# Aspect Ratio comparison: L149 vs. L180



## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Here's an Excel spreadsheet of the differences between L149 and L180 aspect ratios - at least as seen on my TV.

I've also started a poll to help Eldon know what if anything else needs to be done.


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## pculley (Dec 23, 2003)

What do the numbers mean? I assume that you used some sort of chart to get these numbers, could you post it? Was it the same chart for HD material and SD material?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Simon, are the numbers based on the HDNet overscan test pattern? I agree with pculley - maybe a little more explanation would help.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Mark: I'm sorry I didn't explain that - yes, the HDNet test pattern from Tuesday mornings, 06:00MDT was used. Of course, numbers higher than 16 are approximations.

pculley: Yes, same pattern for HD & SD. The pattern is 16:9 HD content. I didn't have an SD test pattern available, and L180 was already in the 921 waiting to boot, so I couldn't wait until I found one.


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

Anybody find a setting that works on WideScreen SD (shows like ER, Crossing Jordon)?

The best I came up with was to set the 921 to 1080i, 16x9, Stretch and the TV to 16x9. This cuts off about 10% on the sides and leaves black bars top and bottom. 

The aspect is fine on an HD 16x9, so I am not sure why it doesn't work on an 16x9 SD unless the station is transmitting the bars as part of the image and this is confusing the 921/TV.


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## Big D (Aug 19, 2002)

Yes, the overscan is still with us. I have my 65" RPTV ISF calibrated to a very tight overscan, around 3% and using a number of different calibration disks, I know my 1080I component input on the TV has no excess overscan, yet the HDNet test pantern is showing 10 left and right, 6 top and bottom. This is better than it was with L149, but not the 3 or 4 it should be.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

That's what mine is showing as well, Big D. This is with the component outputs.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

Big D said:


> Yes, the overscan is still with us. I have my 65" RPTV ISF calibrated to a very tight overscan, around 3% and using a number of different calibration disks, I know my 1080I component input on the TV has no excess overscan, yet the HDNet test pantern is showing 10 left and right, 6 top and bottom. This is better than it was with L149, but not the 3 or 4 it should be.


I set my TV to do an under-scan to see what the 921 was doing with component out. The edges of the 921 picture show the numbers to be 3 and 4. If you add the overscan from your tv (you do have a little bit), you will get the values you are getting.... I've set my TV to do the same amount of overscan that you have by the way.

This is an improvement though. If I recall, the numbers were higher before L180.


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## Big D (Aug 19, 2002)

Overscan should be controlled by the TV, not a receiver or other such device. That way we can set up the TV for the appropriate overscan during a calibration, I like 3% to 4% max, and it will remain that way when you switch the various inputs of the receiver, DVD player, antenna, etc. around. Having a receiver like the 921 add it's own overscan is just causing us to lose picture content.

I agree, it does seem somewhat better with L180 than before and if this is true, it indicates Eldon is aware of the issue, knows how to address it and now just needs to have another go at it to get it closer to the correct overscan setting we expect.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Here's another tidbit. NBC is broadcasting West Wing in a kind of letterbox format. Actually, I think it's 16:9 with black bars top and bottom to fill up to 4:3.

We (16:9 TV watching SD feed) need an AR mode that will 'undo' that.

I've just played with the AR settings (Menu-6-9 & Format) and have discovered the following:

 When watching SD content:
In 16:9 mode, "GrayBar" mode still exists.
In 4:3 #1 mode, only "Normal" format is available. Note that with HD content, there is no "Normal" format in either 4:3 mode.
In 4:3 #2 mode, the available formats are the same as in 16:9 mode, and appear to have the exact same stretch factors.

When in 16:9 mode, "Stretch" fills the screen side-to-side perfectly, but has no change vertically (by design I think).
16:9 "Zoom" mode also does horizontal perfectly, but overdoes the vertical by about 40%. In other words, if 'x' is the vertical stretch factor, it should be changed to about 0.567x. Put yet another way, the vertical stretch is 3.75" (twice - top & bottom) of my 29.5" (vertical) screen and it should be 2.125". Or, finally, the current 25% vertical stretch factor should be 15%.
I'd love for some other folks to chime in at this level of detail - or at least agree that I've got it right.  

Dang - wish I knew where my digital camera was.
Double Dang - wish I had a 4:3 SD test pattern - and had had it while I was still on L149.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

The 6000 has two zoom modes if I recall. Partial zoom, and full zoom. I think partial zoom takes care of "letterbox" shows. Partial zoomed SD pictures look really bad!


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

Simplesimon, don't these shows that broadcast with the "widescreen effect" think their so cute-NOT! You have West Wing, ER, and a growing number of others. It is probably to give people with 4X3 screens the visualization that they have 16X9 TVs. Anywho, I believe it is a pure crock myself! Essentially it is the same as watching a 2:35 aspect DVD on a 16X9 set (black bars top and bottom). I have found that to try and Zoom or otherwise stretch these to be a total waste of time as nothing looks natural. I watch them as they come and live with it .. Gerry


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

By the way, I see that we have a whopping 33 people who have responded to the above poll (and it's been up awhile). Hopefully no one has responded more than once. That kinda indicates to me that there are not alot of people on this forum with 921s compared to whatever number of units are out in the field. Those other poor suckers must really being having a time of it without a clue as to what is going on with the 921 as posted in this forum.....


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

I have been wondering if it was just the local NBC station that was causing the problem with the black bars or if it was the national feed. 

My Hitachi 57XWX in 4x3 Zoom1 in a good job of getting the aspect back, but it cut off about 2" on all sides of the image.

Sure would be nice to have 2 user adjustable settings in the 921 to solve this.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Jim Parker said:


> I have been wondering if it was just the local NBC station that was causing the problem with the black bars or if it was the national feed.


At the beginning of West Wing they have 2 banner notices. The first says 'HDTV where available'. The second says 'presented in WideScreen'.

This tells me it's deliberate. The shows are taped in 16:9, so the 4:3 people would lose the side content if they didn't do that. How important is that? Enh.


ggw2000 said:


> Simplesimon, don't these shows that broadcast with the "widescreen effect" think their so cute-NOT! You have West Wing, ER, and a growing number of others. It is probably to give people with 4X3 screens the visualization that they have 16X9 TVs. Anywho, I believe it is a pure crock myself! Essentially it is the same as watching a 2:35 aspect DVD on a 16X9 set (black bars top and bottom). I have found that to try and Zoom or otherwise stretch these to be a total waste of time as nothing looks natural. I watch them as they come and live with it .. Gerry


Meanwhile, the 921 is ALMOST there. We just need a mode of "restretch 16:9 content presented in 4:3 back to 16:9", and as per my post above, "Zoom" is CLOSE - just don't stretch the vertical quite as much.

The HARD one to deal with is 4:3 content presented as 4:3, but being viewed on 16:9. That's what GrayBar is for, but they need to fine tune that one by adding a bit of overscan to eliminate the black bars between the edge of the actual content and the gray filler. It's hard because how do you figure out how much overscan to add? It appears to vary by show.

So far as I'm concerned, those are the only modes needed - I do NOT like any mode that distorts the content (tall, skinny or short, fat).

Of course, maybe some of the other modes might be useful to UNdistort previously distorted content - like old movies that are squished into 4:3. I think the 16:9 Stretch mode is probably already perfect for that one.

Any others?


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

One of my pet peeves is that Widescreen shows like ER don't fit worth a damn on my 16x9 TV. Isn't that the whole point of Widescreen shows? The only format that really fits is 16x9 HD.

"Sure would be nice to have 2 user adjustable settings in the 921 to solve this."

Brilliant solution. Wish I had said it. Oh wait, I did. :lol: There shouldn't be any reason that a screen could be set up so that the user could adjust the X and Y scaling factor so that any aspect ratio would show correctly.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Jim Parker said:


> One of my pet peeves is that Widescreen shows like ER don't fit worth a damn on my 16x9 TV. Isn't that the whole point of Widescreen shows? The only format that really fits is 16x9 HD.
> 
> "Sure would be nice to have 2 user adjustable settings in the 921 to solve this."
> 
> Brilliant solution. Wish I had said it. Oh wait, I did. :lol: There shouldn't be any reason that a screen could be set up so that the user could adjust the X and Y scaling factor so that any aspect ratio would show correctly.


No reason I can see other than the time it would take to code the GUI dialog and preferences storage for it. It sure seems like these AR values are in a table.

But I'd be quite happy if 16:9 SD Zoom mode did 15% vertical stretch instead of 25% (hint, hint, hint).


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

All I can say is that I'm currently as happy as a Pig in sh*t that I don't have to keep going to the menu to switch back and forth changing settings between watching SD and HD now! If there are minor issues on the "stretch" then hopefully they will bring this in a little. ps: the shows with black bars ARE broadcast that way per my note above, add "Crossing Jordan" to the list...


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## guruka (Dec 27, 2003)

Even though it's getting better with L180 - horizontal stretch for SD content in 16x9 mode needs to be reduced even further.

.....G


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

guruka said:


> Even though it's getting better with L180 - horizontal stretch for SD content in 16x9 mode needs to be reduced even further.
> 
> .....G


I assume you're talking about "Zoom" mode as opposed to "Stretch". In "Stretch" with HD content (HDNET test pattern), I'm seeing no horizontal change, and I thought the same was true for SD content (by eyeball).

I just looked at "Zoom" mode for SD again, and I agree with you - my eyes must've been crossed before.

Watching SD 4:3 content, both Zoom and Stretch modes overstretch the horizontal by "a bit". Using a ruler, 4:3 content shows up as 44" wide on my 52" horizontal screen. When Stretch'd or Zoom'd, 2.5" of the original width on each side is gone.

So, I'm gonna guesstimate that it's currently doing a 30% stretch, and it needs to be 20%. Comments?


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Simon, if you look at the original comments I made in this thread, that's exactly what I said...  10% too much.


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## Jerry G (Jul 12, 2003)

SimpleSimon said:


> So, I'm gonna guesstimate that it's currently doing a 30% stretch, and it needs to be 20%. Comments?


I checked the stretch with three different 4:3 SD programs, recording them on the 921 and then pausing the recording and changing aspect modes from Normal to Stretch. I find the stretch to be almost right there with just a touch of image missing. It's so slight that I'm satisfied and I'm concerned that if they try to reduce the stretch anymore, they may go too far and we'll end up with thin side bars which would be much worse than missing a small fraction of the picture.


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

Jerry G said:


> I checked the stretch with three different 4:3 SD programs, recording them on the 921 and then pausing the recording and changing aspect modes from Normal to Stretch. I find the stretch to be almost right there with just a touch of image missing. It's so slight that I'm satisfied and I'm concerned that if they try to reduce the stretch anymore, they may go to far and we'll end up with thin side bars which would be much worse that missing a small fraction of the picture.


When watching SD over component at 1080i, I seem to be seeing the same as jerryg in "stretch". just a touch of the image missing on each side but acceptable.
What is the parameters for the 10 % overstretch? (ie DVI or HD or something). Gerry


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Simon, if you look at the original comments I made in this thread, that's exactly what I said...  10% too much.


That was too long ago (at least 10-15 minutes)  - I forgot. :lol:

Anyway, you and I say 10%. guru says 'some too much', but a couple of other folks are saying 'its fine'.

Sounding more and more like user-settable might be the best solution.


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

SimpleSimon said:


> Here's another tidbit. NBC is broadcasting West Wing in a kind of letterbox format. Actually, I think it's 16:9 with black bars top and bottom to fill up to 4:3.
> 
> We (16:9 TV watching SD feed) need an AR mode that will 'undo' that.
> 
> ...


I finally got a chance to test all of the AR's under 180 and agree with Simon, but someone might eventually want to post all of the AR's even the ones under 16X9 because this post didn't discuss the stretch1, stretch2, and Letterbox ones that appears using 4X3 #1 or #2. I don't know if we want to spend that much time on it until Dish releases that final software version that corrects the AR's once and for all, if that ever happens.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

lujan said:


> I finally got a chance to test all of the AR's under 180 and agree with Simon, but someone might eventually want to post all of the AR's even the ones under 16X9 because this post didn't discuss the stretch1, stretch2, and Letterbox ones that appears using 4X3 #1 or #2. I don't know if we want to spend that much time on it until Dish releases that final software version that corrects the AR's once and for all, if that ever happens.


The purpose of this thread is to try to help Eldon make the settings "right" in the next release. 

As for 16:9 - at least in HD, my spreadsheet (attached to first post) gives some results that should help them correlate the internal setting values to the real world.


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## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

Sorry Simon, I didn't go back to the first post.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

lujan said:


> Sorry Simon, I didn't go back to the first post.


No problem.


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## FaxMan (Oct 14, 2003)

I have a Hitachi V500 that I believe does a much better job of scaling 4:3 SD content to my 16:9 screen than the 921 does. It actually leaves the middle of the picture in its OAR and gradually increases the amount of stretch as it moves from the center of the screen. There is a slight overscan top/bottom, and some camera pans look a little odd, but overall the effect is very good.

Unfortunately, the Hit. 4:3 content stretch modes aren't available with Higher than 480p signals.

I have the SD output sent via S-Video cable to the HIT figuring it would output a signal similar to my 508 and 311s which work very well.

It appears that the SD signal is somewhat like the the analog feeds of ER/WestWing mentioned above where the bars are built into the signal, but on the side. Instead of simply passing the SD signal in its OAR, it seems to be being altered.

I suggest that a mode to pass the unadulterated SD or HD signal in its original resolution for folks with external scalers that they prefer.

=FaxMan


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

Faxman:
Did you try putting your 921 into 4x3 #2 mode (this effects what the 921 does to the S-Video output)?



> I suggest that a mode to pass the unadulterated SD or HD signal in its original resolution for folks with external scalers that they prefer.


This has been requested before -> no idea if anyone is listening.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Faxman - you need to change the display mode to 4x3#1 to do what you are trying to do.


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## ggw2000 (Dec 22, 2003)

FaxMan said:


> I have a Hitachi V500 that I believe does a much better job of scaling 4:3 SD content to my 16:9 screen than the 921 does. It actually leaves the middle of the picture in its OAR and gradually increases the amount of stretch as it moves from the center of the screen. There is a slight overscan top/bottom, and some camera pans look a little odd, but overall the effect is very good.
> 
> Unfortunately, the Hit. 4:3 content stretch modes aren't available with Higher than 480p signals.
> 
> ...


I just bought a DVD Recorder and hooked it up via Svideo. Then I found out that the 921 is manipulating the output of the SD  . It is adding the sidebars, etc. and not passing the SD signal unmolested! This is really a crock as anything recorded by the DVD recorder and then played back on a regular DVD player is squashed and has the cotton pick'n side bars! Between the whole 921 hassle and the way Dish is acting in general, my patience is stretched and I am currently investigating other options...


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## FaxMan (Oct 14, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Faxman - you need to change the display mode to 4x3#1 to do what you are trying to do.


Thanks Mark, I was just coming back to edit my post but will add it here...

After posting above, I found your great post explaining the best route: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=21748&highlight=V500

Now I just have to figure out a way to automate the switching with my Harmony Remote. Wouldn't it be nice to have a HD set of settings and a SD set of settings that could be toggled.

=FaxMan


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

Folks, the reason why you see the "921 still adding the side bars" is because the 921 sends an anamorphic 16:9 signal over both the SD and HD inputs when it is set to display type 16:9. Essentially, it assumes that you are always watching your 921 in "Full" (16:9) mode. This really confused me for a while, because I don't have any other 16:9 sources hooked up to the standard definition inputs on my television, so I never use those inputs in "Full" mode. Hence, all I had was a really skinny SD picture when watching in "Normal" (4:3) mode until I realized that the signal was an anamorphic 16:9 signal. Using "Full" stretches it back out to proper 4:3.

As noted above by several folks, if you really want to use the stretch modes of your television, it's not enough to just change to SD output. You also have to tell the 921 that you are using a 4:3 television.


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## Cheezmo (Feb 5, 2004)

Just a heads up for anyone using the HDNet test pattern to get overscan numbers. The numbers do NOT represent overscan. I've done a detailed analysis.

The bottom line is that the bottom number (from 4-8) is off by 2, as you can see there is no 2 and the line between 8 and 10 isn't counted. The side numbers need to be divided by about 2. That will at least get the numbers to related to each other properly but there is still a factor to apply to get actual overscan.

It is normal for the side numbers to be about 2x the top/bottom numbers on a display with properly set overscan.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

Nice work, Steve!

If I may comment, tho - in order to keep apples to apples comparisons, I think the actual displayed HDNet pattern numbers should always be used in posts as opposed to doing the adjustment. This will avoid confusion between those that read your analysis page and those that haven't.

Definitely do the adjustment when converting to real percentages, tho!


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## Jim Parker (Aug 12, 2003)

Well done :righton: That explains why the numbers are so far off. I looked at the numbers and just figured that the 921 was totally screwed up.


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