Room needs to be turned off twice

[JustinL]

Hi,  The following is my home configuration.

4 rooms:  wiring closet, kitchen, living room, deck.

In the wiring closet I have a KD-4x4CSK, C4 4x4, HC-250, 7.1 receiver for the living room and some HDMI sources.

My goal is to using the HDMI matrix to connect all sources to the 3 rooms I have.  For the most part I have this working except for a couple oddities.

The HDMI matrix will send the audio output to the amp input that I want.  I have mapped these 1-1.  That is HDMI output 1 goes to audio input 1, HDMI output 2 goes to audio input 2, and so on.

The amp's mapping is a bit different.  The amp only controls speakers in the kitchen and on the deck.  The deck has 2 sets of speakers.  

The amps mappings for output are the following:

output 2:  kitchen,  

output 1:  deck speakers 1,  

output 3:  deck speakers 3

In order to accommodate this I have added programming rules to the kitchen and to the deck.

For each room on power off I set the corresponding amp output(s) to disconnect. (kitchen disconnects 2, deck disconnects 1 and 3).

On audio change I set the corresponding amp output(s) to their respective inputs.

On the deck I also have rules to sync the two speaker zones.

Now here is the oddity.  When I turn a room off the speakers turn off for a second and then back on.  The second time I hit off it works.

My guess here is that the programming for turning the room off kicks in, it changes the inputs, which in turn kicks off the inputs which turns them back on.

Do I have any way to control the order of these rules?  Does anyone else have an idea what would cause me to have to turn the room off twice?

 

 

 

 

[JustinL]

Looking at this more closely reveals another clue.  

 

I watch the matrix connections from the system design I can see the exact connections.

When I turn off the deck I see both outputs go to disconnect (good).

Then a second later something turns them back on.  When I hit off again only one of the zones turns off.  

So what is turning the zone back on?  Is there a way to see the commands that the C4 system is emitting live?  That would give me the info needed to debug this.

 

[Cyknight]

Well, the first problem is that you're using programming at all - NON of this should require ANY programming, but it requires proper mapping of connections.

[JustinL]

I tried that.  But I think C4 gets confused having 2 matrix devices in the path.  In particular, it doesn't set the correct amp output when I select an input.  It doesn't realize that the input that a device comes from depends on the setting of the HDMI matrix.  If you know how to setup c4 to recognize this case let me know.  In any case I'll still need programming to mirror the two deck zones.  I want them to appear as a single zone not as 2 separate zones.

I might try to go to a media scene and see if that helps instead.

[Cyknight]

15 minutes ago, JustinL said:

I tried that.  But I think C4 gets confused having 2 matrix devices in the path.  In particular, it doesn't set the correct amp output when I select an input.  It doesn't realize that the input that a device comes from depends on the setting of the HDMI matrix.  If you know how to setup c4 to recognize this case let me know.  In any case I'll still need programming to mirror the two deck zones.  I want them to appear as a single zone not as 2 separate zones.

I might try to go to a media scene and see if that helps instead.

Yep, matrix to matrix is never recommended - but there are several ways to get past that issue - in your particular scenario I'm assuming you have a 4-zone matrix amplifier. Normally speaking you would set that to fixed input. Alternatively there are drivers to force path settings.

In the end, you need to have your baseline setup fixed, instead of trying to circumvent things via complex programming, which rarely works out quite the way you want it.

[JustinL]

I want matrix to matrix because the KD matrix provides built in DACs for each output.  I don't want to have a bunch of DAC's installed in order to extract audio channels from my HDMI only devices.  There is an option to lock inputs but this provides two challenges.  1) There is no way to disconnect an input and therefore turn it off.  Maybe I could turn it off at the HDMI matrix instead then.  2) There is no way for me to clone one zone on the deck to another.  This would mean I would need a physical stereo splitter to split the audio coming off the HDMI matrix to the amp.  That really seems like a bad idea as it could significantly degrade the audio quality.

Is there a way to monitor all commands issued by the C4 system?  If I can find out what gets executed and the order I can debug it.  

I'll have to look if there are different C4 drivers I can use for the matrix amp. 

[JustinL]

I found a work around.  That is to add a 1 second delay to the start of my turn off kitchen and turn off deck programming.  It appears that whatever is turning it back on runs in parallel so giving it a slight delay makes it so that my turn off macros always win.

[Cyknight]

Again, the issue is that your current setup is wrong - you're band-aiding and trying to work against the way C4 is setup to do all these things for you.

You don't want matrix to matrix, you have no need to turn outputs 'off' and you do not need fancy programming to clone one deck to another.

 

YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS VIA PROGRAMMING.

Either you have a hacked copy of Pro, or are an untrained dealer/dealer employee AND YOU ARE DOING THIS WRONG.

 

 

[JustinL]

Please tell me how to get audio from a chromecast-like device without using a dac to rip it from HDMI.  Using DACs causes HDCP authentication issues that appear periodically and I'd like to avoid that. In addition, I have a small space i'm working in and want to use as few devices as possible due to heat constraints.  

You can tell me matrix to matrix is the wrong way but then tell me what is the right way without inserting a bunch of new hardware.  The hardware I have is KD-4x4CSK and C4-8AMP1-B.  Assume the source devices have a single HDMI similar to a chromecast.  As I see it the future of source devices is a single HDMI output with no audio output.  This is where the large tech companies are going and we need to adapt now.  

Finally tell me how to join two audio outputs to be exactly synced in volume and state without programming.  I've asked this before on the forum and was told to use a media scene or programming.  

Ideally what I would like is a single HDMI Matrix with an amp built in but I haven't seen such a device.  

 

[JustinL]

I thank you for your help and that you pushed me to go back and look at connections.  I realized that the driver for the video matrix didn't have audio output ports.  So I went ahead and added the houselogix converter and now things seem to work better.  

However, I still need some programming to keep the two zones on the deck in sync.  I'm curious is there a "best practice" for having 2 zones mirror each other?  I've read media scenes are considered bad and they require programming also.  

[Cyknight]

46 minutes ago, JustinL said:

However, I still need some programming to keep the two zones on the deck in sync.  I'm curious is there a "best practice" for having 2 zones mirror each other?  I've read media scenes are considered bad and they require programming also.  

Again, the issue is poor setup - MEdia Scenes are a possible option, but frankly I view these as a last resort. From the limited info I have on your system, you just need to change this into a single zone to begin with, and change your setup to acommodate that . Simply put, take a SINGLE output from the HDMI matrix and feed it into BOTH (locked!) inputs on your 4-zone matrix amplifier. This DOES assume your HDMI matrix has and is doing the volume control. If not, consider what you have for speakers, and if the 4 Zone can't jsut drive it as one zoner to begin with (it's a very capable amplifier and can handle 4 speakers no issue, and if need be more using a smart serial/parallel wiring scheme)/

If all else fails, Media Scenes are an option.

 

In the end I go back to the same thing - you need to examine your base setup to start with - don't try to turn a Honda Civic inot a Ferrari by reprogramming the on-board computer

[Gary Leeds UK]

Ferrari just crash into each over - Go Hamilton !!

[prabeau]

12 hours ago, Cyknight said:

Again, the issue is that your current setup is wrong - you're band-aiding and trying to work against the way C4 is setup to do all these things for you.

You don't want matrix to matrix, you have no need to turn outputs 'off' and you do not need fancy programming to clone one deck to another.

 

YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS VIA PROGRAMMING.

Either you have a hacked copy of Pro, or are an untrained dealer/dealer employee AND YOU ARE DOING THIS WRONG.

 

 

 

12 hours ago, JustinL said:

Please tell me how to get audio from a chromecast-like device without using a dac to rip it from HDMI.  Using DACs causes HDCP authentication issues that appear periodically and I'd like to avoid that. In addition, I have a small space i'm working in and want to use as few devices as possible due to heat constraints.  

You can tell me matrix to matrix is the wrong way but then tell me what is the right way without inserting a bunch of new hardware.  The hardware I have is KD-4x4CSK and C4-8AMP1-B.  Assume the source devices have a single HDMI similar to a chromecast.  As I see it the future of source devices is a single HDMI output with no audio output.  This is where the large tech companies are going and we need to adapt now.  

Finally tell me how to join two audio outputs to be exactly synced in volume and state without programming.  I've asked this before on the forum and was told to use a media scene or programming.  

Ideally what I would like is a single HDMI Matrix with an amp built in but I haven't seen such a device.  

 

Well.... that answers that now doesn't it !

[thegreatheed]

HDMI matrixes are $$$$$$$.

Amps die more frequently than other devices.

Combining those is a HORRIBLE idea.