Hi, This is a fact that the Z9S has intermitent black screens. We have to stop wondering about this, each one of us bringing in his experience is just getting people to doubt. I have connected my Z9S straight to my projector, a Sony VPL-VW550ES, via a certified 18Gbps cable. My Z9S is set to 10bit. And I do get black screens. I even found a specific demo file, pretty heavy on bitstream and HDR, that causes the blackscreens to be more frequent and repeatable. The same projector, connected via the same cable to an Oppo 203 set to the highest settings, RGB 4:4:4 12 bits, and playing that same file plays it flawlessly. And if some people here deny having any blackscreens, well that makes it even worse, because that would mean this a per device problem, which leads to bad QA, and unreliability of the product. BTW if someone wants to try that file, be my guest. It is called Samsung Wonderland Demo.ts and weighs 0.9Gb.
For me it's just the auto frame rate switching that causes it, turn that off and everything plays albeit at 60hz. I even get the same issues with dvdrips with auto frame rate switching turned on. Ive emailed support and they've asked me to try to manually set the frame rate to that of the media, I'll try that later and hopefully they can figure out the issue
That's pretty concerning but it wouldn't surprise me that it is a per device problem, QA related. But we just don't know for sure. Hoping it is purely a firmware related issue. It is comforting for me to know that I am not the only one kicking up a fuss about this both here and on the avforum, where there are other people have also reported the same issue.
I've just read back over the posts in this thread trying to find a common denominator and although Denon receivers crop up a lot, the issue is by no means exclusive to them. But one thing I've not considered is that maybe the reason I am not experiencing this issue could be that (I think) I'm the only one running through a Vertex here. There are a few with LRPs I know, but no-one else has mentioned having a Vertex, so maybe that's smoothing the way for me. I'll remove the Vertex this evening and see if I can replicate the problem...
It could also mean that it's a problem only with specific display hardware. We've had Z9S's returned because of intermittent black screen only for us to be unable to replicate the problem.
i've managed to replicate this by turning auto adjust frame rate to on (can't remember the exact wording) setting this to off gets rid of the black screens, have you tried this?
Ok, I removed the Vertex from the chain and have just watched a full movie. 4K23 10-bit 444 and I wasn't able to replicate the black screen issue. So I guess it's not the Vertex doing it for me I'm afraid.
So I've plugged the z9s through my onkyo 686 receiver and it's not doing it anymore, only happens when directly connect to tv
There are definitely some HDMI compatibility issues here, but how the devs are going to replicate and fix I have no idea!
I tried all the permutations with Auto frame rate and auto resolution, but eventually I could seriously lower the frequency of blackscreens just by enabling the resolution output to AUTO instead of a specific resolution. But then while I was doing my tests and trying to watch a movie I had those audio dropouts happening only with DTS:X. I know this is not related to this discussion but I gotta say I am sick of this device. I brought back my eGreat A5 from the bedroom and it works fine. I guess I will wait for another firmware for the Z9S.
The audio drop-out may well be related and that is something I have experienced and reported to Zidoo. A few weeks ago I started getting audio dropouts on DTS-HD tracks. I also experienced it on one Atmos track. This started on firmware v2.1.22 - I had never had it on prior firmware. It also happened after updating to v2.1.30 I seem to have alleviated it now after doing a full system restore to v1.7.8 (using emergency restore procedure) and then updating straight up to v2.1.30 using the standard USB OTA method. I've since updated to v2.1.40 and have not had the issue since an either v2.1.30 or v2.1.40. This may be worth trying for those with the blanking problem.
Done exactly that. Does not help at all. Intermitent blackscreens still here, and DTS:X unstable. The more I read this forum the more I wonder if I shouldn't have bought the X9S instead. I mean what are the main differences?
At the moment the only practical differences I can see are: The Z9S is a bit quicker - feels zippier through the menus, but then the X9S is no slouch either. Not important for most, but the Z9S allows for SDR mapped to HDR while the X9S only has HDR on/off which are the equivalents of HDR Auto / HDR to SDR on the Z9S. The Z9S allows for 3 "gamma" settings for HDR to SDR but to be honest they're not really usable due to posterisation and HDR to SDR on the X9S is only usable if you have a display that will allow you to take your gamma down to 1.4 or 1.6 otherwise the image is too dark so nothing to gain there on either player really. But... The Z9s is the current player - it is the one that the devs are actively working on, so it will improve - this blanking issue seems to be wholly related to the display chain and many users don't seem to have the problem. Once they've sorted out what's causing it, it will be fixed. The devs will be very much aware of the problem by now, it's just that they, like me and others, have not been able to replicate it yet..
Here's a fix I worked out Go to advanced settings -> developer options -> enable 23.976/59.XXX option Now set your resolution to 3840x2160 23p and turn off auto resolution and framerate switching Watched a whole 110 mins 4k HDR remux without a single blank screen
What FW are you on ? With 2.1.30 it doesn't work. As soon as I do your procedure, my screen went into the black screen on- off routine without even playing a movie.
Optical HDMI recevied and tested : the same, unable to watch 4k 4:4:4 10bit content, black screens every 30s. tired of this box
This might help! Set Z9S's Advanced settings/Developer options to Ignore EDID. Those with Denon's amp set 4K Signal Format to <enhanced>.