# R15/500 TV Ratio ??



## WalkGood (Nov 18, 2006)

I have an R15/500. In the setup there is a tab for TV RATIO. Changing it from 4:3 to 16:9 does nothing to the output seen on my new HD tv no matter what I change the TV aspect ratio settings. It did nothing on my old CRT tv either.

Note that on the TV there is no s-video input. Only HDMI, component (three color) RCA, and plain (yellow) RCA video. I am connected via the single yellow RCA input.

I will be getting an HD receiver soon so this will be a moot point. But I was hoping i could see the 16:9 ratio on my new TV from the R15/500 box. Is this possible or not?


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

The TV Ratio setting on SD receivers just affects how widescreen channels are presented. If it's set to 4:3 it crops them, if it's set to 16:9 it shows it in widescreen. Currently the only MPEG2 channel presented in widescreen is BYU TV 374


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

WalkGood said:


> But I was hoping i could see the 16:9 ratio on my new TV from the R15/500 box. Is this possible or not?


You need to use your TV's "zoom" or "pic size" setting


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

KyL416 said:


> The TV Ratio setting on SD receivers just affects how widescreen channels are presented. If it's set to 4:3 it crops them, if it's set to 16:9 it shows it in widescreen. Currently the only MPEG2 channel presented in widescreen is BYU TV 374


Interesting;

I always understood this setting as a holdover from the pre-HD era when DIRECTV would sometimes broadcast anamorphic video.

If the anamorphic flag in the satellite transport stream was set indicating an anamorphic broadcast, when 4:3 was selected it would letter-box the image for an old SD set. If 16:9 was selected it would stretch the image out to 16:9 for a widescreen set.

But perhaps in addition it functions the way you say as well when receiving just a 16:9 SD broadcast.

I always wondered how DIRECTV SD receivers handled 16:9 SD broadcasts. Wish I had one active right now to experiment with the BYU channel.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

The 4:3/16:9 setting on the SD DVRs does absolutely NOTHING today. For a time, DirecTV was sending a special signal along with certain programs indicating that the program was being broadcast in 16:9 and if a TV with a 16:9 screen was connected it would adjust the picture accordingly. But that technique hasn't been used in years.


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

ThomasM said:


> The 4:3/16:9 setting on the SD DVRs does absolutely NOTHING today.


Read post number 2 and try channel 374 if you have an SD receiver.

I wish they would do it with more channels, however since the setting just crops it for 4/3 instead of letterboxing, it would cause problems on most other channels that originate in widescreen and take advantage of the extra real estate for on screen graphics like Fox's sports and entertainment channels and ESPN's networks.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Sorry for resurrecting a very old thread, but just noticed the BYU channel 374 is no longer in a 16:9 SD format, but 4:3 now.

And what worse it's a 16:9 image anamorphically squeezed into 4:3.

Just don't know why many broadcasters keep doing that....

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