No longer able to see Lovefilm films

[dg_gladstone]

I registered our Sony BDP s570 with Lovefilm and we have been able to happily watch Lovefilms films for about a month. On Tuesday the 21st we suddenly lost video. We can hear the films but not see them. We continue to be able to see iplayer, youtube and to watch DVDs.

We can see the selection screens on lovefilm and the lovefilm video test works but the film does not.

Our subscription with lovefilm is still valid, we have the latest firmware and we have tried going back to default settings. We have deregistered and re-registered with love film, we have reduced the resolution of the screen - nothing we have done makes a difference. I checked our line speed and it is approx 10Mb.

It was working on Sunday night and not on Tuesday. Has anyone had a similar experience.

[jds1040 · Accepted solution]

Exactly the same experience.  Are you using HDMI or component / composite video?  I am using component.  I am wondering whether Lovefilm have switched back to HDMI only for copy protection reasons?

[dg_gladstone]

Yes I am using component video. We have contacted Lovefilm but they just said they were mystified. Awaiting recall from their technical department.

Your thought on HDMI was interesting so we got a short piece of HDMI cable and plugged it into a monitor. Guess what we got vision. So itwould appear that HDMI connection works. Right pain since we do not have an HDMI connection on our old projector.

Suggest you complain to Lovefilm as wellas us.

[jds1040]

I got this response (not from the tech team I think):

Dear John,

Thank you for your e-mail.

There are a few reasons as to why this error may be occurring, but based
on the information you have provided, I believe it is being caused by
the connection type you have on your blu-ray player.

You need to connect your player via a HDMI cable to the TV as users who
do not use an HDMI cable to connect their Sony Blu-Ray player to their
TV will experience a blank screen when watching video. This is due to
rights restrictions on availability of our content over analog
connections. To resolve the problem, you need to employ a HDMI cable for
the connection.

Please also test out the YouTube service – if this also exhibits the
same problem then the issue is most likely with device configuration and
you will then need to contact Sony technical support

I hope this information is helpful, and if there is anything else that I
can help with please let me know.

Please let us know if this answered your question.

There were links for 'Yes' and 'No' below.  I clicked 'Yes' but then asked a follow-up question as to how I was able to watch via component for several months.  I will let you know the reply.

[jds1040]

I got an answer to my follow-up question this morning, from the customer services team:

Dear John,

Thank you for your email and we apologise for any inconvenience and
frustration caused to you in this matter.

Unfortunately, at this present time we cannot clarify exactly the rights
restrictions with regards to the analog connection but we are aware that
some customers could view the service through their Sony blu-ray player
for a period of time. This is now not the case and we must advise you to
view through the use of a HDMI cable.

I am sorry that I cannot be of more assistance but should you have any
further queries please contact us directly.

Please let us know if this answered your question.

So HDMI only - oh well - I can live without until a get a new TV,

[dg_gladstone]

This is getting more interesting. Last night we could suddenly see films again through our component video connection. We do not have a TV and connect up to a projector but although the projector is HDCP compliant I can not see anyway that this information would be conveyed through the component video connection, So you might find that it works again at the moment. If it continues to work through a projector and not through a TV it would imply more information going down the cable than I thought. We have also decided to chase HDMI cables and conversion connectors since our projector is too old to have an HDMI connector - do not know whether it works or not yet. Will post to the forum when we know. One thing we have noticed is that the video quality has never been as good as we saw when we connected to a monitor via HDMI so maybe they allow a degraded video signal sometimes.