harmful to unplug/plug in HDMI cable with stuff still on?

[lokir1]

Originally Posted by STARSCREAM

I just had a Best Buy Geeksquad guy out here to look at my Insignia Plasma tv that has flicker. I had the ps3 on and paused to demonstrate the flickering and when he went to plug the hdmi cable into his device he just unplugged it from the ps3 and plugged it into his device without allowing me to turn the ps3/receiver/or tv off first. I had always heard never to do this because it can damage your equipment so now I'm pissed that he did that. What kind of damage can it do and what should I look for next time when using it? OR is it mainly you aren't supposed to do this because it can damage your hdmi connectors?

Not recommended you can actually cause a short on your hdmi board and fry an input or output on it due to this most manuals stae to turn off all equipment when connecting or disconecting cables for this reason exactly
I was careless a few times and suffered losing an input on my avr due to it after getting a very expensive repair done seeing as how no one will fix your hdmi board but jus rip out the old and install a new one i asked what caused this to happen? this was the #1 suspect from repair facility and after searching online i found a few others that experienced the same problem and were told the same as well may or may not be true but jus to be safe i turn everything off from now on