# D12 with HDTV



## dlt4 (Oct 4, 2006)

My brother-in-law has a D12 hooked up to a small HDTV in his kitchen. Obviously there is no HD picture, but I'm curious as to why some HD channels fill the screen and others are letter-boxed. I've suggested that the just get an HD receiver, but apparently he doesn't want to do that, so I'm trying to find the best compromise for him.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Actually you're looking at all SD content. In some cases, the content providers choose to "center cut" their programming, cutting off the left and right, and others choose to letterbox (leaving black bars at top and bottom.) It's their choice.


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## dlt4 (Oct 4, 2006)

Thanks for the info.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Although if your B-i-L's set is indeed HD, it sounds like he has the display setting on stretch or something.

Because DIRECTV's SD on an HD set should normally show as either a "pillar-box" display with black matte bars on both sides of the picture.

Or a "window-box" display with matte bars on all four sides of the picture when the program is broadcast in "letter-box" SD, which is a 16:9 (or greater) image letter-boxed into a 4:3 frame.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Stuart Sweet said:


> Actually you're looking at all SD content. In some cases, the content providers choose to "center cut" their programming, cutting off the left and right, and others choose to letterbox (leaving black bars at top and bottom.) It's their choice.


Actually, most of the time it's DirecTV's choice.

Most locals on the 101 are reformatted by DirecTV to fill the entire screen even though, of course, the over the air signal they are receiving is 16:9 HD.

Some nationwide satellite programmers actually do have two feeds. In that case, it is the provider that does the formatting. You can spot these providers if you have HD since their little "bug" in the corner of the screen on their HD feed usually boasts that you are watching the HD feed.

But some of the nationwide channels have just one feed nowadays (HD) and it is up to DirecTV to do the formatting to put it on the 101 in SD.

In addition, some programmers don't have an HD feed but show programming that was filmed (taped?) in HD. In that case, their one and only SD feed has black bars at the top and bottom.


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## dlt4 (Oct 4, 2006)

So the bottom line is just set his TV without any zoom or stretch, and he'll have to live with the different picture formats on different channels, correct?


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

dlt4 said:


> So the bottom line is just set his TV without any zoom or stretch, and he'll have to live with the different picture formats on different channels, correct?


Only if he wants to;

For instance, in my case I don't like any picture distortion from stretching or zooming. Therefore I adjust the set to display all pictures naturally which means I have to live with a pillar-box or window-box image when viewing SD channels on my HDTV.

But your b-i-l may not like matte bars and find the stretch or zoom distortion on SD channels acceptable in order to fill out the screen to the maximum possible for all channels.

So its really a matter of personal choice.


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