Having issues getting HDMI audio to work out of a HD4850 reference card

[VirtualLarry]

I'm using official ATI DVI-to-HDMI adapters, which are supposed to pass audio. But the ATI Legacy Cat 13.9 drivers, pop up a little message that a DVI-to-HDMI cable has been detected. I'm presuming, that this causes the drivers not to pass audio.

My Westinghouse 24" LCD HDTV, is plugged in via an HDMI cable, but when I check the OSD, it reports "DVI" 1920x1080, instead of "HDMI" 1920x1080. Apparently, the distinction is whether or not an audio handshake was detected from the source device.

The ATI/AMD HDMI audio device is default under Playback Devices, and if I start some music, I can watch the VU meters move on that audio device.

So the question is, is the problem, with the HDTV, or the display driver?

I had similar issues with an NV GT430, when the monitor would go to sleep, and then when I turned it back on, the NV drivers wouldn't re-do the audio handshake, so I would end up with no audio. Only in that case, under Playback Devices, it would show NV HDMI Audio Device as "Disconnected". I don't see that in the ATI card case.

Edit: I tried turning the HDTV on first, then rebooted the PC. Voila, audio. Turn the HDTV off, turn it back on, and nope. OSD says DVI, ATI drivers pop up with the DVI-to-HDMI warning.

Appears to be handshake issues with these HDTVs. Sigh. Perhaps I should have returned them, and picked up real computer monitors.

Or maybe I should pick up some NV cards.

For reference, the problematic display is a Westinghouse 24″ 1080P LED HDTV EWM24F1Y1

 

[ViRGE]

Edit: I tried turning the HDTV on first, then rebooted the PC. Voila, audio. Turn the HDTV off, turn it back on, and nope. OSD says DVI, ATI drivers pop up with the DVI-to-HDMI warning.

Appears to be handshake issues with these HDTVs. Sigh. Perhaps I should have returned them, and picked up real computer monitors.

Or maybe I should pick up some NV cards.

HDMI TV handshakes are generally unreliable, I find. It's very hard to get an HTPC setup that works correctly and doesn't go ape whenever the TV is disconnected. This is a problem I've seen on AMD and NV, so while it's worth a shot it's by no means guaranteed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Interestingly, I didn't have any problems with the C-70 based NanoPC unit I had hooked up to the same display.