# Aspect Ratio Learnings - Dual vs. Single mode



## ewingr (May 18, 2005)

Got mine going last Friday.

For anyone considering the 942 I thought I'd share something I learned this weekend, as a new user of this and Dish.

If in single mode, with the HDTV settings at 16X9, and you watch from the second TV, even though it is "downrevved" to SD, the picture will be letterboxed on your 4X3 SD TV (black on each side...with a picture squeezed smaller).

So to watch the same thing on the second TV as the primary TV, and have a 'normal' type of picture on the 2nd tv, you have to have a non-normal picture on the HDTV. You need to put the picture in Stretch mode in order to fill the 4X3 screen and not be squeezed down. This of course then results in a stretched picture on your HDTV, which I don't really like either.

Of course, the fix is to watch in Dual mode. 

Another interesting one...

When I watch something recorded on the second TV, again while in single mode, the 4X3 stuff is presented in the letterbox style (squeezed on my 4x3 TV), and the aspect ratio will NOT change the presentation of recorded stuff. 

As you can probably tell, unless someone truly wants to watch something different, live, on the second TV, I prefer to use single mode. But single mode and 2 TVs is not ideal.


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## Bichon (Jun 5, 2003)

I'd recommend that you read Mark's bug tracking thread (stickied at the top of this forum), especially the first post that summarizes all the outstanding bugs. The one you describe is bug #9. And it's one that I'm REALLY hoping will be squashed soon.


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## datwell (Jan 26, 2005)

Bichon: Make that two of us that hope they squash that bug soon! 

da Doug


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## ewingr (May 18, 2005)

Thanks. Actually I have read the tread. But, it has so much in it, I can't remember it all  

Although, it's been a bit since I have read it. I almost didn't purchase this thing due to the bugs.

Interestingly, I had an Ultimate TV, which I had purchased in 2000. I never ever experiecned anything I would consider a bug on it. I loved it. But, alas, no HD with it.

It's interesting how buggy this stuff is now days.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

I am using the 942 in single mode and using a coax to my second sd tv in the computer room. I am using the hd mode in 720p and 4x3 2 because then I can adjust the hd and ota channels. The 720p picture makes the hd look good and the sd from Dish look good and more uniform. In 1080i it shows more artifacts and compression on the local channels from Dish. 

Anyway I am not seeing any letterbox on hd or squished picture or anything else you describe. I am seeing the picture fill the screen on my second tv in sd or hd. I am also using the second tv2 outputs to my vcr with s-video and I don't see anything you describe there either. 

I wonder if the 720p and using it in 4x3 2 mode have anything to do with it?


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## ewingr (May 18, 2005)

My config is similar to yours, excpet I have it set to 16X9. I guess I don't yet understand what 4X3 2 vs 4X3 1 vs 16X9 is. I presumed, maybe incorrectly, that if I am playing my HD on a 16X9 screen I would want 16X9 selected. No?


But, it appears you are misunderstanding what I am saying. My discussion is about what I see on the 2nd TV which is SD, not the HD tv. Based on my discussion, if I have single mode on, and am seeing SD content on my SD screen w/o it being squished, then the SD content on my HD screen is stretched, which I don't like. I can live with partial Zoom on the HD screen for SD content, but that setting cuts off the bottom on my SD screen, and if it is set normal, then the SD content is letterboxed (squished) on the SD screen.

Probabaly just confused the heck out of you


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## Bichon (Jun 5, 2003)

ewingr said:


> My config is similar to yours, excpet I have it set to 16X9. I guess I don't yet understand what 4X3 2 vs 4X3 1 vs 16X9 is. I presumed, maybe incorrectly, that if I am playing my HD on a 16X9 screen I would want 16X9 selected. No?


According to the docs, 16x9 is for a widescreen TV, 4x3 #1 is for a non-widescreen TV that does vertical raster compression, and 4x3 #2 is for a non-widescreen TV that doesn't do raster compression.

Your choice of 16x9 for a widescreen TV is correct, per the instruction manual.

Some people on this forum have been experimenting with intentionally setting that menu item to an incorrect value in order to gain functionality. I'm not surprised that choosing 4x3 #2 fixes the problem with TV2, since a standard definition TV is, in fact, a 4x3 model without vertical raster compression.

I haven't played with this myself, but I would be concerned that setting a 16x9 TV to use 4x3 #2 would result in a loss of vertical resolution, since in that mode some of the (720 or 1080) available scan lines are wasted painting the black bars that would appear above and below the letterboxed picture on a non-widescreen TV.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

ewingr said:


> My config is similar to yours, excpet I have it set to 16X9. I guess I don't yet understand what 4X3 2 vs 4X3 1 vs 16X9 is. I presumed, maybe incorrectly, that if I am playing my HD on a 16X9 screen I would want 16X9 selected. No?
> 
> But, it appears you are misunderstanding what I am saying. My discussion is about what I see on the 2nd TV which is SD, not the HD tv. Based on my discussion, if I have single mode on, and am seeing SD content on my SD screen w/o it being squished, then the SD content on my HD screen is stretched, which I don't like. I can live with partial Zoom on the HD screen for SD content, but that setting cuts off the bottom on my SD screen, and if it is set normal, then the SD content is letterboxed (squished) on the SD screen.
> 
> Probabaly just confused the heck out of you


 No, I am saying the second tv , which is a sd or analog tv, that I am using with tuner 2 output , is having no symptoms of a squished picture or letterbox or anything else you are talking about on sd or hd programming and I wonder if keeping it in 720p and 4x3 2 mode and using the coax , is why it is that way.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

Bichon said:


> According to the docs, 16x9 is for a widescreen TV, 4x3 #1 is for a non-widescreen TV that does vertical raster compression, and 4x3 #2 is for a non-widescreen TV that doesn't do raster compression.
> 
> Your choice of 16x9 for a widescreen TV is correct, per the instruction manual.
> 
> ...


 In the 4x3 2 mode I can set it to stretch on hd channels and on ota channels and it looks exactly the same as in 16 x 9 mode. This is nice because like you said your self , I get no problems with picture quality on my second analog tv and it doesn't effect my hd tv viewing. It comes in handy for ota channels when they don't always show programming in hd . Then I can hit partial zoom or zoom mode and the picture will fit the screen, the same as it does sd programming on the satellite. This work around is working just fine for me and I perfer having control of my hd and ota channels. If a sd sat program needs to be format changed , I can switch back to 16 x 9 for that program.


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## Bichon (Jun 5, 2003)

Mike D-CO5 said:


> In the 4x3 2 mode I can set it to stretch on hd channels and on ota channels and it looks exactly the same as in 16 x 9 mode.


I've played with it tonight, and can report that it doesn't look the same. Running 4x3 #2 in stretch mode on a widescreen TV results in approximately a 33% reduction in vertical resolution. In 720p mode, you're essentially getting 1280 x 480p resolution, and in 1080i, you're essentially getting 1920 x 720i. On my 58" TV, the difference in picture quality is pretty apparent.


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## waltinvt (Feb 9, 2004)

Bichon said:


> I've played with it tonight, and can report that it doesn't look the same. Running 4x3 #2 in stretch mode on a widescreen TV results in approximately a 33% reduction in vertical resolution. In 720p mode, you're essentially getting 1280 x 480p resolution, and in 1080i, you're essentially getting 1920 x 720i. On my 58" TV, the difference in picture quality is pretty apparent.


I agree. I fooled with it again last night. At first I thought using 4:3 # 2 and viewing SD via composite and HD via DVI on my 16:9 monitor satisfied both SD and HD viewing but I was wrong. It does solve the SD AR problem and the HD viewing isn't bad but there IS some loss of quality.

Maybe there's some confusion because we're not all comparing apples to apples as to what we want and how we're trying to acheive it. Some want to improve PQ and AR for both SD and downrezd HD on a 2nd TV, some for a dvd recorder but some just want to improve the SD viewing on the same TV.

In my situation, I'm sending my TV-2 composite & RF to the appropiate inputs on the same 16:9 TV and also to a dvd recorder.

Switching to 4:3 #2 allows me to then use my tv's AR settings to get a real decent SD picture in 16:9 on the composite and RF inputs. Composite is better than RF but only a tad.

Downrezzed HD looks good from here too, so burning DVDs should work well. If I actually want to watch HD, I have 2 choices. The best is obviously to switch back to DVI and change the 942 setting back to 16:9. I programmed 2 macros on my Radio Shack remote to switch back and fourth.

You can also, like someone else mentioned, stay in 4:3 #2 mode and use the 942's first zoom setting to fill the screen and HD still looks pretty good but NOT AS good.

Back to dvd recording, I think most units do not have component inputs. Is there any such thing as a component to S-Video adapter chord and if so, would it likely provide a better picture than composite ?

PS: I had a real weird thing happen while experimenting with this last night but I'll put it in a new post.


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## waltinvt (Feb 9, 2004)

While fooling with the AR settings as mentioned in the previous post, a weird thing happened.

As mentioned above, I switched the 942 to 4:3 # 2 which allowed me to use the TV's zoom settings to get a decent SD 16:9 picture. As we all know, in the normal 16:9 mode, the picture from the TV-2 output is squished and none of the TV's zoom settings will fill a 16:9 screen. Changing the 942 to 4:3 #2 allows you to solve that problem but at the expense of loosing a little PQ for HD from the DVI output. You have to go back & forth to get the best of both worlds.

Well one time, while in the 4:3 #2 mode and watching Fox News, I decided to adjust my TV's overscan a little (the scrolling banner along the bottom of the screen was just a little to low). I did this an all looked great. 

Then I switch back to DVI and reset the 942 to 16:9 to watch an HD channel. However this DID NOT cause my composite input to revert back to the squished, unable to correct problem. The TV zoom settings still worked properly. I thought maybe going into the TV's service menu had something to do with it. 

Anyway I switched inputs back and forth and rechecked it about 10 times. The 942 was definitly back in 16:9 mode, I had a perfect HD picture from DVI and also had a perfect SD picture from composite. Whatever happened, this was great. However when I turned everything off and back on, the situation was back to normal. Whatever happend, didn't hold. Anyway the switch to 4:3 #2 is an ok workaround for now - especially if you can use macros on your remote but Dish does need to address this problem.


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## Bichon (Jun 5, 2003)

waltinvt said:


> Is there any such thing as a component to S-Video adapter chord and if so, would it likely provide a better picture than composite ?


No such thing as a component to S-video patch cord, as that conversion requires active electronics. You can find video switchers with that ability, but they're pricey. S-video definitely provides a better picture than composite; how much better depends on the quality of the Y/C separator in your DVD recorder.


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