What killed it, well after reviewing some PS4 gameplay I noticed that it was having audio issues, like it would allow some sounds but not all. It was almost as if it was receiving a 5.1 audio output but was missing the centre channel. Even though the PS4 was set to stereo.
After trying various cables, configs, and boxes. I narrowed it down to this box. Not sure what killed it, whether it’s just old, or that it’s been powered on for over 5 years straight. But its long service will never be forgotten in the hours of Netflix and Disney Plus it passed through to my recorder.
HDCP is so fucking dumb, I couldn’t play Switch on my old projector because of it and it’s absolutely useless in stopping anything from being pirated.
Most anti-piracy measures are useless at stopping piracy.
I fly a giant fucking pirate flag with skull and crossbones and no one ever stops me. All they do is say “Are you a pirate?” or “Say Jack Sparrow”. Tcchh bitch please, I’ll torrent your mom’s prom night.
I torrent so much I had to switch to 720p to save space and still have a backlog of 3tb. I blame my ADHD, I have to hoard everyyyyyyyyything.
Phones finally stopped my hoarding.
On my desktop pc I have almost every file I’ve downloaded since 1998. Seriously.
Want that old specific version of Nero to burn CDs, I probably have you. Looking for abandonware? Yeah, that was my thing for awhile.
I used to have operating systems I can’t find any record of existing these days (mostly front ends for DOS made to seem more modern in the early 00s). I had something that made Windows 3.1 look like Windows 95, I even had something that made Windows 98 look just like Mac OS 8 (no shit, it layered over windows and everything flawlessly).
I had every version of Mandrake Linux and several versions after the rename.
Tonnns of software to extend the life of 16 bit hardware.
I still have several screeners in 240p from the early 2000s with the audience moving around and laughing in them.
I have a decent collection of Nirvana bootlegs I downloaded from FTP servers way back in the day.
Man I miss the old internet. I’m getting old and that’s part of it I guess.
I find myself hoarding on the Steam Deck desktop too. Something about having a wide open file system just brings that impulse out in me.
Have you checked if they have that stuff on archive.org? I’m sure plenty of people would appreciate them.
That’s a project I’ll certainly undertake one day. Thank you for the suggestion.
Have you got Jasc Animation Shop?
I don’t have that one. I remember my cousin using it to animate dolls she drew on paint shop pro though. I don’t specifically remember it being animation shop, but I remember the name Jasc when she was showing me her work.
Similar to the war on drugs… Weird.
I’m convinced it has something to do with appeasing ignorant investors.
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I meant investors of the media publishers, not the creators of the DRM.
Publishers certainly know it doesn’t work but their investors probably demand that they “do something”.
I use an Dell docking station with my laptop. Any webpage with Spotify embed turns off my external displays because somewhere along the line the video signal loses the DRM certification. It’s infuriating.
I have the exact same splitter. Have been using it for Ambilight for the last, maybe, 5 years. It quit on me a couple of months ago.
Here’s to it 🍻What brand?
The exact same one as OP. Weirdly enough.
It doesnt specify a brand on the plastic case.
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I used to work as AV technician in a big corporation and had one of those that always saved my ass everytime someone with a MacBook wanted to do a presentation.
Yup, same. For the unaware: Macs have always-on HDCP, and it doesn’t always work as intended.
Lots of times, I’m trying to run a projector with a feed from the presenter’s laptop. Laptop is on stage, projector is in the tech booth. And the line in between the stage and the booth will complete the video signal, but not the HDCP handshake. So Windows machines will work fine, but Macs will just outright refuse to send anything.
So yes, I keep an HDCP stripper handy, because whenever a client pulls a MacBook out I know I’m going to need it.
I get why hdcp exists, but why the fuck would apple enable it permanently, for everything? They afraid of people pirating their own desktop or something?
Because it accelerates the user experience when transitioning from non-hdcp to hdcp-protected content on their display(s). There’s no need for re-negotiation of the display protocol causing some minor flickering during the transition.
But that only matters if you’re presenting mixed content.
Yeah.
Ouch! Thankfully haven’t run into this issue… either the display adapter I use has a HDCP stripper inside, or my Linux install isn’t enforcing HDCP on my macbook
Pour one out for all the little unsung heroes that just get shit done for years. Looking at you cheap HDMI switcher on my desk.
07
Open it up and replace any electrolytic capacitors.
This is pedantic, but there are indeed capacitors there. They’re all surface mount components, so they don’t look like the caps that people typically talk about replacing, and they likely aren’t what caused it to fail. Anything labeled on the board with a C## is likely a SMD capacitor.
I presumed so, but when I hear someone asking, I think of the old caps in old 90s PSU and Motherboards that are likely to go boom. I’ve never heard of these surface mount caps blowing though.
Agreed. SMD components fail silently.
Not all of them. I’ve seen the mess of shorted bridge rectifiers, burning LEDs, IC packages cracked from heat…
True, there are caps but no electrolytic caps.
My money is on a cold solder joint or two on a couple of the IC pins but that’s just a wild guess.
I see corrosion/deposits by those two leds and the hdmi… rinse it with vinegar, then DI water, then 90% alcohol. See if that doesn’t bring it back to life once it’s fully dry. You also might have to reflow the solder though.
I have another in the setup thats working, but I’ll probably hold onto it though if I can fix it as easily as you say
This.
I would absolutely try cleaning the board.
I would also spend $8-20 for a new one before I tried to DIY solder reflow various SMD caps.
How would you reflow the solder?
With an iron? Or a heat gun? What would be the best approach for something like this with lots of tiny surface mounts?
Not who you asked but 100% use a narrow heat gun, no question; it saves so much time alongside not accidentally bringing connectors
Would an oven work?
They can work, though I’m always reluctant to suggest using them, unless you have one that you can spare without worry of ruining the oven (offgassing from components/PCB/flux), the other problem is ovens can be a lot more variable in temperature than you’d think, and in this scenario where it may even be the chips showing their age, subjecting them to very high temperatures isn’t recommended.
Honestly when I bought a small £20 heatgun (smaller than the type you’d use to strip paint), I was kicking myself for not having bought one sooner, they make surface mounted components an absolute breeze Vs using a soldering iron.
The one exception for using ovens is if you’re having to do an intricate board with hundreds of components, then I’d suggest buying a small/medium toaster over, and an oven thermometer for more accurate readings.
I’ve reflowed a raspberry pi 0w with a camping stove and a thermometer. As long as there aren’t any components on the other side of the pcb, it might work.
Edit: here’s an old photo. Thing still works, many months laterIf you have a hot air rework station, that’s one way. Because then it is temp and flow controlled and you can choose a suitable nozzle and direct heat to small spots.
Just curious since you clearly know a lot about this stuff: What are your thoughts on the heat sinks being a part of the issue? Is there a decent chance the device could benefit from replacing whatever adhesive/paste was used to attach them? Or is that even doable?
It depends on how much heat it’s actually making, but maybe if the factory job done was crappy. It’s probably thermal adhesive though which is harder to remove.
Good call. And better than 90% isopropyl is Anhydrous alcohol.
A neighborhood laptop repair shop could probably do all these steps for you, too.
Provided they don’t explode first, ceramic capacitors tend to fail short circuit. If you have a multimeter, do continuity checks across all of them. In-circuit capacitance testing is very inaccurate, so that specific test is almost always moot. Continuity testing may help.
Also, depending on the speed of the multimeter and the charge of the capacitor, it may briefly give you a tone and/or register as a short circuit. Capacitors can register as a short circuit very briefly until they get a slight charge.
The diode at the top right is another easy thing to check. (D12 // SS34) if it’s failed short, it will cause issues for you as well.
I am not sure what the component is that is under the heatsink by the USB connector. Sometimes, you may have voltage regulators stepping down the USB 5V to 3.3V. Those are easy to replace as well. However, if it is a USB controller of some kind, you would have to reference the datasheet and test it somehow.
Those are some simple checks you can do, anyway.
Then replace the magic smoke.
Dirty girl
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Bit of a tangent but: How dangerous is ripping and distributing web content these days? Like how prevalent is watermarking or other methods that could identify the account the recording originated from?
Not sure about others, but I don’t distribute the content I record or backup, outside of an offsite backup. For me my biggest concern is getting a clean copy for myself, and with certain fruity tablets and a mirrored screen it’s good source to record from for my needs.
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You need to make the “you were the best” comic meme with this pasted in
No way to buy another? What’s the part number? I’ll help look.
I already have one, not to worry. Plus they are easy to find on Amazon or eBay.
Can you specify a brand at least?
I might’ve already replied with it in this post, I might not have. Who really knows.
You act like you’re the only person in the world doing this lol. Just fucking tell them.
I have had so many devices that went on long past their service life. Imma pour one out with you my friend.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=xRvCwtLLV6I
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Good bot!
Any chance you remember the brand or manufacturer so that I might look for one, for myself?
No name brand, if you find one that looks like it, it’ll work. Typical search terms are “hdmi splitter 1 in 2 out”, any with EDI switches are busts, like the one from UGREEN.
Last question if I may, what recorder did/are you using in tandem with this splitter?
Once upon a time, Elgato HD60, I want to keep my current system under wraps, since I don’t want them to fix it ;)
This article
https://www.howtogeek.com/208917/htg-explains-how-hdcp-breaks-your-hdtv-and-how-to-fix-it/
Links to this splitter to strip HDCP
I never used these. I do get a complimentary amazon prime subscription, so can I use a capture card to screen record/rip 4k content from prime?
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I have a decent gaming PC, amazon prime video. Is there a way I can verify that it records 4k? I’m also looking to upload/seed this somewhere.
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I’m terribly sorry for your loss. Here is some music to help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJWYTetgsns
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=cJWYTetgsns
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here’s some.more music for your loss: https://youtu.be/G44xTr8D_bw
And here’s your link without the damn tracker: https://youtu.be/G44xTr8D_bw
Updated thanks!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/G44xTr8D_bw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/G44xTr8D_bw?si=v0GJ8s674eT065NT
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Can I ask a little more about your setup? What is your recorder, is it like a cap card or a dedicated system?
I don’t want to spill the beans on what I’m currently using since I don’t want it to be patched. But I can tell you what I use to use before my current config. Since apps and devices have updated to a point I found better ones.
I use to run an old Samsung Tablet with USB C video out and one of those Amazon bargain bin tablets with HDMI.
Once this bad boy strips the HDCP any old HDMI recorder can record the signal. At a time I used the Elgato HD60, but I’ve moved on since due to HDR content causing it problems.
