# picture format/aspect



## crashdumy (May 14, 2007)

been paging through here because I'm considering the switch to dish network with a vip622. Great forum by the way.

Anyway, can someone enlighten me on how aspect ratio is handled? Every link I see to a manual is dead. My current cable box is stupid as far as options for aspect handling but it is smart enough to let the tv handle it. In other words I tell the box that my tv is 4:3 (its 16:9 actually) and then the tv gives me much better options for zoom/stretch (the box only has complete zoom and complete stretch). The nice part though is that the box doesn't mess with a HD signal. So even though it thinks my tv is 4:3 it has a "normal" option for handling a 16:9 picture which just displays as normal HD on my tv. Would the action be similar on the vip622?

I'd be using HDMI by the way. Then how about the SD output, what kind of zoom/stretch is available there (obviously the SDtv has none)? Is the epg 16:9 or 4:3, not that it matters? Is there any wierdness switching channels from HD to SD?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks cd


----------



## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

In the setup menus, you tell the 622 the (correct) aspect ratio for your television, and your preferred high definition output resolution (720p or 1080i). The 622 then scales all channels (regardless of source or type) to this resolution. The TV, since it's always receiving a 720p or 1080i signal, locks into 16x9 "full mode" (in general, although a few HDTVs allow one to much with this).

On the 622 side, one uses the asterisk ("*") key on the remote to tell the receiver how one would like to view SD and HD channels. It tracks the two separately, so that all SD channels have one setting, and all HD channels have another setting. The options include "Normal", "Gray Bars", "Stretch", "Zoom", and "Partial Zoom" and can be adjusted depending on user preference and content. For HD channels, one should almost always be using "Normal", so primarily this is for SD content.

I can't speak for the second television output when running in "dual mode", since I personally only use the 622 in "single mode".


----------



## crashdumy (May 14, 2007)

thanks for the reply.

Seems a little odd though. The 622 is incapable of displaying the source resolution?

The only reason I choose 4:3 for my tv is because it sends 4:3 to the tv allowing the "better" handling of the aspect. Can I do this with the 622? If so how does it handle HD aspect?

I understand that all HDTV's do their own "upconverting" anyway but in general i've found that the tv is better at this than the box. My cable box allows me to choose each resolution that the tv accepts. If i chose only HD resolutions than all content would be up converted. If I chose only 480i than all content would be down coverted. Choosing all lets the source resolution through. I guess I was hoping for the same action.

It is a decent up-conversion?

I appreicate all the help. Big desicion you know.


----------



## SaltiDawg (Aug 30, 2004)

crashdumy said:


> ...
> 
> Seems a little odd though. The 622 is incapable of displaying the source resolution?
> ...


Many would agree with you. Many have posted wishing that the 622 would allow a native resolution pass through... some have suggested that Dish is working on providing this.


----------



## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

:welcome_s crashdumy

If you do a search on word Native or Native pass-through you should get a lot of hits discussing this topic. As Salti indicated, the 622 currently does not support this type of feature. E* did mention they were working on it a while back during a chat but I am not aware of anyone seeing this feature demoed so at this point it is basically a statement made and may or may not happen in reality. 

It is in the Wish List thread and is high in the voting so people do want the feature... I am one that has wanted this ability since my 811 days. Hopefully some day we will see it.


----------



## crashdumy (May 14, 2007)

Ron Barry said:


> :welcome_s crashdumy
> 
> If you do a search on word Native or Native pass-through you should get a lot of hits discussing this topic. As Salti indicated, the 622 currently does not support this type of feature. E* did mention they were working on it a while back during a chat but I am not aware of anyone seeing this feature demoed so at this point it is basically a statement made and may or may not happen in reality.
> 
> It is in the Wish List thread and is high in the voting so people do want the feature... I am one that has wanted this ability since my 811 days. Hopefully some day we will see it.


Is it a huge bother? it seems like it would be. I guess it depends on the options for zoom/stretch in the 622. Are they plentiful enough?

My tv offers at least 8, but an upconverted signal will leave me with 2 - auto (the tv fills the screen always, cool for 4:3 commercials), and widescreen (stretched if 4:3, native if not).

It sounds like there are 5 aspect modes from Slordak's post above. Which do most of you use and what is it like (ie. stretched more at sides than in middle, and partially zoomed)?

Thanks again for the help, and the welcome? Some forum folks would sooner piss on ya than answer a question or two. Its nice to meet the opposite.


----------



## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

I try and always use Normal mode. I hate to see nothing but fat people streached across my screen. If it is 4:3 ar I want to see it that way.


----------



## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

crashdummy said:


> Every link I see to a manual is dead.


622 manual, link found on the EKB 622 page and of course through dishnetwork.com.


----------



## crashdumy (May 14, 2007)

ChuckA said:


> I try and always use Normal mode. I hate to see nothing but fat people streached across my screen. If it is 4:3 ar I want to see it that way.


I hear you but somehow I've grown comfortable with the zoom/stretch combo of my tv. Its stretched more at the side than middle so it doesn't bother me too much. When the score of the game or the news ticker is cuttoff by zoom I can raise or lower the picture to see it. I'm hoping the 622 has a similar mode...???

I take if from some of the discussion here that you can't do anything cool like export your recordings with usb or ethernet....bummer. No biggie I guess. Oooh here's a good question. How reliable is the HDMI? My cable box has to be on before my tv or else I get a HDCP error. Any stupidity like that?

BobaBird - Thanks for the links.


----------



## allargon (May 3, 2007)

crashdumy said:


> I take if from some of the discussion here that you can't do anything cool like export your recordings with usb or ethernet....bummer. No biggie I guess. Oooh here's a good question. How reliable is the HDMI? My cable box has to be on before my tv or else I get a HDCP error. Any stupidity like that?


Huh? I run HDMI out to my Mitsubishi 57732 from the ViP622 via a ten dollar HDMI cable from Fry's. I don't get any HDCP errors. Something might be wrong with your cable. HDCP is a DRM feature within the HDMI cable standard. Are you doing anything funky like going from HDMI to DVI or HDMI to VGA, etc.?


----------



## shortspark (Oct 25, 2006)

I go from the 622 HDMI to my tv's DVI with a converter cable and have had no problems whatsoever. Also, the only way to export recordings from the 622 is to the PocketDish. That is the coolest little device anyway for travel and everyone should have one if their Dish DVR is one of those that is compatible with it.


----------



## crashdumy (May 14, 2007)

allargon said:


> Huh? I run HDMI out to my Mitsubishi 57732 from the ViP622 via a ten dollar HDMI cable from Fry's. I don't get any HDCP errors. Something might be wrong with your cable. HDCP is a DRM feature within the HDMI cable standard. Are you doing anything funky like going from HDMI to DVI or HDMI to VGA, etc.?


No nothing funky. Its just something about the SA8300HD. I've read on AVS that others have this issue also. To be honest, I'm not convinced that the Philips tv has the most stable HDMI port. They've had like 5 firmware updates since the tv was first sold and probably 3 of them have "improved stability of HDMI" in the changelog.

Well from what I'm reading here I'm not sure that the 622 is for me. I could not find anything in the manual about aspect format. Maybe I was just to blind to see it. If there is a decent zoom/stretch combo I might be able to live with the upscaling provided it doesn't look to bad. It might help if you all could tell me that Dish has a long history of quality software updates and listening to customer ideas.?.?


----------



## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

crashdumy said:


> It might help if you all could tell me that Dish has a long history of quality software updates and listening to customer ideas.?.?


Since this is the 622 support forum and this is a more general question that is rather hard for some to answer since we have a "No bash" rule in the support forums, I would suggest asking this question in the general forums so you can get a more level perspecitive on this question and avoid ratholing this thread into a different area...


----------



## allargon (May 3, 2007)

crashdumy said:


> Well from what I'm reading here I'm not sure that the 622 is for me. I could not find anything in the manual about aspect format. Maybe I was just to blind to see it. If there is a decent zoom/stretch combo I might be able to live with the upscaling provided it doesn't look to bad. It might help if you all could tell me that Dish has a long history of quality software updates and listening to customer ideas.?.?


Huh? 

If you hit the menu button on the remote (upper left) and go into HDTV setup, you can set the 622 to output to 16:9 or 4:3 as well as to 1080i or 720P (or those 480 things). The zoom/stretch stuff isn't really upscaling. You can do that by hitting the # (format key in the lower left) of your remote.

BTW, how does your TV work w/ component? Maybe that might work better for you than the HDMI inputs.


----------



## crashdumy (May 14, 2007)

allargon said:


> Huh?
> 
> If you hit the menu button on the remote (upper left) and go into HDTV setup, you can set the 622 to output to 16:9 or 4:3 as well as to 1080i or 720P (or those 480 things). The zoom/stretch stuff isn't really upscaling. You can do that by hitting the # (format key in the lower left) of your remote.
> 
> BTW, how does your TV work w/ component? Maybe that might work better for you than the HDMI inputs.


Component works great on the tv. Is there a big difference between component and HDMI on the 622?

The problem with upscaling is that it locks out like 6 different zoom/stretch options in the tv. This means that the 622 has to do all the zooming/stretching. If I was to trust my current cable box to do that I'd have big grey bars, fat actors on every show, or I'd loose half the picture on top and bottom. TV's just have better options.

So I could care less about upscaling (as long as it looks decent) except that I don't know what aspect options are in the 622 or how rediculous they look. I watch probably 90% SD programming now, so I have some concern about how it will look, thats all. Not trying to come down on the box or anything. In fact I would probably like to still try it if I thought there was a decent aspect setting that was pleasing to watch. I'd like to switch from cable just so Time Warner has to work a little bit to get my business back someday. Cable monopoly is crap.

I also have a 4:3 HDTV (I know, I know but it was any early one). What happens to the HD picture with the 622 (or the 211 actually) is set for a 4:3tv? A 4:3 hdtv forces a 16:9 picture with an HD signal so it shouldn't add bars or anything right?

Thanks for all the answers guys. An educated consumer is one with few complaints.


----------



## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

The zoom options on the 622 include:

Normal - For those who like to watch 4x3 content unstretched. The 4x3 content is sent to your 16x9 TV with black bars on the sides.

Gray Bars - The same as normal, but with gray bars instead of black.

Stretch - For those who like their 4x3 content to fill the screen. This performs a uniform horizontal stretch on the content so that it fills the 16x9 screen, although obviously distorting the aspect ratio.

Zoom - For 4x3 "letterboxed" broadcasts, where there are black bars on the top and bottom of the 4x3 signal. The zoom mode removes these, leaving just a 16x9 signal which fills the entire area.

Partial Zoom - A hybrid of the zoom and stretch modes. Cuts off some of the top and bottom of the image, but performs slightly less stretching than the stretch mode, resulting in less distortion.

These modes all work correctly; I can't imagine that a television would have anything substantially better than what's provided by the 622. The HDMI connection works without issue on my Sony KF-50WE610 (used with an HDMI to DVI cable).


----------



## crashdumy (May 14, 2007)

Slordak said:


> The zoom options on the 622 include:
> 
> Normal - For those who like to watch 4x3 content unstretched. The 4x3 content is sent to your 16x9 TV with black bars on the sides.
> 
> ...


Thanks. Thats what I was looking for. The only better that the tv does is "super zoom" or "horizon" which are hybrids of zoom and stretch only most of the stretch is done at the sides where most action doesn't happen. The sound of that is bad but I actually like it. Looks a little wierd when the text of the news ticker is moving from one side to the other but thats it. Of course the tv has many levels of plain zoom which just reduce the size of the black bars so thats cool too.


----------



## ls7dude (Jan 31, 2007)

Slordak said:


> These modes all work correctly; I can't imagine that a television would have anything substantially better than what's provided by the 622. The HDMI connection works without issue on my Sony KF-50WE610 (used with an HDMI to DVI cable).


I'm not sure about all models, but my 50" Philips Plasma automatically stretches the picture to fill the screen at it's proper ratio. People never look short and fat on this TV. This is one of the reasons I bought this TV. I never worry about stretching the picture.


----------



## lujan (Feb 10, 2004)

If that is the case, then I suspect that you're losing part of the picture (the edges).


----------



## crashdumy (May 14, 2007)

Early HDTV's were absolutely horrible at adjusting the aspect. The newest seem to give a much more pleasing result. 

If you ever watch TNT HD you will notice that they adjust all pictures to fit 16:9. They must use technology similar to the newest tv's because most of the time you'll have to look close to see it. Some movies were obviouly 4:3 and some of those are kinda crappy though. Even their commercials are adjusted. My Philips impressed me when I got it. Mostly I don't even notice it. And more important, my wife doesn't notice. $1000 for a tv, (or a monthly savings switching to Dish) would be a waste to her if it looked stupid. Its all about the WAF.


----------



## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

ls7dude said:


> I'm not sure about all models, but my 50" Philips Plasma automatically stretches the picture to fill the screen at it's proper ratio. People never look short and fat on this TV. This is one of the reasons I bought this TV. I never worry about stretching the picture.


There are only two ways to make a 4x3 image fill a 16x9 screen:

A) Discard some of the data off the top and bottom of the image.
B) Stretch the image horizontally, either uniformally or non-uniformally.

It is possible to combine (A) & (B) (ala the 622's "Partial Zoom") to try and minimize the impact of both. Additionally, it is possible to do limited stretching in the center of the image but more pronounced stretching on the edges, resulting in less distortion in the middle but more on the sides.

It's not possible to "just make it fill the screen" without doing this.


----------

