Could my Sony TV HDMI inputs have been damaged by lightning?

[Whitedb]

I have a Sony KDL-32EX503 TV connected to a Panasonic Bluray/PVR DMR-BWT740 (1080p). Everything was fine with the Panasonic connected via the HDMI-4 and an Apple TV3 (1080p) into HDMI-1.

Last week we had a near by lightening strike that killed my Apple TV3 and the Panasonic box but the TV seemed OK on Freeview.  I plugged in an older ATV2 (720p) into my HDMI-1 and it worked OK.  

Today I got a replacment Panasonic box, connected it as before but had problems with the HDIMi-4 input dropping out during the setup and then loosing sound and finally not working at all.  To cut a long story short and testing various cables I found that:

1. The 720p Apple TV works in HDMI-1 & 4 but the Panasonic Box does not (nor does a Philips   1080p upscaling DVD Player that I tried in case I had a bad Panasonic box)

2. All three devices work in HDMI 2 & 3  (not connected to anything at the time of the strike)

3. HDMI-4 recognizes the Panasonic is attached (says recoder 1 at the top) but does not play the picture or sound.

3. The Pansonic box works fine in HDMI-4 of my Sony KDL-40EX713 TV

Question: Could the HDMI inputs have be damaged so that they can see a 720p Signal but not a 1080p? It is the only difference I can see between what works and what does not.  If so is this easy to fix?

(I am going to borrow an Apple TV3 to see if it works in HDMI-4 and will report back.)

Thanks for any suggestions.

Dave

PS.  I have tried unplugging the TV for several minutes, checked the HDMI preferences in the settings menu and used 5 different HDMI cables all with the same results.

[Anonymous]

Hi there

Very difficult to advise you on this to be honest - without having a technician look at the problem that is.

The HDMI ports in question are located at the back:

The part in question is the AV Main board.  It stands to reason though, if it is faulty due to a large influx of power (i.e. Lightning strike) other ports also would be effected or fried.  Smell is a good indicator if its fried.  The AV Main board is actually quite cheap to buy, the problem is, I cannot find anywhere that has it in stock....

Now the question at hand though, is if it is fried, I cannot see why it would work on 720p and not on 1080p.  Having said that though, if other equipment has been damaged, then... However, as the ports to work, its possibly not the actual port itself, maybe a processing chip - but I am not qualified to diagnose this and purely a guess

As this TV is over 5 years old, and to be honest, at the budget end of the Sony range, it is not economically viable to get this repaired.  I would advise looking at a new TV to be honest.  A 32" 2015 Sony TV can be had for less than 350 quid.

Cheers

[Whitedb]

Thanks for your suggestions.  

I have now tested the TV with a 1080p Apple TV3 and the results are the same as for the other 1080p devices, it works in ports 2 & 3 but not 1 & 4.  Additionally I see that the TV thinks something is continually plugged into HDMI 4 even when there is nothing connected.

Thus is looks as if the surge has killed the higher quality section of input and only the lower resolution one is functioning/recognizing an input.  Very strange.  I note that the ethernet connection is on this same board and my hub and NAS box attached to it were also killed.

Fortunately my other two TV's are currently OK. I will now have to see if any local repairs can be made economically and what my insurance says.