Rider wrote:
I’m convinced there is a power up handshake issue. It seemst to be more an auto-negotiation fail rather than not using the settings you’ve programmed. If it can’t negotiate the settings you want, it falls back.
I think that you are right, it does seem like an auto negotiation failure. However, once you go into the setup and manually choose 1080i and RGB Low, why is the WD trying to auto negotiate? It should see that you do not have ‘Auto’ selected and it should not be trying to auto negotiate anything different than what you have already selected manually.
What is really strange is that about 50% of the time the box powers up correctly set at 1080i and RGB Low. Why does it work correctly half the time? Maybe there is a timing problem with the WD HDMI detection algorithm? Maybe the timing is ‘right at the edge’ and sometimes it gets the right response from the TV and sometimes it doesn’t? Regardless, I do not understand why the WD is trying to auto negotiate when you have already manually selected 1080i and RGB Low.
The other weird thing is that when I set the output manually to 1080i and RGB Low, it works every time on the first try! That is telling me that there is no reason why the box cannot do that when it powers up (if it would remember the settings). I think that you are right, the WD box is still using some sort of auto-detection when the unit is powering up, instead of just remembering the manual setting and setting it that way when it powers up.
I will have to try your suggestion on powering up the WD first and then powering up the TV afterwards. This seems like the opposite of what should be normal (It would seem logical that the TV should be powered up first, so that it will be ready when auto negotiation takes place), but if it works, who cares! 
