it resolved. It was 3 sources: 1-VCR using composite inputs, 2-vs/maxx handheld self contained game console using composite, 3-Jakks Spongebob self contained game console using composite. Didn't matter what composite input. The 1070 is connected using component into the tv (sony HDTV)

Interestingly, when I put it into the front composite inputs of my toshiba dvd player, which then goes component into the 1070 - behold, no problem.

Other issues I am having - the "no audio" issue discussed elsewhere, occasional power toggle on my universal remote not working (could be a million things).

One has to wonder if the handheld/self-contained game consoles aren't part of the problem. THose sorts of products may use very inexpensive circuitry with poor/inaccurate sync timing. Did the VCR work better when you disconnected the two game things?

I am having the same scrolling with my JVC VCR / DVD combo deck. When playing the VCR this happens. Both the OSM and the video playback scrolls. I haven't called tech support yet, but will be soon (I was hoping a solution from the tech guys would have posted by now).

I've never had the vertical hold problem as described, but I recently noticed another issue with a videogame system.

In Wii Sports Bowling, consistently every time I throw a strike, the screen will blank for a second and then return to the game. From what I understand, it loses sync of the signal for just that split second. This is with the component cables from the system routed through the 1070. With it connected directly from the system to the monitor I don't have that issue. The Outlaw clearly has the bandwidth for 480p, so I'm not really sure why its happening.

This issue is getting more annoying. As I've been picking up more games, I've noticed other places that it occurs, sometimes at times that are much more of a problem. For example, after I crash in Excite Truck, I get the same thing.

This is growing to be my biggest issue with the 1070, because its only a 480p signal, and it can't even pass that through correctly.

What happens when you use composite or S-Video? Also, what type of display are you using and does it have separate "HD Component" and "SD Component" inputs?

I'm using a Westinghouse 37" 1080p LCD, which has two component inputs, both support from 640x480 up to 1920x1080 resolution. Unfortunately I have 3 devices that use component inputs so I can't just use the monitor's inputs, which don't have this issue.

Also, the Harmony remote I'm using doesn't have the device buttons exactly right, so basically that prevents me from switching back and forth between component inputs easily on the monitor, so I'd much rather use the receiver.

Plus, the Wii's component cables only have a small amount of reach between the audio part and video part of the cables, so I couldn't plug them into two separate places anyway.

I did not have the issue using the Wii composite cable, but that also was only 480i obviously, and looks a lot worse, so that's not really a good solution.

My best guess would be that certain screens within the game, when they're passed through the 1070, cause the monitor to need to re-sync onto the video signal. I thought in progressive mode, it was just a straight passthrough, so that doesn't make much sense to me, but thats what happens.

I'm having the exact same problem with my JVC SVHS VCR - there is a vertical roll no matter what I am doing with it, and I have gone through cables and played with it as well - tried various inputs, etc. The OSD and the background screen are rolling together - perfectly synchronized. I whined about this in another post a couple of months ago, but don't recall getting any responses. The VCR works fine when I run it directly into the TV.

It makes no difference if I am playing a video or I am at the blue "no video" screen, it does the same thing.

I'm have the problem, but only in a very specific situation. I recently purchased the Nintendo Wii. The video through the 1070 works fine except in the Virtual Console mode. The regular Wii games work, but if you download Super Mario, etc, the vertical hold issue appears. I tried different inputs and also tried a component video cable with the same results. I have had to connect the video directly to my TV. I'm disappointed that I can't view Wii via component video (TV only has one component input, that is used by 1070) and I have to change the video input on my TV when changing from TV, DVD to the Wii.
Can't this be addressed with a software upgrade?

The video output on my 1070 receiver appears to be failing. In any video mode (Video 1, Video 2, DVD) I am getting intermittent video sync errors. Specifically, the screen flickers, loses vertical hold and sometimes just goes black. I am running S-video from my cable box, component from my Xbox 360 and DVD player and component out to my TV.

I'm going to have the fun of recabling the system one component at a time today to see if there is a smoking gun, but I'm really starting to think it's the 1070.

Well it actually appears I have a bad component video cable, who would have thunk.

Wow... I can't believe how long it's been since I opened this thread. In that time I've moved from Kansas to San Francisco, lived here for a year, and found a new game that has the same problem! If anyone has a copy Disgaea for the PS2 causes it as well.

I've basically learned to just live with it, albeit unhappily. Since it's only a few games I just keep the PS2 plugged into the front inputs and swap it over to the TV (which also conveniently has front composite inputs) whenever I need to. With the Gamecube I have a spare cable and I just swap that out while leaving the regular one plugged into the 1070.

It just looks like, for whatever reason, the 1070 has video problems with certain... well... I don't even know what triggers it. Not hardware alone, but it looks like a certain kind of signal somehow makes it go a bit loopy. Literally.

I still don't think there's any way to fix this and with the way things have gone and the 1070 discontinued it doesn't look like it'll ever be fixed. Hopefully when the new receivers and pre/pros come out (and with the increase in Blu-Ray adoption it looks like that'll be rather soon so they have products that support TrueHD and DTS HD) they won't have the same problem. Until then, well, hopefully you can find a way to circumvent the problem and learn to live with it. Not what you want to hear for the kind of money we're spending on these, but sadly, it looks like the only answer.