# Please write to Directv about native 4x3 problem.



## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Update 01/12/08 - Seems Directv listened to me..... http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=115710 should resolve this problem. Since I only have 100s I will have to wait to test it but it should do the trick! Original post is:

Directv has acknowledged the problem of the HR20 not switching to true native 480 4x3 when HDTV is set to 16x9. They indicated that the number of people requesting the fix is what determines the priority. I am asking that anyone who has this problem please write to them. The letter below provides full documentation. There is NO WORKAROUND for this problem although many have tried and claim there is. What I need here people to test this and see if they experience the issue. At least a couple people have seen the issue since this posting. Thanks to anyone who can support this fix and wrote to Directv! I sent the letter to the LA address below as well as Engineering PO Box 6550 Greenwood Village CO 80155-6550, I recommend you do the same and modify to suit your equipment. Many thanks to anyone who can help.

Other minor threads of interest but no solutions:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=104523
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=104445

November 7, 2007

DirecTV
Office of the President
PO Box 92600
Los Angeles CA 90009

Mr. Chase Carey

We are a loyal DirecTV "A" customer since 1996 and have referred many people. Please help out your loyal customers by having engineering correct a significant problem we and other people experience with the HR20 receivers. An engineering oversight in the HR20 software is causing us great inconvenience: When we change between SD and HD channels, we must reconfigure the HDTV HR20 setting to change output to 4x3 or 16x9 to obtain the best picture with our equipment.

Equipment
We have 3 HR20-100 receivers although this problem affects all HR20/HR21 receivers. The bedroom has a Pioneer PRO110FD plasma TV connected via HDMI to an HR20. The living room has a Pioneer PRO150FD connected to a DVDO VP50 video processor connected to 2 HR20s. The problem occurs on both TVs, that is, with or without an outboard video processor.

Problem Short Summary
Based on tests with all available settings, both the bedroom TV and living room with processor display a significantly better picture when the HR20 is set to NATIVE and all 480-1080 resolutions checked. This applies to both SD and HD channels. So we leave NATIVE on all the time. The problem is related to SD channels only and not HD channels. The problem is as follows: when the HR20 HDTV setting is set to 16x9, the SD 4x3 channels are modified to fill to 16x9, causing an inferior SD picture in quality and stretch as compared to HDTV set to 4x3. Since the HR20 does not automatically adjust this, we must reconfigure the HR20 when switching between SD and HD.

Please note: This was not a problem with previous HD receivers such as the SONY HD200, etc and some Directv receivers.

Picture Quality Problem
In test after test, when we display an SD channel and set HDTV to 4x3 on both TVs, the picture is better than if set HDTV to 16x9. Based on internet discussions, this is not true for everyone but it is for some. It all depends on the TV or if an outboard processor is present.

Stretch Problem
The HR20 has a stretch mode for outputting 480 4x3 to a 16x9 display, however, it is poor quality since it is linear and many would prefer to allow their TV/display/processor to perform processing and non-linear stretch functions if available. My Pioneer and Panasonic plasmas perform much better stretch than the HR20. The VP50 video processor in the living room has spectacular picture processing and stretch mode. When the HR20 is connected to equipment that can perform better processing, the HR20 must be set to NATIVE ON. That minimizes HR20 processing of video to keep the "original" resolution/signal as clean and unaltered as possible.

The Reason for Both Problems
For SD, when the HR20 is NATIVE and HDTV is 16x9, the HR20 does not output SD 480 4x3 in its original form. Although 480 vertical resolution is maintained, the output is 480 16x9 filled with: CROP, PILLAR boxes, or STRETCH. In other words, it does not maintain the original aspect ratio.

With the HR20 set NATIVE and HDTV 4x3, the output matches the original SD aspect ratio and is unaltered. This provides the best image.

Problem Summary
Since many people invest in high-end displays and/or video processors, we need the input to that unit unaltered. This makes use of our equipment to display a superior picture than the HR20 produces on its own.

Since our TVs are 16x9 we must watch HD channels using HDTV set to 16x9 or there are bars at the top and bottom. With HDTV set to 16x9, an SD channel is modified based on the CROP, PILLAR, or STRETCH setting that is unacceptable to us. SD is not a problem if HDTV is set to 4x3 so when we change to an SD channel, we must set HDTV to 4x3. The result is that when switching between SD and HD, we must reconfigure the HR20 which is a major inconvenience and extremely annoying.

Solution
Since the HR20 already outputs 480 4x3 with the correct aspect ratio when HDTV is set to 4x3 add one of these options:

1.	In addition to NATIVE ON and OFF, add a TRUE NATIVE option that would not alter a video signal in any way to allow 480 4x3 to go out as 480 4x3. This would apply to all other formats as well. Never alter any resolution or aspect ratio. This would be preferable since the CROP, PILLAR, STRETCH option could be disabled when TRUE NATIVE was selected making for more user friendliness.

2.	Add a fourth option to CROP, PILLAR, STRETCH called NO CHANGE (or KEEP ASPECT) that does the same thing as option 1.

3.	Add a fourth option called TRUE480 (or TRUE4x3) that when selected, forces the HDTV output to 4x3 temporarily for SD 4x3. Change back to 16x9 for non 4x3.

Keep in mind that the HR20 is technically capable and already does output 480 4x3, just not automatically. I am a computer programmer and am quite sure this is a simple option to add since no new picture or guide processing features are required, just a setting to automatically activate and switch an existing option


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

How would you handle the guide?
I understand what you want for an SD program [though I'd never use it the way you want to], but the guide needs to do something.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

mgavs said:


> Directv has acknowledged the problem of the HR20 not swithcing to true native 480i 4x3 when the output is set to 16x9. They indicated that the number of people requesting the fix is what determines the priority.


Where did all this "acknowledgement" come from ?

As the "last time" we had this topic:

Many people confirmed that when the unit was set to NATIVE/STRETCH that in turn sent out the program as unaltered... and allowed your TV (or what ever you had) to do the work.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Many people confirmed that when the unit was set to NATIVE/STRETCH that in turn sent out the program as unaltered... and allowed your TV (or what ever you had) to do the work.


This was kicked around before and the problem seems to be with "I use a DVDO video processor", so the "fix" would only be needed for those that use it.
For everyone else, there is a setting that does work currently.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Where did all this "acknowledgement" come from ?
> 
> As the "last time" we had this topic:
> 
> Many people confirmed that when the unit was set to NATIVE/STRETCH that in turn sent out the program as unaltered... and allowed your TV (or what ever you had) to do the work.


Directv called my a few days after getting the letter, the person stated he and another person who read the letter understood the problem. I talked to them this morning again and they stated engineering also understood the problem. But they said that if others wrote in the priority would be bumped. They go by the number of requests.

The NATIVE/STRETCH statement is wrong. Aside from the obvious picture difference I can see (and my wife comparing it to the Sony HD200) I have a device that shows the resolution, aspect, h/v frequencies, etc. 480i 4x3 is ONLY correctly sent if NATIVE and 4x3 output are set, NEVER if 16x9 is set. Note that _the resolution is sent native but the aspect is filled to 16x9_. Many other dispute this but I have talked to DVDO and others on the video processor forums are aware of this. Currently, there is no way the HR20 will send 480i 4x3 with the correct aspect unless the HDTV setting is 4x3.

Many others don't see the real output and think that they are seeing native output when they think stretch is native. If I set it to stretch the 4x3 output is always sent 480i 16x9. People can disagree all they want but use a display or processor that can show the data and you will see what I mean.

If you have a display (like a Pioneer) or video processor with a much better stretch than the HR20 then you need this. If you have these and never check, try setting the HR20 HDTV to 4x3 and let your display/processor do stretch. Not only will it look far better and less distorted, but the picture will be MUCH better if your display does better processing than the HR20. Remember: garbage in - garbage out.

Edited to correct wrong output from 1080i 16x9 to 480i 16x9, and clarify the problem is aspect ratio no resolution.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> This was kicked around before and the problem seems to be with "I use a DVDO video processor", so the "fix" would only be needed for those that use it.
> For everyone else, there is a setting that does work currently.


Certainly not true. You did not read the post fully. This applies to:
* Anyone with a good display such as Pioneer
* Anyone with a video processor

Same problem on all. And yes that's not everyone but I DO have the problem and have to switch HDTV every time we change from SD to HD channel. There may only be a "few of us" but once the fix is in I am sure people who don't use it now will activate it once they know the scoop. This was posted to help those with the same problem. If you don't have it or care or can't notice that's fine but it is a significant problem for those of use that have it.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> How would you handle the guide?
> I understand what you want for an SD program [though I'd never use it the way you want to], but the guide needs to do something.


I don't understand the issue. The guide works fine right now when HDTV is set to 4x3 or 16x9 so no change is needed.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

mgavs said:


> If you have a display (like my Pioneer Elite) or video processor with a much better stretch than the HR20 then you need this. If you have these and never check, try setting the HR20 HDTV to 4x3 and let your display/processor do stretch. Not only will it look far better and less distorted, but the picture will be MUCH better if your display does better processing than the HR20. Remember: garbage in - garbage out.


Actually... I have a Pioneer 503CMX, which is a Pioneer Elite, with out the extra "elite" badging and fancy gloss covering...

And the HR20 does a better job at stretching then the Aurora Video processor board that is in my system.

And yes... I have compared Component and DVI, with different systems.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

I am somewhat perplexed by this and other threads I have read with information about the "Stretchovision".

I have my HR20-700 set to 16x9, Native, Pillar Box, and 720 & 1080 resolutions.

I have a Samsung LCD.

HD material, for the most part appears as full screen with no distortion that I can see. Some movies appear with letterboxing. Some television shows 4X3 appear with left and right pillar boxes.

I have never seen the stretching effect that others complain about. My 4x3 shows appear "normal" (as they wood on a 4X3 screen).

Either I have something set wrong or this problem is related to the TV and not the HR20-700.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

mgavs said:


> Certainly not true. You did not read the post fully. This applies to:
> * Anyone with a good display such as Pioneer
> * Anyone with a video processor
> 
> Same problem on all. And yes that's not everyone but I DO have the problem and have to switch HDTV every time we change from SD to HD channel. There may only be a "few of us" but once the fix is in I am sure people who don't use it now will activate it once they know the scoop. This was posted to help those with the same problem. If you don't have it or care or can't notice that's fine but it is a significant problem for those of use that have it.


I really need to find the thread that we had about 6 - 9 months ago, were we discussed the EXACT same topic.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> 1)* If I set it to stretch the 4x3 output is always sent 1080i 16x9.*
> 2) *If you have a display (like my Pioneer Elite) or video processor with a much better stretch than the HR20 then you need this*. .


1) if you are getting 1080i, then you are not using native for SD programs.
2) This is a valid "personal" opinion. Showing non linear distortion is not "better" to me, and is even worse than a linear stretch [to me]. I have a display that does [to me] have a better scaler and like many, don't have a problem using it instead of the scaler in the HR-20.

Again, I do understand your wants & as posted in your other thread. I just doubt the "numbers" will be enough to warrant a software change. "I think" since it's directly related to your Pioneer Elite or DVDO video processor, petitioning them would have more success than trying to get D* to make a change.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Actually... I have a Pioneer 503CMX, which is a Pioneer Elite, with out the extra "elite" badging and fancy gloss covering...
> 
> And the HR20 does a better job at stretching then the Aurora Video processor board that is in my system.
> 
> And yes... I have compared Component and DVI, with different systems.


I don't have the same equipment. But I am only testing on HDMI from the HR20 to the Pio or VP. I wonder if using component makes a difference? My Pio is the new PRO110FD and PRO150FD (I have both) and my wife and I see a huge difference between the 150 and HR20 with the 150 clearly winning. With the DVDO VP50 in the loop, there is no comparison, the VP50 blows the HR20 away, at least that's here. Again, I am wondering if all previous posters were on component? It was never brought up in the previous posts.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> 1) if you are getting 1080i, then you are not using native for SD programs.
> 2) This is a valid "personal" opinion. Showing non linear distortion is not "better" to me, and is even worse than a linear stretch [to me]. I have a display that does [to me] have a better scaler and like many, don't have a problem using it instead of the scaler in the HR-20.
> 
> Again, I do understand your wants & as posted in your other thread. I just doubt the "numbers" will be enough to warrant a software change. "I think" since it's directly related to your Pioneer Elite or DVDO video processor, petitioning them would have more success than trying to get D* to make a change.


1. Not true.
2. I want the best picture that I can get in my opinion. Just like you and everyone else.

I am asking for a minor fix, as I stated a dozen times, the HR20 already can output 480i 4x3 correctly, just not _automatically._


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## LarryEH (Jan 6, 2007)

I'm a bit perplexed, too. My HR20 is set for all resolutions, Native and stretch and 16x9. When I activate the "recall" button on my Panasonic plasma, it tells me what resolution it's seeing. I see 720p, 1080i, etc. When I'm watching an SD station (not program) it reads 480i.

If the HR20 isn't sending out a 480i signal (via HDMI) to the display, where is it getting this (mis)information?

Edited to read: In re-reading this thread, I'm assuming that it's not the output resolution you're having a problem with but with the fact that the HR is sending 16x9 instead of 4x3. I can see where, in certain instances, that would present a problem. In my case, set the way I have it, and setting the display to 4x3, it looks fine. I'll have to try it in my theater where I'm using a Lumagen processor. FWIW, I'd never watch anything in stretch-o-vision. OAR, all the way.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

LarryEH said:


> I'm a bit perplexed, too. My HR20 is set for all resolutions, Native and stretch and 16x9. When I activate the "recall" button on my Panasonic plasma, it tells me what resolution it's seeing. I see 720p, 1080i, etc. When I'm watching an SD station (not program) it reads 480i.
> 
> If the HR20 isn't sending out a 480i signal (via HDMI) to the display, where is it getting this (mis)information?


You're right, 480i is the correct resolution from the HR20, but the _format_ is 16x9. Does your Panasonic show the input format? I made an error in an above post that output is was 1080, it is 480i but 16x9 so it's 480i 16x9. That is the problem and I will correct the post.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

LarryEH said:


> I'm a bit perplexed, too. My HR20 is set for all resolutions, Native and stretch and 16x9. When I activate the "recall" button on my Panasonic plasma, it tells me what resolution it's seeing. I see 720p, 1080i, etc. When I'm watching an SD station (not program) it reads 480i.
> 
> If the HR20 isn't sending out a 480i signal (via HDMI) to the display, where is it getting this (mis)information?
> 
> Edited to read: In re-reading this thread, I'm assuming that it's not the output resolution you're having a problem with but with the fact that the HR is sending 16x9 instead of 4x3. I can see where, in certain instances, that would present a problem. In my case, set the way I have it, and setting the display to 4x3, it looks fine. I'll have to try it in my theater where I'm using a Lumagen processor. FWIW, I'd never watch anything in stretch-o-vision. OAR, all the way.


Yes that's correct, 16x9 is the problem. I hope you see the issue with the Lumagen and may have the heart/time to write Directv. That's all I am asking but can't seem to get. Thanks!


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## LarryEH (Jan 6, 2007)

mgavs -- first, perhaps the terminology is throwing people off. Native is referring to resolution, in general, not aspect ratio. So, to a degree, the HR20 *is* sending everything through in its Native Resolution (your typo aside.) It might help to refer to this as an aspect ratio issue as opposed to a "Native" issue.

I'm curious, since AR and NR are somewhat separate, how the receiver would "know" what aspect ratio a program is being broadcast in, other than assuming that all 480i is 4x3. That certainly wouldn't work for HD signals where much 4x3 material is shown "inside" the HD 16x9 format. (Does the HR20 know when AEHD is showing 4x3?) You suggest that the HR already does it but not automatically. My question is, "can it?" And, if so, "how?"

I suppose it's conceivable that all display settings (like 16x9 vs 4x3) might simply be bypassed but I've never seen that option in a source (DVD player, etc.)

That said, I'm assuming you want to use your processor to stretch. (How sad.) I'm assuming this because when watching 4x3 (stretch on my HR, 4x3 on my display) it looks fine to me. Am I correct as to why you want to do what you want to do?

Edited to read: I believe that DVDs may have the AR info as part of their database and that, if that can be read from the DVD, signals can be sent to processors to make their adjustments. I believe my Kaleidescape may have that ability.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

For the life of me I can't figure out why if the program is 4:3 480i why the output of Stretch/480i (when the TV is a 16:9) would be any different than the (decoded) native signal received.

I didn't think there was any information encoded in a video signal that conveyed the OAR anyway... Certainly not in the case of component... maybe in the case of HDMI??


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## LarryEH (Jan 6, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> I didn't think there was any information encoded in a video signal that conveyed the OAR anyway... Certainly not in the case of component... maybe in the case of HDMI??


I think this is what I, in my long-winded way, was getting to in the post above yours.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

LarryEH said:


> mgavs -- first, perhaps the terminology is throwing people off. Native is referring to resolution, in general, not aspect ratio. So, to a degree, the HR20 *is* sending everything through in its Native Resolution (your typo aside.) It might help to refer to this as an aspect ratio issue as opposed to a "Native" issue.
> 
> I'm curious, since AR and NR are somewhat separate, how the receiver would "know" what aspect ratio a program is being broadcast in, other than assuming that all 480i is 4x3. That certainly wouldn't work for HD signals where much 4x3 material is shown "inside" the HD 16x9 format. (Does the HR20 know when AEHD is showing 4x3?) You suggest that the HR already does it but not automatically. My question is, "can it?" And, if so, "how?"
> 
> ...


You're right, the resolution is always correct but the AR is wrong. That is an important distinction that I should have made. I just used the term "true native" referring to both NR and AR.

As for the HR20, when I say SD I mean the SD channels, if there is 4x3 on and HD channel there is little to nothing we can do (except using the auto pillar function on the Pioneers). So I am only referring to true SD channels that are always 4x3 anyway and sent 480i. When switching between any HD channel and an SD channel that's where I have the problem.

Yes we want the VP50 to do the stretching. That is what we like and it appears much better to us (and other visitors) than the HR20 stretch. Aside from stretching, I would rather send as unaltered 480i 4x3 to the VP so it can do its job the best. When we flip the HR20 to output 4x3 the picture is always better. At least that is what we all see here.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

LarryEH said:


> mgavs -- first, perhaps the terminology is throwing people off. Native is referring to resolution, in general, not aspect ratio. So, to a degree, the HR20 *is* sending everything through in its Native Resolution (your typo aside.) It might help to refer to this as an aspect ratio issue as opposed to a "Native" issue.
> 
> I'm curious, since AR and NR are somewhat separate, how the receiver would "know" what aspect ratio a program is being broadcast in, other than assuming that all 480i is 4x3. That certainly wouldn't work for HD signals where much 4x3 material is shown "inside" the HD 16x9 format. (Does the HR20 know when AEHD is showing 4x3?) You suggest that the HR already does it but not automatically. My question is, "can it?" And, if so, "how?"
> 
> ...


What this really seems to be is how the HR20 and the display interact. Some time ago this was kicked around in about 200 posts. Some users like the non linear mode of their TV for stretching. This can be done by setting the HR-20 to stretch [which doesn't add pillar-bars]. The end image is a function of both the HR-20 format settings and the TV settings. Some newer TVs [like my Sony] can actually "un stretch" A&EHD, by selecting "normal" instead of full. Not all of the older equipment will.
mgavs is having a problem using the older external scaler [or at least that was what came out of the other thread]. If the HR-20 is set to stretch, then the scaler can't make the same adjustment that almost every other TV has been able to do. Where the HR20 in stretch will be sending a 720 x 480 image, most TVs can display it in 640 x 480 [in normal mode], but mgavs's external scaler can't. mgavs needs to set the HR-20 to a 4:3 TV for it to output a 640 x 480 image so the external scaler can then scale it to the 16:9 non-linear mode [aka stretch-o-vision].


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Earl Bonovich said:


> I really need to find the thread that we had about 6 - 9 months ago, were we discussed the EXACT same topic.


I looked for threads when I started this but none of the threads had a resolution which is why I had to figure out what was going on and document the problem for Directv. The only help I am asking for here is a writing to Directv if anyone sympathizes and has the time. Otherwise it will never be fixed.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> What this really seems to be is how the HR20 and the display interact. Some time ago this was kicked around in about 200 posts. Some users like the non linear mode of their TV for stretching. This can be done by setting the HR-20 to stretch [which doesn't add pillar-bars]. The end image is a function of both the HR-20 format settings and the TV settings. Some newer TVs [like my Sony] can actually "un stretch" A&EHD, by selecting "normal" instead of full. Not all of the older equipment will.
> mgavs is having a problem using the older external scaler [or at least that was what came out of the other thread]. If the HR-20 is set to stretch, then the scaler can't make the same adjustment that almost every other TV has been able to do. Where the HR20 in stretch will be sending a 720 x 480 image, most TVs can display it in 640 x 480 [in normal mode], but mgavs's external scaler can't. mgavs needs to set the HR-20 to a 4:3 TV for it to output a 640 x 480 image so the external scaler can then scale it to the 16:9 non-linear mode [aka stretch-o-vision].


Your still missing the picture. Forget about stretch for now. When you use a scaler you want the original signal to be unaltered. The HR20 changes all 4x3 if HDTV is set to 16x9. Not a good thing for any outboard scaler. Oh, and BTW the VP50 has been out 11 months if you consider that an "old" scaler.


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## axl (Sep 12, 2007)

LarryFlowers said:


> I am somewhat perplexed by this and other threads I have read with information about the "Stretchovision".
> 
> I have my HR20-700 set to 16x9, Native, Pillar Box, and 720 & 1080 resolutions.
> 
> ...


I have the same setup as Larry. I am confused or missing something here.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

axl said:


> I have the same setup as Larry. I am confused or missing something here.


That is a different issue since I am only concerned about 480i 4x3 shows here and stretch is just part of the problem for me.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> Your still missing the picture. Forget about stretch for now. When you use a scaler you want the original signal to be unaltered. The HR20 changes all 4x3 if HDTV is set to 16x9. Not a good thing for any outboard scaler. Oh, and BTW the VP50 has been out 11 months if you consider that an "old" scaler.


I don't think I'm missing anything. What I see is your "outboard scaler" isn't reacting like the ones in the TVs.
I'm just trying to steer you somewhere that you'll get a solution like maybe here: http://anchorbaytech.com/support/software_downloads/vp.php


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Where the HR20 in stretch will be sending a 720 x 480 image, most TVs can display it in 640 x 480 [in normal mode], but mgavs's external scaler can't. mgavs needs to set the HR-20 to a 4:3 TV for it to output a 640 x 480 image so the external scaler can then scale it to the 16:9 non-linear mode [aka stretch-o-vision].


So you are saying that with native on, a 480i (4:3 "stretched") image is sent as 720 x 480 on a 16:9 TV whereas on a 4:3 TV it is sent as 640 x 480? Same 480 lines vertical but different horizontal resolution at 720 (DVD res) vs 640?

I don't have any equipment to verify this as my TVs nor my scaler show this information.

Even if that is the case, I wonder what the actual native resolution of a SD broadcast is on the channels in question. Isn't it possible the actual could be 720 horizontal and then in that case it would be the 4x3 output that is wrong in this case. Maybe that is unlikely given that mgavs says the image quality is better under the 4x3 TV aspect ratio setting, but I thought I'd put the possiblity out there.

If it is scaling it to the wider horizontal setting of 720 when the source is, in fact, horizontal 640... that would seem wrong and I wonder why they would even bother to do it in the first place.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> So you are saying that with native on, a 480i (4:3 "stretched") image is sent as 720 x 480 on a 16:9 TV whereas on a 4:3 TV it is sent as 640 x 480? Same 480 lines vertical but different horizontal resolution at 720 (DVD res) vs 640?
> 
> I don't have any equipment to verify this as my TVs nor my scaler show this information.
> 
> ...


"SD" is 640 x 480. In the HR-20 setup menu, you select whether your TV is 4:3 or 16:9.
With 16:9 set the format options are pillarbars [adding 40 on each side of the SD image], crop, or stretch, so the output is 720 x 480.
With 4:3 the format setting are for the HD 16:9, so letterbox replaces pillarbars, and SD is 640 x 480.
I just check my TV info and the HR-20 is sending info that the format [or the signal] is 16:9 [my setting in the HR-20] whether I'm on an SD program [pillarbars] or not.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

I updated the letter to make clear that this is really an aspect ratio problem. Thanks LarryEH for pointing out why people are confused about this. My bad. Although the folks at Directv said they understood it I will resend the letter targeting aspect ratio instead of "true native".


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> "SD" is 640 x 480. In the HR-20 setup menu, you select whether your TV is 4:3 or 16:9.


Understood.


> With 16:9 set the format options are pillarbars [adding 40 on each side of the SD image], crop, or stretch, so the output is 720 x 480.


If you say so... I just don't see why it should send the stretch as an upscaled (horizontally) 720. What good can that do? This is going to cause double scaling on almost any display out there, since I don't know of too many native 720 x 480 displays (old ED plasmas... maybe). The only advantage I can see is that you would get faster switching between pillarbox and stretch mode because the TV would not have to sync to a new resolution.

side note: 720 x 480 is not 16:9... it is 3:2.

It would seem that a good scaler could take a pillarbox 720 x 480, crop the 40 on each side, arrive at the original 640 x 480 image, then scale that.

mgavs: what about that possibility? can your scaler do that?


> With 4:3 the format setting are for the HD 16:9, so letterbox replaces pillarbars, and SD is 640 x 480.
> I just check my TV info and the HR-20 is sending info that the format [or the signal] is 16:9 [my setting in the HR-20] whether I'm on an SD program [pillarbars] or not.


Wish my TV would send me that info. Of course, maybe it does with HDMI, but I don't use its HDMI input.


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## su_A_ve (Sep 27, 2007)

Here's my 2 cents...

I have a setup where I feed HDMI to my 46" Sony, and S-Video-to-Coax-Modulator up the house to a 23" LCD set (yeah - cheap MRV). HR20-100 is set to 16x9 display setting.

With Native OFF, and setting to 1080i output, I would select PillarBar for SD content. My 46" would receive a 16x9 signal, either with pillar bars on SD channels upconverted to 1080i, or 16x9 signal for HD channels.

But the 23" LCD set, would get a vertically stretched image (just a small percentage), but obvious. This TV (widescreen) was set to full mode. HD channels though would come in perfectly. 

With Native ON, I had to set the SD content to stretch. I also had to tweak the settings on the 46" set so that it would detect the SD content, and based on my pref, set up either panoramic mode, or pillar bar.

And, on the 23" LCD set via S-Video outputs, I get a proper SD signal that I can set to panoramic or pillar bar. Also HD channels come in the correct aspect ratio. 

There is a problem with the Native OFF mode, when using the analog outputs. Maybe this is related ?


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## Marino13 (Jan 16, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> mgavs is having a problem using the older external scaler [or at least that was what came out of the other thread]]
> 
> Actually, the DVDO VP50 is pretty new. It has only been around about a year.


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## Keeska (Feb 10, 2007)

If I understand this correctly the HR20 is sending the 640x480 SD video to 16x9 displays as stretched to 720x480 or as the original 640x480 with 40 extra pixels on each side depending on how it is configured? Is this correct? If so can the external scaler not process the 640x480, throwing away the extra on each side? My TV does this when I select a stretch mode.

I would like to understand this as much as I am able to since I'll be looking for an external processor for the holiday season.


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

Just like I said when we hashed this out several weeks ago, I don't understand how my ancient CRT can handle something a $3000 scaler can't....


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

Keeska said:


> If I understand this correctly the HR20 is sending the 640x480 SD video to 16x9 displays as stretched to 720x480 or as the original 640x480 with 40 extra pixels on each side depending on how it is configured? Is this correct? If so can the external scaler not process the 640x480, throwing away the extra on each side?


I asked the same question above when I said:
"It would seem that a good scaler could take a pillarbox 720 x 480, crop the 40 on each side, arrive at the original 640 x 480 image, then scale that."

So... you're not the only one that would like an answer to that question. I'm not in the market for an external scaler right now, but perhaps this coming spring after I finish my home theatre...


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

MAGVS, in your post on AVSForum:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=921950

The one respondent mentions setting the HR20 to 720p, have you tried that?

Granted, it's not ideal. But will it's going to be a LONG time before this gets fixed by D*...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Marino13 said:


> Actually, the DVDO VP50 is pretty new. It has only been around about a year.


And hopefully the software update for the scaler might address the problem. [see link in earlier post]


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## Sing1gniS (Jan 14, 2007)

Unselect 480i and just have 480p, 720p and 1080i selected. That should work. It did for me anyway.


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## flipptyfloppity (Aug 20, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> Understood.
> 
> side note: 720 x 480 is not 16:9... it is 3:2.
> 
> ...


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

flipptyfloppity said:


> 720x480 480i (like a DVD) isn't pillarboxed, it's stretched. The pixels are not square.


I realize that. I was refering to the 720x480 pillarbox image that the HR20 outputs when 480i/pillarbox mode is used (as it is the 640 horizonal + 40 additional black/gray pillars each side).

My point is that the HR20 will put out an unmodified 4x3 640 x 480, even when a 16:9 TV is configured if you set it for 480i/pillarbox, it is just that it is buried in a 720 x 480 pillarboxed image. The question is whether these high-end scalers can extract the original (non pillar) 640 x 480 (crop the pillars - a very easy operation), then scale the result.



> The information about whether a 480i signal is 4:3 or 16:9 is not always communicated to the receiving device. It's easy for the receiving device if the signal is 720p or 1080i, because those formats are always 16:9, but things get dicey in 480i (or 480p).


Yes. My understanding is the AR is never communicated -- except in the case of HDMI (maybe - but I don't have a good grasp of HDMI hand-shake). An unfortunate problem caused by backward compatibility to legacy systems (good old SD format TV).



> It may be that your receiving device (DVDO scaler) isn't picking up on the cues that the HR20 is sending, especially since many of them are heuristics anyway and not part of any specification.


I don't have a DVDO scaler, but mgavs does. Also note that I woudn't be scaling the darn thing anyway -- I'd be watching it OAR with the pillarbars. I can't stand any kind of linear or non-linear stretch on 4:3 material for a 16:9 display.

That said, this is not an issue of "picking up the cues." It is an issue that the image in each frame has been modified -- it has been stretched to 720 horizontal from the original 640. This causes poor quality since 1) the image is being scaled multiple times, 2) the image is being scaled by an inferior scaler [the HR20], 3) the original image is not available to the high-end scaler downstream from the HR20.

My understanding is that he's trying to get directv to change the HR20 so there's a way to send his scaler an unmodified 4x3 480i image when in the 16x9 tv configuration. As of now, stretch will scale it to a 480i x 720 -- when it is not necessary; pillarbox will transmit the 480i x 640 image in a 480i x 720 pillarbox frame. The question is whether the DVDO scaler has an option to crop and scale. You want to be able to tell the scaler: 
- for a 720 x 480i frame: crop 40 left, 40 right
- with the resulting 640 x 480i frame: scale it to output device however mgavs wishes...

Without an actual unit to play with, I couldn't tell you. I'm hoping mgavs will give this a try and report back. Finding a work around would be a lot faster than waiting for directv to fix the problem. That said, directv should take pride in their product and fix this problem, but I woudn't hold my breath waiting for them to do it.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> Without an actual unit to play with, I couldn't tell you. I'm hoping mgavs will give this a try and report back. Finding a work around would be a lot faster than waiting for directv to fix the problem. That said, directv should take pride in their product and fix this problem, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to do it.


Some perspective:
So far there seems to be one scaler that doesn't "play well with others". Should the focus be to have it changed? There is a software update, a Beta release, and both a phone number and email address for questions & feed back for their product.
The "issue" is with SD programing and the "purity lost" with scaling on the HR-20. Currently setting it to "stretch" doesn't add the pillarbars and TVs can be set to display this with their own format settings [4:3, or some form of stretch].
Now if I understand what is "wanted" from D* is to output a 640 x 480 image to use a "superior" for the 12.5% scaling to 720 x 480 instead of the "inferior" scaler in the HR-20.
Now what some may not know is the 640 x 480 SD image is scaled by every D* receiver from the transmitted 480 x 480 image, so the D* scaler is scaling 33% of every SD image. SD over SAT [D* or E*] and cable, in MPEG-2, is scaled by the box. The cable here outputs SD in 520 x 480.
Now maybe I "don't get it", but trying to get a software change for a problem with a scaler that maybe 1% are using, to "improve" a 12.5% scaling issue to an image that is already scaled 33.3%, doesn't sound like it will happen or if done will improve the image significantly. IMO for the "superior" scaler to be of use, it would need to get the 480 x 480 image and scale that once for the display.
SD will always be a compromise until HD replaces it.


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## LarryEH (Jan 6, 2007)

I'd be curious to know how the Sony HD200 handled this and why it was so different.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Some perspective:
> So far there seems to be one scaler that doesn't "play well with others". Should the focus be to have it changed? There is a software update, a Beta release, and both a phone number and email address for questions & feed back for their product.
> The "issue" is with SD programing and the "purity lost" with scaling on the HR-20. Currently setting it to "stretch" doesn't add the pillarbars and TVs can be set to display this with their own format settings [4:3, or some form of stretch].
> Now if I understand what is "wanted" from D* is to output a 640 x 480 image to use a "superior" for the 12.5% scaling to 720 x 480 instead of the "inferior" scaler in the HR-20.
> ...


Interesting. It has never been mentioned in this whole thread that SD is transmitted at 480 x 480 (a 4:3 AR, transmitted with a 1:1 resolution; non-square pixels again, ick). I had assumed that when you said SD is 640 x 480, that D*'s digital transmission of SD was 640 x 480. My bad assumption.

That being the case, I don't see why it would matter whether it the HR20 outputs it at 640 x 480 or 720 x 480. Either way it is scaled from the native image.

Why mgavs notices a better image w/ the output of the HR20 being 640 x 480 could be either:
1) HR20 is better at scaling 480x480 to 640x480 than 480x480 to 720x480.
-or-
2) VP50 is better at scaling 640x480 to [native display] than 720x480 to [native display]
-or-
3) some combination of 1 and 2.

In addition, slight correction here:


> "Now if I understand what is "wanted" from D* is to output a 640 x 480 image to use a "superior" for the 12.5% scaling to 720 x 480 instead of the "inferior" scaler in the HR-20.


No. What is wanted is for D* to send native resolution (notwithstanding wierdness with issue mentioned above) so that the scaler can scale directly from [native content res] (which we thought to be 640 x 480) to [native display res] (which most likely _is not_ 720 x 480).

I'm with you on this only affecting a minority of people with high-end displays and/or outboard scalers, but that doesn't necessarily make what the receiver is doing right. Better to figure out what is going on, what would make it better, and let those affected by it or care about lobby for the change.

That said, I'd still like to see if mgavs could setup the scaler to do a crop + scale on the pillarboxed 480i image and see if that fixes his problem...


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## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

Earl Bonovich said:


> I really need to find the thread that we had about 6 - 9 months ago, were we discussed the EXACT same topic.


I would enjoy seeing that.

I have to say after I got things set up, I have adjusted all aspect issues with my Panasonic plasma and I have no problems at all. I must be doing something right.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

Maybe this is it (haven't read it yet...):

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=104523


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

Or this one (lots of threads on this topic);

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=104445


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> Maybe this is it (haven't read it yet...):
> 
> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=104523


There are some good points in 104523 made by LoopinFool and cygnusloop:



LoopinFool said:


> Everyone -- video signals contain no aspect ratio information in them.
> 
> There's 4:3 content and 16:9 content. Both types of content can be sent in a video signal (in various ways, no less).
> 
> ...





LoopinFool said:


> Also note that Directv sends SD content at 480x480 and that's not a resolution supported over HDMI. The HR20 will be doing some scaling no matter what. Since its internal buffer is probably a standard res (720x480 most likely), it will be scaling for the component (analog) outputs, too. The exception to that is OTA SD broadcasts (probably only on subchannels). Those will be at a supported resolution and probably don't need to be touched.





cygnusloop said:


> When in stretch mode it sends out 480 interlaced lines. These lines have no intrinsic width. The TV decides how to display it


So I think this issue is really down to what horizontal resolution (not a matter of aspect ratio) as I have stated in previous messages... 720 or 640... and futhermore why that should have a significant effect on the final result when the original source material is 480 x 480 (a really strange resolution for D* to decide on in the first place -- but of course that was a long time ago...)


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

There was a thread some time ago with about 200 posting where "we" went over this.
I have a deactivated Sony HD SAT 300 [upgrade from the 200]. The box was made by LG for Sony about 5 years ago and had a short run. I have gone through the manual and there is a native mode, that lets the TV handle the format. This box has: NTSC tuner, cable [non digital], ATSC tuner, and a D* tuner. I got mine with a HD "ready" RPTV, that was 1080i but not 720p, so I never used native and always output 1080i.
Now back to what I think is mgavs's issue: The 200 will output an upscaled SD image to 640 x 480 and the VP50 will adjust the format [the 12.5% scaling].
Side note on the 200: it has a flaw in it's decoding of SD from D*. According to Sony engineering, D* changed their encoding between development of the receiver and the time I bought mine. SD programing looked like crap on my 1080i setting. This cause the 200 to be replaced with the 300 as it couldn't be corrected with software. My 300 was a notable improvement over my 200. In a conversation with a Sony customer service VP, he acknowledged the 200 shouldn't have gone into market [and why the 300 came out so fast after it].
Now back to mgavs's problem: the VP50 can't scale the 12.5% from the HR-20 as it can't ignore the black pillarbars or look at the stretched 720 x 480 and "confine it" to the 640 x 480, so it can then scale the 12.5% to linear or non linear formats [without changing the TV aspect ratio in the setup menu]. I had a Samsung box from D*, back when I was fighting with my 200, that had a similar issue. To get HD & SD to display correctly [no distortion] I had to change the TV setting each time I changed SD or HD. It went back to D* because it simply wasn't compatible with my Sony TV.
Welcome to the world of ever evolving HD.
mgavs wants the HR-20 to work like his [inferior] Sony -200 did, so the VP50 will show a non linear stretch [aka stretch-o-vision used by TNT-HD]. We all have our own preferred way of watching our TVs.
I simply think dealing with the VP50 manufacture would make more sense [be more affective] than trying to get D* to make a change. The manufacture would have a greater interest in making their box compatible with D*, than D* would, for such a small number of users.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> So I think this issue is really down to what horizontal resolution (not a matter of aspect ratio) as I have stated in previous messages... 720 or 640... and futhermore why that should have a significant effect on the final result when the original source material is 480 x 480 (a really strange resolution for D* to decide on in the first place -- but of course that was a long time ago...)


MPEG-2 programs are "compressed" to fit the bandwidth, so more programs can be offered to the customers. Both SAT & cable providers do this.
MPEG-4 is able to reduce the bandwidth without reducing the resolution.
This is the "HD lite" postings for MPEG-2. 1080i is 1280 x 1080 in the SAT feed, 720p is "full" 1280 x 720, & 480i is 480 x 480[ again in the SAT feed]. If these weren't scaled before they're outputted, they would look like crap.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

From reading the VP50's manual it appears to have _very_ flexible aspect ratio and scaling controls. By using its zoom + pan feature for the input it would appear you could extract the 4:3 image from inside the pillarboxed 720x480 image.

If I had one, I'd try it right now. Don't plan to buy one until next spring/summer though....

mgavs -- can you give it a shot?


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

I appreciate everyone chiming in but there is no resolution to this until Directv adds an option I requested (hopefully in the 21st century). Many people here are getting way off the mark. My reason for posting was to get people to send the letter since there is no valid workaround that provides an _unmodified_ 4x3 output when HDTV is set to 16x9. Bottom line:

If there is an SD 4x3 picture and the HR20 HDTV set to 16x9 the HR20 will always change the 4x3 to 16x9. If HDTV is 4x3 the output is 4x3. I want the HR20 to_ not modify the picture in any way_ which means keeping NATIVE and all resolutions on. Since the HR20 outputs 4x3 unchanged when HDTV is set to 4x3, all I want is for the HR20 to _automatically_ keep the original 4x3 aspect ratio when changing between SD and HD channels. Not a big request. This is the way Sony HD receivers worked, they kept the aspect ratio original.

Seems people are hung up on the VP50 but let's take that out of the loop and you have the same problem. No more comments on the processor please since it has no effect on the problem. The only thing it adds is that it displays technical info about the input signal. The Pioneer plasma shows the same problem if the processor is out of the loop.

I was very glad the Directv person understood the problem but since there was obviously so much confusion here I will re-write the letter making it clear this is an aspect ratio problem rather than resolution. I will post that here and hope it clears things up for most people, and possible get some letter writing help.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> MPEG-2 programs are "compressed" to fit the bandwidth, so more programs can be offered to the customers. Both SAT & cable providers do this.
> MPEG-4 is able to reduce the bandwidth without reducing the resolution.
> This is the "HD lite" postings for MPEG-2. 1080i is 1280 x 1080 in the SAT feed, 720p is "full" 1280 x 720, & 480i is 480 x 480[ again in the SAT feed]. If these weren't scaled before they're outputted, they would look like crap.


I figured that was the reason. They save 25% right away going w/ 480x480 instead of 640x480. Myself, I would have gone for 25% less channels (nix the shopping channels, etc.) and the better quality.

Now you're going to cause everyone to want a super-true-native that will pass all the resolutions right through, since it looks like 720p is the only one that survives unscaled. Note that not scaling them does not necessarily make them look like crap, assuming the device on the other end can scale them well.

Just be glad people aren't asking for an SDI (Serial Digital Interface, SMPTE259M) feed for the decoded frames...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> Seems people are hung up on the VP50 but let's take that out of the loop and you have the same problem. No more comments on the processor please since it has no effect on the problem. The only thing it adds is that it displays technical info about the input signal. The Pioneer plasma shows the same problem if the processor is out of the loop.


If we are, it's because "most" TVs don't have your problem.
I will, at your request, stop replying to your posts about this and reply to others here or another topic you may have. There is always at least two ways "to skin a cat" and I've just been trying to show another for you. Good luck with your quest.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

mgavs said:


> I appreciate everyone chiming in but there is no resolution to this until Directv adds an option I requested (hopefully in the 21st century). Many people here are getting way off the mark. Bottom line:
> 
> If there is an SD 4x3 picture and the HR20 HDTV set to 16x9 the HR20 will always change the 4x3 to 16x9. If HDTV is 4x3 the output it 4x3. I want the HR20 to not modify the picture in any way. All I want is for the HR20 to automatically keep the output 4x3 when changing between SD and HD channels. Not a big request. This is the way Sony HD receivers worked.
> 
> Seems people are hung up on the VP50 but let's take that out of the loop and you have the same problem. No more comments on the processor please since it has no effect on the problem. The only thing it adds is that it displays technical info about the input signal. The Pioneer plasma shows the same problem if the processor is out of the loop.


You might want to take a look at the following sections in your VP50 manual. You might be able to solve the problem yourself instead of waiting for D* to fix it...

Specifically:

page 21:
Auto AR
In addition to carrying audio and video, HDMI can carry other information, like aspect ratio (AR). If you would like the iScan VP50 to automatically set the AR based on the information on the HDMI signal, than set this setting to 'On.' This AR information can be wrong or implemented incorrectly, so this setting is defaulted to 'Off'.
[maybe you can be sure to set this to off, if you're using HDMI, so your VP50 doesn't get confused by bad aspect ratio data]

page 16: - discussion of custom input aspect ratio and zoom/pan controls -
[you may be able to specify the VP50 extract the 640x480 image out of a pillarboxed frame and scale that to 16:9 as you desire]

It looks to me from skimming the manual that the VP50 is very capable of overcoming this issue with the HR20 to your satisfaction.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> You might want to take a look at the following sections in your VP50 manual. You might be able to solve the problem yourself instead of waiting for D* to fix it...
> 
> Specifically:
> 
> ...


Problem is.... that still allows the HR20 to modify the signal. Garbage in - garbage out. Ok, not really garbage but you get the idea. I want the best possible picture and that means no HR20 changes.

Now for your suggestion: You're right about the VP50 allowing the AR to be changed for any given input signal type. And... in fact I tried this to sooth my wife. By default the AR is set to 1:78, in order to "clip" the bars I had to change it to 1:33. That works except for two problems: 1. The picture is not as good as when the HR20 outputs 4x3 natively. 2: The biggie.... When you press menu or Guide, etc, they "fall off" the ends of the screen because even though there are bars for 4x3 the other info uses the entire 16x9. See? I can't win. So the best possible solution for the best picture is to autoswitch 4x3 to true 4x3. Thanks a lot for taking the time to come up with this. It was the best idea so far. Close but no cigar...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> Problem is.... that still allows the *HR20 to modify the signal*. Garbage in - garbage out. Ok, not really garbage but you get the idea. I want the best possible picture and that means no HR20 changes.
> 
> Now for your suggestion: You're right about the VP50 allowing the AR to be changed for any given input signal type. And... in fact I tried this to sooth my wife. By default the AR is set to 1:78, in order to "clip" the bars I had to change it to 1:33. That works except for two problems: 1. The picture is not as good as when the HR20 outputs 4x3 natively. 2: The biggie.... When you press *menu or Guide*, etc, they "fall off" the ends of the screen because even though there are bars for 4x3 the other info uses the entire 16x9. See? I can't win. So the best possible solution for the best picture is to autoswitch 4x3 to true 4x3. Thanks a lot for taking the time to come up with this. It was the best idea so far. Close but no cigar...


Well I said I wouldn't and here I go [sorry]:
With pillarbars, what "garbage in" is there?
If you go back to my first post, I asked what about the guide?.
[back to your scaler] when I set my TV to "normal" both the image and the guide are confined within the 4:3 area.


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

mgavs said:


> Seems people are hung up on the VP50 but let's take that out of the loop and you have the same problem.


No, no one else is having this problem.
That's why people have a hard time understanding what's going on.

The AVSForum Member confirmed it was a problem with the scaler.
You say it's a problem with D*.

Nobody knows what's going on...


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

mgavs said:


> Problem is.... that still allows the HR20 to modify the signal. Garbage in - garbage out. Ok, not really garbage but you get the idea. I want the best possible picture and that means no HR20 changes


Well, sure the signal is modified, but in that case in can be completely "unmodified" by cropping out the black bars -- at that point you're back to the 640x480 image. The transformation, in that case, is lossless.



> Now for your suggestion: You're right about the VP50 allowing the AR to be changed for any given input signal type. And... in fact I tried this to sooth my wife. By default the AR is set to 1:78, in order to "clip" the bars I had to change it to 1:33. That works except for two problems: 1. The picture is not as good as when the HR20 outputs 4x3 natively. 2: The biggie.... When you press menu or Guide, etc, they "fall off" the ends of the screen because even though there are bars for 4x3 the other info uses the entire 16x9. See? I can't win. So the best possible solution for the best picture is to autoswitch 4x3 to true 4x3. Thanks a lot for taking the time to come up with this. It was the best idea so far. Close but no cigar...


I can see where the guide is a potential "deal killer." You'd have to program your universal remote to do some scaler commands when going into the guide and then when you go back out of the guide. A real PITA and probably not 100% reliable. You'd probably also lose out on other onscreen HR goodies too (progress/info bars, etc.).

You might want to still look at the AutoAR stuff, because as previously mentioned native SD for D* is not 640x480 anyway, it is 480x480, and therefore is always going to get some sort of scaling whether it is to 640 or 720 (horizontal).


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Well I said I wouldn't and here I go [sorry]:
> With pillarbars, what "garbage in" is there?
> If you go back to my first post, I asked what about the guide?.
> [back to your scaler] when I set my TV to "normal" both the image and the guide are confined within the 4:3 area.


If D* was to "fix" this, the guide wouldn't be an issue because the guide would render "inside" the 640x480 frame.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> If D* was to "fix" this, the guide wouldn't be an issue because the guide would render "inside" the 640x480 frame.


"The fix" may not be as easy [I have no idea] as some think. D* has been working for over a year on software updates to get the box to what it is today. Sony had to change the architecture of the 300 [over the 200] to fix it's scaler. These are made of dedicated chips, that are limited in their function.
So far "the fix" seems to be: when tuning to an SD program, a command needs to go to the setup menu and change the TV setting from 16:9 to 4:3 and then back for an HD channel.
Maybe this is something that can be done that simply, or [like so many things in software] it will cause all sorts of other issues. I do remember having software engineers fix a problem I found in final test, that [always] seemed to cause some other problem in the system.
So far the native/format functions are still not "bullet proof", though much better than they were. [see: "super crop" threads].


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> Well, sure the signal is modified, but in that case in can be completely "unmodified" by cropping out the black bars -- at that point you're back to the 640x480 image. The transformation, in that case, is lossless.
> 
> I can see where the guide is a potential "deal killer." You'd have to program your universal remote to do some scaler commands when going into the guide and then when you go back out of the guide. A real PITA and probably not 100% reliable. You'd probably also lose out on other onscreen HR goodies too (progress/info bars, etc.).
> 
> You might want to still look at the AutoAR stuff, because as previously mentioned native SD for D* is not 640x480 anyway, it is 480x480, and therefore is always going to get some sort of scaling whether it is to 640 or 720 (horizontal).


Here is the problem: We (I, my wife, and friends) clearly see a better picture when the HR20 is outputting 4x3 as 4x3 and the Plasma (without the VP) or VP is handling stretch. So... even if we were able to use the 16x9 and let the VP clip the bars, we know we're missing a better picture. Though many may settle for that, I can't. My suggestion to Directv of adding an option will provide the best possible picture for us and the most convenience. And I know we're not alone as some might suggest. This is a known problem in the VP world. I might add that when I say VP this applies to outboard as well as built-in such as the Pio. It's just a matter of some being happy with settling for less, and others who can't. I am glad you recognize this problem and really appreciate the feedback. I was hoping a few may pitch in and write, this would be a very easy fix for Directv to implement since the HR20 already outputs correctly, just not automatically. This is a really big inconvenience for us. After switching our 4 receivers to HR20-100s (we need the coax and OTA) in the last month, my wife and I hate having to mess with this since this was never a problem before the switch.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Sixty posts and a 1000 viewings.
It looks to be getting visibility.
Maybe the next thing would be a poll to see how many care?


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## Juppers (Oct 26, 2006)

I don't see the same thing, but I do see weirdness with 480i native content with the HDTV setting on 16x9. My TV sees it as 480i content over component, so sets the aspect ratio to 4:3 and adds it's own pillarbars. But I have to keep the Screen format setting to Stretch on the HR20. That just seems odd to me, becuase it shouldn't be stretching anything.


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

mgavs said:


> And I know we're not alone as some might suggest. This is a known problem in the VP world.


mgavs, if you could supply some links on other forums about this I'd appreciate it.

I couldn't find anything on AVSForums other than your posting....

I'd really like to learn what's going on...


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

Juppers said:


> I don't see the same thing, but I do see weirdness with 480i native content with the HDTV setting on 16x9. My TV sees it as 480i content over component, so sets the aspect ratio to 4:3 and adds it's own pillarbars. But I have to keep the Screen format setting to Stretch on the HR20. That just seems odd to me, becuase it shouldn't be stretching anything.


See this thread. 

VOS, I think you've already read it!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cygnusloop said:


> See this thread.
> 
> VOS, I think you've already read it!


I've been waiting for you to show up here. :lol: 
Where is the 250 posting thread?
I must make a comment about someone saying something is "very easy" to change, without any first hand understanding of the hardware or software. :nono:


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Sixty posts and a 1000 viewings.
> It looks to be getting visibility.
> Maybe the next thing would be a poll to see how many care?


Gee, and I thought this was the place to ask for help and share information....... Anyone who doesn't care about something should not clutter a thread? A thousand viewings may mean some people are having an issue with 4x3? I can only hope.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Redlinetire said:


> mgavs, if you could supply some links on other forums about this I'd appreciate it.
> 
> I couldn't find anything on AVSForums other than your posting....
> 
> I'd really like to learn what's going on...


On the AVSforum under Video Processors there are different threads. However, the just mention the problem no explanation which is why I started this. Also, when I started this I called DVDO and they have employees with HR20s that have the same problem. If you read my first post and the previous three that should clear things up. I don't know how else to explain the problem more than in those posts.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> Gee, and I thought this was the place to ask for help and share information....... Anyone who doesn't care about something should not clutter a thread?


Are we copping an attitude here?
So far I see members trying to help and share information.
Since D* engineering reads these threads, a poll might show how many users have the problem, which might [again] help to get something addressed better than a letter writing campaign to the head office. [been there, done that] YMMV


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Are we copping an attitude here?
> So far I see members trying to help and share information.
> Since D* engineering reads these threads, a poll might show how many users have the problem, which might [again] help to get something addressed better than a letter writing campaign to the head office. [been there, done that] YMMV


Sorry, no attitude intended and I do appreciate all attempts to help. When I spoke to Directv the person said he understood that is was a big problem for those in my demographic (his words). So although it may not be an issue for the great majority, it is a *BIG* problem for those of us that have it. That is why I was hoping to see if some folks were interested in helping out. I have a couple of friends with Directv and they don't have a VP but do see the problem. They will write but I was hoping for this thread to help the _few_ of us out. No one else has taken this issue on. One more thing, I have been a computer programmer for 30 years and this would be an easy change. There is no new major functionality to add. Simply, an option so that for a 4x3 signal the HDTV setting is temporarily set to 4x3. The needed output is already there, it's just that you have to manually select it. I would bet that if I had the code it would be a 1 day job. Anyway, the first step was to get someone at Directv to acknowledge the problem. At least a couple have according to the phone calls between me and the Office of the President which I wrote to.


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I've been waiting for you to show up here. :lol:
> Where is the 250 posting thread?


Here.



mgavs said:


> Gee, and I thought this was the place to ask for help and share information....... Anyone who doesn't care about something should not clutter a thread?


Look, mgavs, many here (VOS included) have tried very hard to understand your issue,and help you find a workaround. I understand you want a fix from DIRECTV for this, but it is very unlikely to happen before everything is broadcast HD, and the point is moot. 

Trying to understand how the format settings work, and how this machine behaves in native mode is something that many of us here have put a year into. You are the first and only person to express this particular concern. For the vast majority of us (pretty much everyone except you, it seems), using format=stretch works just fine. And I don't believe any of us are "settling" for inferior picture quality, as you surmised.

I still don't understand exactly what could be different about the signal in 4:3 mode vs. 16:9 mode, but I do believe that your scaler sees something different. I can only guess that it has something to do with HDMI.

I can tell you this, using the component out, there is no difference in the signal. It is not a 640x480 array. it is 480 interlaced lines of video. The AR that is used is determined by the display.

I really hope you find a fix for your problem.


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## wmp (Jan 22, 2005)

I care about this too. I have a Panny 42 ED set.

With the old HR15 DVR receiver - I got a very good picture when outputting SD and using the Panny scaler to upconvert it to 16:9.

With the HR-20, I can't output the 480i signal in a pure way - the HR20 upconverts it to 16:9 stretching the picture. The scaler in the HR20 sucks relative to the Panny - and the picture is barely watchable.

I'd like the option the original poster requested as well.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

wmp said:


> I care about this too. I have a Panny 42 ED set.
> 
> With the old HR15 DVR receiver - I got a very good picture when outputting SD and using the Panny scaler to upconvert it to 16:9.
> 
> ...


Bingo! You see our problem! Hallelouya! Thanks so much for posting! BTW, I just replaced my Panasonic with the Pioneer and I think both brands have the best 4x3 to 16x9 conversions, blows the HR20 away. Please write to Directv, modify my letter in anyway. Write to both addresses. If you really want to watch a 4x3 show and have it look like the HR15/Panasonic combo then set the HR20 HDTV setting to 4x3 for the show. When you go to an HD channel you need to set it back to 16x9 or you will have bars on top/bottom.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cygnusloop said:


> Here.
> 
> Look, mgavs, many here (VOS included) have tried very hard to understand your issue,and help you find a workaround. I understand you want a fix from DIRECTV for this, but it is very unlikely to happen before everything is broadcast HD, and the point is moot.
> 
> ...


Look at the WMP post above. You must understand that you do not see what we see and if you can't duplicate it then it's hard to understand. I think that is the problem most are having here. As much as anyone tries, there just is not a workaround for this problem. We have to _manually_ change the HDTV setting. BTW, as I stated, the DVDO employees also see the problem at home (the ones lucky enough get a VP from work) so I am not the only person with this problem, just the first and only one you have heard from about it.

One more thing, I _really_ appreciate all the attempted help, but the only thing that will solve this are letters. I have explained this many times and it seems some are not reading my entire posts so it gets a little frustrating. Still, *I really DO appreciate* the attempts.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> Sorry, no attitude intended and I do appreciate all attempts to help. When I spoke to Directv the person said he understood that is was a big problem for those in my demographic (his words). So although it may not be an issue for the great majority, it is a *BIG* problem for those of us that have it. That is why I was hoping to see if some folks were interested in helping out. I have a couple of friends with Directv and they don't have a VP but do see the problem. They will write but I was hoping for this thread to help the _few_ of us out. No one else has taken this issue on.


"fine", "peace". 

One of the problems is listening to the D* CSRs. They are just "not in the loop" and can [or will] say just about anything. When I first came to D* years ago [with my 200] there was something I wanted changed [shopping channels that would always come back in my custom guide, like spam]. It would have been "easy" to fix, but never was. The CSRs told me to write the head office. All that returned was a "nice" go ............... letter.
Defining the issue/problem [well] and then using the power of the forum to try to get it addressed [if enough members participate in the poll] I think would get more results than writing. The other thing that might happen would be to find out why it can't be done.
While it isn't "an issue" with me, I do really understand how it could be for someone else. 
I would be curious to hear from the maker why the scaler can't work like others.
Seems the most squeaky wheels would get the attention over the few. How is it that Sony doesn't have the problem but DVDO does?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> Bingo! You see our problem! Hallelouya! Thanks so much for posting! BTW, I just replaced my Panasonic with the Pioneer and I think both brands have the best 4x3 to 16x9 conversions, blows the HR20 away. Please write to Directv, modify my letter in anyway. Write to both addresses.


I use native and my XBR2 has a great scaler, so "I think" I know what you're seeing, but is it really "night and day?" Or is it really that you want to use the non-linear mode?


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> "fine", "peace".
> 
> How is it that Sony doesn't have the problem but DVDO does?


It is that the Sony does not have the problem but the HR20 does. Scaler has nothing to do with it. See WMP post above. In his case the HR15 did not have the problem but the HR20 does.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I use native and my XBR2 has a great scaler, so "I think" I know what you're seeing, but is it really "night and day?" Or is it really that you want to use the non-linear mode?


For us it is night and day. That could be because on a 60 inch screen problems are "blown up". But even on our previous 50 it was very apparent.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> For us it is night and day. That could be because on a 60 inch screen problems are "blown up". But even on our previous 50 it was very apparent.


I "only" have a 46" because the larger was cost prohibitive [for me].
Even with my "little" one, I can see the difference between "crop" with the HR20 [or any of the H20, HR21, H21] and my Sony "zoom" with a letterbox SD program.
Back to the "issue": in pillarbars with native on, there is "no" scaling [other than what it needs to show the 640 x 480 image] from the D* box, so....... it's the "stretched" mode of your scaler that you want to use, and are having problems with, right?


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I "only" have a 46" because the larger was cost prohibitive [for me].
> Even with my "little" one, I can see the difference between "crop" with the HR20 [or any of the H20, HR21, H21] and my Sony "zoom" with a letterbox SD program.
> Back to the "issue": in pillarbars with native on, there is "no" scaling [other than what it needs to show the 640 x 480 image] from the D* box, so....... it's the "stretched" mode of your scaler that you want to use, and are having problems with, right?


I have a Pioneer 50 in the bedroom _without_ a VP, and a Pioneer 60 in the living room with the VP. The problem is on both TVs. The BR Pioneer displays a better picture when it is allowed to do the scaling/stretching. So... again, my VP has nothing to do with the problem, it just helped me identify it. There is no VP in the BR and I don't want to manually change between 4x3 and 16x9. No matter what, the Pioneer does a better job as long as NATIVE is on and 480-1080 are all set. In the BR, if I watch an SD 4x3 show and set HDTV to 4x3, _the picture is always better_ compared to HDTV set to 16x9, _stretched or not stretched by the Pioneer_. This is why I want all processing to be done by the Pioneers or the VP so I can obtain the _best_ picture quality.


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## wmp (Jan 22, 2005)

mgavs said:


> Bingo! You see our problem! Hallelouya! Thanks so much for posting! BTW, I just replaced my Panasonic with the Pioneer and I think both brands have the best 4x3 to 16x9 conversions, blows the HR20 away. Please write to Directv, modify my letter in anyway. Write to both addresses. If you really want to watch a 4x3 show and have it look like the HR15/Panasonic combo then set the HR20 HDTV setting to 4x3 for the show. When you go to an HD channel you need to set it back to 16x9 or you will have bars on top/bottom.


I have not tried what you suggest setting the HR20 to 4:3. I'll try it tonight, have the Panny do the conversion, and post my results.


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

wmp said:


> I have not tried what you suggest setting the HR20 to 4:3. I'll try it tonight, have the Panny do the conversion, and post my results.


If I want my Hitachi to do the upconversion (and stretch if I want) then I just set the HR20 to 480i and I'm done. My Hitachi then has a 4x3 signal and upconverts.

Is it that this VP and a couple TVs don't properly get the 480i signal and can't process it correctly? Guess I and others have a hard time seeing that as a problem with the HR20 but ok, if it is good luck.

Having said that I simply just set the HR20 to 1080i, set and forget. It all looks the same to me and I don't want to stretch the 4x3 signal at all anyway, give me pillerbars and an unmolested signal.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> I have a Pioneer 50 in the bedroom _without_ a VP, and a Pioneer 60 in the living room with the VP. The problem is on both TVs. The BR Pioneer displays a better picture when it is allowed to do the scaling/stretching. So... again, my VP has nothing to do with the problem, it just helped me identify it. There is no VP in the BR and I don't want to manually change between 4x3 and 16x9. No matter what, the Pioneer does a better job as long as NATIVE is on and 480-1080 are all set. In the BR, if I watch a 4x3 show and set HDTV to 4x3, _the picture is always better_ compared to HDTV set to 16x9, _stretched or not stretched by the Pioneer_. This is why I want all processing to be done by the Pioneers or the VP.


Please understand that I'm just trying to "understand".
Because of the image reduction in the SAT feed, the D* receiver will do "some" scaling. This can't be helped, and in fact is a third of what yu see [just as with your -200].
Now I don't understand your BR condition. You're saying: if the HR20 is set to 16:9 and pillarbars [native on] the picture is worse than if you have the HR20 set to 4:3, without any stretching mode set on the TV?  
There is no differance in the output of the HR-20, other than the pillarbars being added.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Please understand that I'm just trying to "understand".
> Because of the image reduction in the SAT feed, the D* receiver will do "some" scaling. This can't be helped, and in fact is a third of what yu see [just as with your -200].
> Now I don't understand your BR condition. You're saying: if the HR20 is set to 16:9 and pillarbars [native on] the picture is worse than if you have the HR20 set to 4:3, without any stretching mode set on the TV?
> There is no differance in the output of the HR-20, other than the pillarbars being added.


Yes I know the HR20 has to do some basic processing. And yes to the BR HR20 4x3 16x9 stuff as I said above, SD is always better if HDTV set to 4x3. But also, the issue of stretch comes back into play, if we want to watch a show stretched the Pioneer blows the HR20 away. That is what we see here.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

mgavs said:


> I have a Pioneer 50 in the bedroom _without_ a VP, and a Pioneer 60 in the living room with the VP. The problem is on both TVs. The BR Pioneer displays a better picture when it is allowed to do the scaling/stretching. So... again, my VP has nothing to do with the problem, it just helped me identify it. There is no VP in the BR and I don't want to manually change between 4x3 and 16x9. No matter what, the Pioneer does a better job as long as NATIVE is on and 480-1080 are all set. In the BR, if I watch an SD 4x3 show and set HDTV to 4x3, _the picture is always better_ compared to HDTV set to 16x9, _stretched or not stretched by the Pioneer_. This is why I want all processing to be done by the Pioneers or the VP so I can obtain the _best_ picture quality.


mgavs,

I think I may have an idea for you. Maybe you've already tried it or there is some problem with it that I haven't uncovered or it won't work with your equipment for one reason or another.

Here's what to try:
1) set your TV type to 4:3
2) set native on
3) allow all resolutions (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i)
4) set your format to stretch, and leave it there
5) do all your formatting at the VP or the TV (that is what you want, right?)

As you have posted, this gets you what you want for 480i. This should not affect the HD resolutions.

I have tested it on my TV and as far as I can tell, I am able to add pillarbars from the TV if I want or use non-linear or linear stretch as I deem necessary.

Basically, it dawned on me that it doesn't seem you need to switch back to 16:9 mode when you switch to HD.

Maybe things are different with HDMI. I don't use it. Maybe you have to change that AutoAR config on your VP that I was refering to earlier. I don't have one, so cannot test.

Let us know...


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

mgavs said:


> I have a Pioneer 50 in the bedroom _without_ a VP, and a Pioneer 60 in the living room with the VP. The problem is on both TVs. The BR Pioneer displays a better picture when it is allowed to do the scaling/stretching. So... again, my VP has nothing to do with the problem, it just helped me identify it.


Well, your $3000 VP *IS*_ part_ of the problem in that it won't do the stretch/crop/scaling that you want to do unless it is detecting a 4:3 picture. As you have pointed out, the HR20 already has the capability to output a "true native 4:3" picture, so to fix your problem on the HR20 side, it's just a matter of somehow having an option to automatically switch the output to 4:3 mode for non 16:9 content, but in all honesty it wouldn't be an issue if that $3000 VP of yours was better designed to be a little more versatile to be able to do the same stretch/crop/scaling regardless if the input is an actual 4:3 picture or an "artificial" 16:9 representation of a 4:3 picture that was created by inserting pillar bars.

While it does appear that it could possibly be a simple fix on the HR20 side, the fact that it's probably only an issue for relatively few people might mean that your best hope for a fix might be to fix it on the VP side.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> mgavs,
> 
> I think I may have an idea for you. Maybe you've already tried it or there is some problem with it that I haven't uncovered or it won't work with your equipment for one reason or another.
> 
> ...


Those are the settings I have always had from the start, but as I stated many times before, I must change HDTV to 16x9 for an HD show or I get top/bottom bars. Directv fix is the only solution to automate this.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Well, your $3000 VP *IS*_ part_ of the problem in that it won't do the stretch/crop/scaling that you want to do unless it is detecting a 4:3 picture. As you have pointed out, the HR20 already has the capability to output a "true native 4:3" picture, so to fix your problem on the HR20 side, it's just a matter of somehow having an option to automatically switch the output to 4:3 mode for non 16:9 content, but in all honesty it wouldn't be an issue if that $3000 VP of yours was better designed to be a little more versatile to be able to do the same stretch/crop/scaling regardless if the input is an actual 4:3 picture or an "artificial" 16:9 representation of a 4:3 picture that was created by inserting pillar bars.
> 
> While it does appear that it could possibly be a simple fix on the HR20 side, the fact that it's probably only an issue for relatively few people might mean that your best hope for a fix might be to fix it on the VP side.


So the VP is part of the problem for the bedroom TV even though it is only connected to the living room TV? My best hope will be to get more requests to Directv to fix the _source_ of the problem.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

mgavs said:


> Those are the settings I have always had from the start, but as I stated many times before, I must change HDTV to 16x9 for an HD show or I get top/bottom bars. Directv fix is the only solution to automate this.


Hmmm... That's strange. I don't get letterboxed output from the HR20 unless I choose letterbox from the format button. As long as I have it set to stretch, I'm getting a pure 720p or 1080i image to play with.

It is likely your VP is adding the letterbox... probably because it thinks it is getting a 4:3 HD image (because the AR tag in the HDMI is saying 4:3) because of that AutoAR feature is enabled??

Do you see the same on your TV? Can you choose a mode on your TV that will stretch it to the full screen? On my Sharp this is "Stretch" mode. Note this will not cause any real "stretching" to go on -- just a direct scale to native resolution of the panel. Unless I'm missing some unknown processing the HR20 may be doing when sending out an HD image to a display configured as 4:3...


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Folks, please let's put the VP issue to rest, I don't have one on the bedroom TV and it has the same problem. I have stated how I get the best picture in the BR (without a VP) and that is to manually change HDTV setting when switching. Please read post 80. Also note that WMP (post 72) experienced the exact problem (without a VP I might add).


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> Here's what to try:
> 1) set your TV type to 4:3
> 2) set native on
> 3) allow all resolutions (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i)
> ...


In SD native this doesn't work as the format setting now work for HD resolutions. [16:9 = SD format & 4:3 = HD format, where the pillarbar option changes to letterbox].


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> yes to the BR HR20 4x3 16x9 stuff as I said above, SD is always better if HDTV set to 4x3. *This can't be true, without a stretch mode being used, sorry *
> But also, the issue of stretch comes back into play, if we want to watch a show stretched the Pioneer blows the HR20 away. That is what we see here.


Yes, the stretch mode is the real issue here with both your TV & the VP.
So while "my TV" doesn't have the problem, yours does.
Now that "I think" we're getting close to what the real issue is, finding out how many users have this problem that can't use the current "work a round" [stretch mode that the TV will ignore] would be a good "poll" to see if this has [or would have] any "legs" with D*'s software development team.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Yes, the stretch mode is the real issue here with both your TV & the VP.
> So while "my TV" doesn't have the problem, yours does.
> Now that "I think" we're getting close to what the real issue is, finding out how many users have this problem that can't use the current "work a round" [stretch mode that the TV will ignore] would be a good "poll" to see if this has [or would have] any "legs" with D*'s software development team.


Sorry to disagree, but you can't see what I see, and even without stretch the picture is better with HR20 set to 4x3. But no matter what, I need this fixed. I am curious to see what wmp results are too. Even though there may be a small number of people, the problem is a major one for the few that have it. So regardless of the poll this needs to be addressed by Directv.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

mgavs said:


> So the VP is part of the problem for the bedroom TV even though it is only connected to the living room TV? My best hope will be to get more requests to Directv to fix the _source_ of the problem.


Yep. It's the same problem. The only difference is that in your bedroom it's the scaler built into the TV that lacks the versatility that I pointed out that your $3000 VP lacks.

The _source_ of the problem is no more the HR20 than it is the limitations of those devices which makes them unable to scale and crop a 16:9 picture in the way you would like to do it.


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## ccr1958 (Aug 29, 2007)

doing some experimenting with the hr20 & toshiba dlp...
i set the hr20 to native on..stretch...ratio to 4:3 & all resolution on....
set the tv to natural & auto aspect on & so far this seems to be much
better PQ on 480i signals....& when i get an HD 16x9 signal it switches 
automatically to 1080i or 720p full screen....at this point i think i like
this better....the 480i looks more crisp...

i know this is not on topic but thought i would throw it in
for people wanting to try it


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

ccr1958 said:


> doing some experimenting with the hr20 & toshiba dlp...
> i set the hr20 to native on..stretch...ratio to 4:3 & all resolution on....
> set the tv to natural & auto aspect on & so far this seems to be much
> better PQ on 480i signals....& when i get an HD 16x9 signal it switches
> ...


This has "tweaked" me.
What were you using before?


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> In SD native this doesn't work as the format setting now work for HD resolutions. [16:9 = SD format & 4:3 = HD format, where the pillarbar option changes to letterbox].


It does work because the whole point of that "fix" is that you don't want to use the HR20's format settings, but use the equivalent functions on your TV (or $3000 VP). The instructions said, put the HR20 format setting in stretch mode and leave it there, so it doesn't matter what other modes now do on HD broadcasts, because SD and HD video will display correctly if the HR20 format is left in stretch mode as instructed, and the HR20 will output a true native 4:3 picture when the source program is 4:3 SD.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Yep. It's the same problem. The only difference is that in your bedroom it's the scaler built into the TV that lacks the versatility that I pointed out that your $3000 VP lacks.
> 
> The _source_ of the problem is no more the HR20 than it is the limitations of those devices which makes them unable to scale and crop a 16:9 picture in the way you would like to do it.


Using that logic if a tire company made bad tires I guess all the car companies would have to fix their cars to accommodate it.


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## ccr1958 (Aug 29, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> This has "tweaked" me.
> What were you using before?


had the hr20 set to native off...tv ratio 16x9..tv res. 720p & 1080i only...
toshiba set to tv natural...auto aspect on....

also notice now i can be receiving a 480i broadcast & 
use cinema mode 1 on the tv to stretch & it looks really good...
i think it would fool some peeps to think it was actually
full screen 1080i....this also makes the guide fill the screen
& not be overscanned


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## ccr1958 (Aug 29, 2007)

i guess i was letting the hr20 do all the work when i should have been
letting the toshiba....does this sound right??


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cartrivision said:


> It does work because the whole point of that "fix" is that you don't want to use the HR20's format settings, but use the equivalent functions on your TV (or $3000 VP). The instructions said, put the HR20 format setting in stretch mode and leave it there, so it doesn't matter what other modes now do on HD broadcasts, because SD and HD video will display correctly if the HR20 format is left in stretch mode as instructed, and the HR20 will output a true native 4:3 picture when the source program is 4:3 SD.


I just tried this with my Sony and it doesn't work.
My TV doesn't "auto" adjust. The "plus" to this is I can adjust HD formats, but the downside is if "stretch" is selected, the TV shows it that way. If I set my TV to "normal", it shows a 4:3 image for all resolutions.
This might be a new "work a round" for some TVs/users.


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## ccr1958 (Aug 29, 2007)

is the 16x9 ratio setting on the hr20 only so the 
guide & menus shows correctly??


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## Slyster (May 17, 2005)

What is a 4x3 problem? I have not idea what you are talking about.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

ccr1958 said:


> i guess i was letting the hr20 do all the work when i should have been
> letting the toshiba....does this sound right??


YES, this is the native "on or off" where you pick which scaler you want to use.
SD will show the most affect of a scaler since it is scaling the image the most.
What you "found" was not the 4:3 verse 16:9, but the toshiba scaler verse the HR-20 [much like my Sony, and why I use native on].


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

ccr1958 said:


> i guess i was letting the hr20 do all the work when i should have been
> letting the toshiba....does this sound right??


Only if the Toshiba does the work better. Sometimes people find the HR20 better and sometimes the other way around. You need to test it both ways.


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## ccr1958 (Aug 29, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> YES, this is the native "on or off" where you pick which scaler you want to use.
> SD will show the most affect of a scaler since it is scaling the image the most.
> What you "found" was not the 4:3 verse 16:9, but the toshiba scaler verse the HR-20 [much like my Sony, and why I use native on].


ok thanks...this is much better


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> In SD native this doesn't work as the format setting now work for HD resolutions. [16:9 = SD format & 4:3 = HD format, where the pillarbar option changes to letterbox].


Yes, but if you _only_ want to use your TV and/or outboard scaler, you simply do not use these features on the HR20's format button. In other words, where you want pillarbox, you stretch at HR20 and pillarbox at TV/scaler. Once you set stretch on the HR20, you just completely forget the HR20 has a format button...

Update: I should note the only "problem" I have found with this configuration is that the HR20 GUI renders "inside" of whatever pillarbars or letterboxing the TV/scaler is doing. Of course, this is to be expected, if you want your TV/scaler to handle these functions. And, of course, this is exactly as it would be if D* changed the HR20 as mgavs is requesting.


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## ccr1958 (Aug 29, 2007)

mgavs said:


> Only if the Toshiba does the work better. Sometimes people find the HR20 better and sometimes the other way around. You need to test it both ways.


yes i just did & the toshiba does the work much better...thanks


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> Hmmm... That's strange. I don't get letterboxed output from the HR20 unless I choose letterbox from the format button. As long as I have it set to stretch, I'm getting a pure 720p or 1080i image to play with.


Same here. With those settings, I get true native 4:3 SD video output from the HR20 that I can modify with my TV settings to either insert pillar bars, stretch to 16:9, or crop to 16:9, and HD 16:9 displays correctly.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Slyster said:


> What is a 4x3 problem? I have not idea what you are talking about.


So far what "the issue" is:
Some TVs /external scalers have a better [for some] stretch mode than what is in the HR-20. Others want SD 4:3 images to be undistorted [use pillarbars] while others want their TV to stretch [distort] the image. Much like the TNT HD stretch-o-vision to fill their screen.
If the HR-20 is set for 16:9, then it's output for native on 480 is 720 x 480 [either stretched or pillarbars]. Some TV's can handle this and add their stretch mode to it while others can't, requiring the HR-20 to be set to 4:3, so the TV can then stretch the image to full the screen. Now if you select a 4:3 TV setting it may [will] have problems with HD format on a 16:9 TV.
So Have I lost you now?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> Yes, but if you _only_ want to use your TV and/or outboard scaler, you simply do not use these features on the HR20's format button. In other words, where you want pillarbox, you stretch at HR20 and pillarbox at TV/scaler. Once you set stretch on the HR20, you just completely forget the HR20 has a format button...
> 
> Update: I should note the only "problem" I have found with this configuration is that the HR20 GUI renders "inside" of whatever pillarbars or letterboxing the TV/scaler is doing. Of course, this is to be expected, if you want your TV/scaler to handle these functions. And, of course, this is exactly as it would be if D* changed the HR20 as mgavs is requesting.


I think you may have uncovered another "work-a-round". While this doesn't work for my setup, it may work for those that "mine" [stretch 16:9] doesn't.


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## wmp (Jan 22, 2005)

OK

Just changed the HR20 setting to 4:3, viewed some 480i programs, and switched back to 16:9 setting. Did it several times, and on different channels.

Picture looks noticeably sharper when the HR20 is set to 4:3. But on some channels the difference is more obvious than others. Wonder if that relates to how much DTV has compressed those channels?

It would be a pain to have switch the HR20 any time I want to watch a 480i program, so I'm just going to leave mine as is.... 16:9, native on.

But hopefully DTV will give us an a new option going forward...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

wmp said:


> OK
> 
> Just changed the HR20 setting to 4:3, viewed some 480i programs, and switched back to 16:9 setting. Did it several times, and on different channels.
> 
> ...


You would need to view one channel between the two setting to know that the setting was the cause.


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## wmp (Jan 22, 2005)

Understood. That's how I did it.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

wmp said:


> Understood. That's how I did it.


So you're saying there is a PQ difference with a SD image that isn't stretched between the 640 x 480 image in 4:3 and the 640 x 480 image [plus pillarbars] in 16:9?


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> If D* was to "fix" this, the guide wouldn't be an issue because the guide would render "inside" the 640x480 frame.


Except, the OP wants D* to "fix" this so that he can scale a letterboxed 4:3 SD picture to fill a 16:9 screen using the TV scaler or an external scaler, which would cut off the top and bottom of the 4:3 frame that the guide would be rendered in, so the top and bottom of the guide would not be visible without disabling the external scaling of the video signal. That's probably the main reason why D* put the crop/stretch/pillar bar option in the HR20... because the guide and menus would be cut off with some of those settings if they were done on the TV instead of within the HR20.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Except, the OP wants D* to "fix" this so that he can scale a letterboxed 4:3 SD picture to fill a 16:9 screen using the TV scaler an external scaler, which would cut off the top and bottom of the 4:3 frame that the guide would be rendered in, so the top and bottom of the guide would not be visible without disabling the external scaling of the video signal. That's probably the main reason why D* put the crop/stretch/pillar bar option in the HR20... because the guide and menus would be cut off with some of those settings if they were done on the TV instead of within the HR20.


I don't think that's what the OP wants at all.


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## wmp (Jan 22, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> So you're saying there is a PQ difference with a SD image that isn't stretched between the 640 x 480 image in 4:3 and the 640 x 480 image [plus pillarbars] in 16:9?


No. If I understand your question correctly.

This is a picture quality difference between:

A - when I have the HR20 set at 16:9, my Panny set at Full aspect, and I view a 480i program and

B - when I have the HR20 set at 4:3, my Panny set at Full aspect, and I view a 480i program

In case A - the Full aspect on my Panny has no effect, because the HR20 has converted the 640x480 image to 720x480

In case B - the HR20 has output the original 640 x 480 impage, and the Panny scaler has converted it to 720 x 480.

The picture in B is superior. The Panny scaler appears to be far superior to the one in the HR20. When I researched the set, one of the reasons I bought the Panny (commercial display) was it was universally lauded as having a superior scaler than other brands. At the time, I had the HR15 and all TV viewing would be 480i.

Hope that makes sense. In any case, its not a big enough deal to me that I plan to switch back and forth the 4:3, I'm just going to leave it set at 16:9 - most of what I watch is sports and virtually all of that now I can view in HD.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

wmp said:


> No. If I understand your question correctly.
> 
> This is a picture quality difference between:
> 
> ...


Thank you. I thought you were trying to tell me the sun was going to rise from the north tomorrow. :lol: 
Your Panny has a scaler much like my XBR2. That I do understand [quite well].
Which is part of this thread: How to use my scaler over the one in the HR-20.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

cygnusloop said:


> See this thread.


cygnusloop, regarding the question that you posed in that thread, asking what "stretch" mode should more correctly be called.... if you are interested, I'll explain why it *is correctly* called stretch for both the 4:3 and 16:9 TV ratio settings.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> I don't think that's what the OP wants at all.


Sure it is. He wants to use the TV's scaler or an external scaler instead of the one built into the HR20.


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## Keeska (Feb 10, 2007)

> the HR20 upconverts it to 16:9 stretching the picture


But as far as I understand it, the HR2 is not stretching the 640x480 image. It is proceeding each line with 40 black/grey pixels and adding the same 40 pixels at the end. Of course I could be mistaken - I am trying to learn - but it appears I understand the behavior.

1. So DirecTV sends 480x480 video.

2. The receiver "invents" 160 pixels in each line using a built-in algorithm and comes up with 640 pixels in each of 480 lines.

3. If the TV AR is set to 16:9 the HR20 can "invent" additional pixles to stretch each line to fill a 16:9 AR (I gather each line is now 720 pixels) or it can add 40 pixels of a fixed color before the 640 and add 40 more of the same color after the 640.

From reading it appears the 640 pixels the HR20 fits between to two sets of 40 fixed color pixels is not the same as the 640 pixels it would produce if the TV AR were set to 4:3. Or some scalers (whether external or built into TVs) do not deal well with the 720 pixels per line produced by the HR20.

So is there a test which will determine if the 640 pixels embedded within the 720 the HR20 provides in 16:9 AR are the same as the 640 it provides in 4:3 AR? Before I shop for scalers I would like to know if it is an HR20 problem or a problem with some scalers.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

wmp said:


> No. If I understand your question correctly.
> 
> This is a picture quality difference between:
> 
> ...


I believe that the reason you get a better picture under scenario B has less to do with which device has a better scaler and more to do with the fact that under scenario A, 25% of the 720 lines of horizontal resolution are being used to render the video for the pillar bars and under scenario B, all 720 lines of horizontal resolution are being used to render the actual video frame only.

It's the same principal as getting more resolution from DVDs by using anamorphic widescreen encoding instead of wasting lines of resolution by encoding the letterbox bars into the DVD's video.

For SD video from a HR20, it doesn't really matter very much which setting you use anyway since any SD signal coming from D* these days is of marginal quality and resolution at best.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Keeska said:


> So is there a test which will determine if the 640 pixels embedded within the 720 the HR20 provides in 16:9 AR are the same as the 640 it provides in 4:3 AR? Before I shop for scalers I would like to know if it is an HR20 problem or a problem with some scalers.


The HR-20 has the same 640 x 480 "image" whether set to 16:9 or 4:3. Now the 16:9 has 80 more pixels with pillarbars and is stretches the image in stretch format.
How the scaler/TV handles the 720 depends on the scaler/TV [which also has the same format options].
With my Sony XBR2 it can receive the 720 x 480 can confine it within the 4:3 screen area. It can also do this with a 1080i or 720p image [which is only useful to me for HD programing that is stretched by the provider, so I can return it to an undistorted image].
Other TVs/scalers seem not to be able to "confine" the 720 x 480 to the 4:3 format.
The only way I know to test this would be to connect the HR-20 to the scaler/TV and see how the format setting interact, since while they all do the same thing, "how" they do it seems to differ.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cartrivision said:


> I believe that the reason you get a better picture under scenario B has less to do with which device has a better scaler and more to do with the fact that under scenario A, 25% of the 720 lines of horizontal resolution are being used to render the video for the pillar bars and under scenario B, all 720 lines of horizontal resolution are being used to render the actual video frame only.
> 
> It's the same principal as getting more resolution from DVDs by using anamorphic widescreen encoding instead of wasting lines of resolution by encoding the letterbox bars into the DVD's video.
> 
> For SD video from a HR20, it doesn't really matter very much which setting you use anyway since any SD signal coming from D* these days is of marginal quality and resolution at best.


I beleive your 25% is only 12.5%, since 720 is only 1.125 times 640.
With any SD image & a HD display, the scaling factor will be 4-6 times, so the scaler quality can be noticable.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I beleive your 25% is only 12.5%, since 720 is only 1.125 times 640.
> With any SD image & a HD display, the scaling factor will be 4-6 times, so the scaler quality can be noticable.


Actually it's somewhere in between. Since 25% of the 720 lines of horizontal resolution are going to rendering the pillar bars, that leaves 540 left to render the 640 lines of resolution that the picture has, which is almost 16% less than the picture's 640 lines of resolution.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Sure it is. He wants to use the TV's scaler or an external scaler instead of the one built into the HR20.


I was refering to the part where you stated he wants his guide/list (and other gui elements) to be clipped off screen. I don't think his request and suggestion for a fix implies that at all.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cartrivision said:


> Actually it's somewhere in between. Since 25% of the 720 lines of horizontal resolution are going to rendering the pillar bars, that leaves 540 left to render the 640 lines of resolution that the picture has, which is almost 16% less than the picture's 640 lines of resolution.


Can you explain this to me? Where does the 540 come from?
With my TV(s) I can see a 520 x 480 image that came from my Cable company & could measure it through a firewire connection to my PC.
On my TV the image sure looks to be 640 x 480 + pillarbars of 40 on each side.
So since my eyes & display seem to match, I don't understand "your math".
Please enlighten me.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> I was refering to the part where you stated he wants his guide/list (and other gui elements) to be clipped off screen. I don't think his request and suggestion for a fix implies that at all.


Of course he didn't want that, and I didn't in any way say that he wanted that, but contrary to his assertion that the guide would display fine, people using the display mode that would be made available with his requested "fix" would very likely have issues where the guide and other menu screens are clipped and not fully displayed.... which as I said is probably the reason that D* did it the way they did by putting the stretch/crop/pillar bar options in the HR20 and which is also why they probably won't implement his requested "fix".


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Can you explain this to me? Where does the 540 come from?
> With my TV(s) I can see a 520 x 480 image that came from my Cable company & could measure it through a firewire connection to my PC.
> On my TV the image sure looks to be 640 x 480 + pillarbars of 40 on each side.
> So since my eyes & display seem to match, I don't understand "your math".
> Please enlighten me.


The output resolution of an HR20 displaying an SD video is 720x480. A 4:3 picture only occupies 75% of the width of a 16:9 screen so 25% of the screen width is filled with pillar bars by the HR20 (12.5% on each side), which takes away 25% of the 720 available lines of horizontal resolution, leaving 540 lines of horizontal resolution to render the picture part (non-pillar bar part) of the screen.


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## kwsmithphoto (Oct 19, 2007)

FWIW, I'm new to HD and finding this thread both illuminating and confusing all at the same time. 

Moved in this month with my bride to be who also came with a 5 year-old Phillips plasma (bonus!). At her place, she had someone set it up on Time Warner via their Motorola box, then later their HD box (no DVR), through the Phillips tuner it came with, which sent a VGA signal to the monitor. It didn't look very good, and always tried to auto zoom without stretching or cropping by automatically detecting black space around the image...1-2 seconds later which was annoying.

I changed all that when we moved in together last month by hooking it directly to the HR20-700, bypassing the weird tuner/processor it came with, and used a component cable since the monitor doesn't have an HDMI input. Image quality improved tremendously, the annoying "auto format" feature went away, and it was a huge box that was no longer needed. 

Anyway, here's how the system behaves after the new HR20 firmware update (which set everything to 480p vertical on my box):

I turned Native to OFF and set the front panel control to 1081. With Native ON it would only put out 480p for some reason, even though the screen can do 1080i.

I set the other switches like this: in the Video tab, turned on black Pillar Box. TV Ratio tab is set to Standard. TV Resolutions tab, selected 1081 only, and here's how it behaves.

If I'm watching an HD channel, the Format button on the remote does absolutely nothing, even if a show or commercial is in 4:3. The display is -always- running at 16:9 at 1081, confirmed by the monitor's on screen display. The broadcaster simply fills in the rest with black pixels or graphics.

If I'm watching an SD channel, the Format button works as it should and the HR20 is still putting out a 1080i signal with pillar boxes. I don't EVER want it to stretch or crop the image (who would?) so I ignore it. The monitor's remote has a zoom feature so if I'm watching a 16:9 program on an SD channel I can simply zoom in if I want the picture bigger. It doesn't look that great though and crops the program menu, etc., so it's very rarely used since the screen itself is plenty big for the room.

Anyway...point is that this seems to be fairly different than what many of you guys are getting with your setup and I'm a bit curious why.

BTW, being a pro photographer with a trained eye for accurate color, I was able to tweak the old plasma to get image quality that's as good or superior to almost everything else I've seen on the market to date, even without HDMI. Newer displays are better calibrated by default than our is, but other than DirecTV's annoying over-compression artifacts, overall image quality is superb straight out of the HR20 now.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> I believe that the reason you get a better picture under scenario B has less to do with which device has a better scaler and more to do with the fact that under scenario A, 25% of the 720 lines of horizontal resolution are being used to render the video for the pillar bars and under scenario B, all 720 lines of horizontal resolution are being used to render the actual video frame only.
> 
> It's the same principal as getting more resolution from DVDs by using anamorphic widescreen encoding instead of wasting lines of resolution by encoding the letterbox bars into the DVD's video.
> 
> ...


This would be true if the a/b test mentioned above used pillar bars for the 16:9 test. Problem is, at least my understanding, is that both tests use no pillar bars (they use stretch)... the only difference is the TV aspect setting (4:3 or 16:9) in the setup menu.

I really wish I had some equipment to analyse HDMI/component signals...


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

wmp said:


> No. If I understand your question correctly.
> 
> This is a picture quality difference between:
> 
> ...


Thanks so much for taking the time to demonstrate this to everyone. In my case the difference is to too much for us to be comfortable to leave it. So many people have chimed in but your the only one who actually sees the problem. I hope you take the time to write. Based on all the confusion here, I will be replacing the letter today at the top of the post in the hope people will decide to help us with the letter writing.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

kwsmithphoto said:


> FWIW, I'm new to HD and finding this thread both illuminating and confusing all at the same time.
> 5 year-old Phillips plasma
> Anyway, here's how the system behaves after the new HR20 firmware update (which set everything to 480p vertical on my box):
> I turned Native to OFF and set the front panel control to 1081. With Native ON it would only put out 480p for some reason, even though the screen can do 1080i.
> ...


The Phillips plasma is 16:9, but doesn't have a DVI input?
Why do you have it set to "standard" TV instead of 16:9?
Native off means the HR-20 output stays fixed to whatever resolution you manually select.
In the setup menu how many resolutions does the monitor support? Clearly it supports 480p, but what about 720p?
When I looked at plasmas five years ago, there were no plasmas that had 1080i native resolutions. While yours may accept a 1080i signal, it is scaling it down to fit your screen. You may get a better image if you use 720p, as it should fit the native screen resolution better [there is no point to scaling an image any more than needed]. There are two scaler involved: the HR-20 and your plasma. Native "on or off" is for which one you want to use [mostly for SD programing].
Native off uses the HR-20, so there is no format functions when tuned to either 720p or 1080i HD channels. If they use "side bars", you have no adjustments. If you are tuned to an SD channel, then the HR-20 remote will stretch, crop, or pillar box, if HDTV is set to 16:9. If set to 4:3, the SD has no format functions and HD has stretch, crop & letter box. [FWIW: I just set mine to prove this again].
Your plasma has similar format functions, so you need to find which settings between the HR-20 and your plasma that give you the image you want. With my TV that is "full" [the others are normal, zoom, wide zoom]. Each maker has their own names and slightly different options.
Native on is for when you want to have the TV do the scaling and you select the resolutions your TV supports in the HR-20.
I only use "crop or zoom" for SD letter box programing, and then use my TV for it as it does a much better job, but the GUI [guide, menus DVR controls] will off screen, while using it. Using the HR-20 crop will keep them on screen.
Give the way the HR-20 functions, "I'm a bit curious" about your settings. I'd spend some time and play with all of them to see what looks best. If you still have questions, either post or send me a PM.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> Thanks so much.... Based on all the confusion here....


I'm sorry but so far the "confusion" has been trying to understand the problem. wmp replied clearly to what it was [which most of us understood some time ago in this thread].
Some TV/scalers don't handle a format change with a 720 x 480 signal and others DO.
You want the HR-20 to be modified to function with all scalers [or at least yours].
Since this is for a "stretch mode" the users "needing" this will be less than the total number of users with with scalers that don't function with the HR-20.
This is your "target" for your "letter campaign" or poll.
I post this as "help" for you. 
If you know and can express what the issue or problem is, you should get better response from the forum & DirecTV.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

ccr1958 said:


> yes i just did & the toshiba does the work much better...thanks


Thanks so much for testing and verifying, I will post a replacement letter today. Hope you write.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Except, the OP wants D* to "fix" this so that he can scale a letterboxed 4:3 SD picture to fill a 16:9 screen using the TV scaler or an external scaler, which would cut off the top and bottom of the 4:3 frame that the guide would be rendered in, so the top and bottom of the guide would not be visible without disabling the external scaling of the video signal. That's probably the main reason why D* put the crop/stretch/pillar bar option in the HR20... because the guide and menus would be cut off with some of those settings if they were done on the TV instead of within the HR20.


You will have to reread the new letter. This is a simple thing for Directv to do, the HR20 already works fine, just not automaticallyy as I have stated many times.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

mgavs said:


> You will have to reread the new letter. This is a simple thing for Directv to do, the HR20 already works fine, just not automaticallyy as I have stated many times.


You have to reread the thread. There is already a setting combination that will make the HR20 output "true native" 4:3 480i video and "true native" 720p & 1080i 16:9 video automatically without having to change anything on the HR20 when going between those 3 different types of sources, so technically there is nothing that D* needs to do to give you what you need, but as has been pointed out, using those settings creates situations where the guide and menus won't display correctly, which is probably why it's not a setting supported by D*.


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## LoopinFool (Sep 1, 2007)

Wow, here we go again!

mgavs, please don't jump on me -- I agree with you now. :eek2:


I don't know how the number 640 got into this discussion (conjecture?).
I don't know how pillarboxes got into this discussion. mgavs doesn't want pillarboxes, he wants a proper full 4x3 SD signal of the highest quality possible to always come out of his HR20 when set to Native.
This only affects people using HDMI. We see no difference between the 4x3 and 16x9 native stretch settings when using the component outputs. Perhaps we're getting the "bad" version, but I'm sure the HR20 always scales to the same framebuffer width for the purposes of component output.
It sounds like the HR20 always tags the HDMI aspect ratio to the *TV setting*, not the original content's aspect. I'd suggest it should tag 16x9 stretch as 4x3 when putting out an SD signal since the HR20 doesn't get any anamorphic content. The other format settings should still be tagged as 16x9 though.
Furthermore, it sounds like the HR20 is using different HDMI resolutions depending on the TV aspect setting. This seems really weird to me, but multiple people have noticed a quality difference, and that's the simplest explanation I can think of. Perhaps 480x480 really is a supported HDMI resolution, but I would have expected display devices to choke on that.
- LoopinFool


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> You have to reread the thread. There is already a setting combination that will make the HR20 output "true native" 4:3 480i video and "true native" 720p & 1080i 16:9 video automatically without having to change anything on the HR20 when going between those 3 different types of sources, so technically there is nothing that D* needs to do to give you what you need, but as has been pointed out, using those settings creates situations where the guide and menus won't display correctly, which is probably why it's not a setting supported by D*.


Not true when switching between SD 4x3 and HD.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Ok folks, based on the the post here and I completely rewrote the letter. For those who still do not see my problem please read post 1. I sure hope it helps. Then, if you want to help, please write to Directv for the poor folks suffering through this.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

mgavs said:


> Not true when switching between SD 4x3 and HD.


Yes it is. I've done it. With the suggested settings, the HR20 will output 480i 4:3 video when watching an SD source and will output 720p or 1080i 16:9 video when watching an HD source.... all without having to switch anything on the HR20 when switching between SD and HD sources.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

LoopinFool said:


> Wow, here we go again!
> 
> mgavs, please don't jump on me -- I agree with you now. :eek2:
> 
> ...


Sure would be nice to verify what resolutions are actually output as the various settings are changed...

Otherwise, as you mention, a lot of conjecture...

If it is just an HDMI AR tagging issue (which it may be) why this can't be ignored in the scaler is beyond me. The manual for the VP50 clearly states it is possible. Whether you can do that in the case of the TV -- that depends on the TV you have.

But it would be nice to know whether the output on HDMI is any different in the case of 480i SD in "stretch" mode depending on whether 4:3 or 16:9 is selected (excepting for the AR flag, which by conjecture we are concluding is set based on the TV aspect configuration in the HRs setup menu -- I'm wondering about the actual frame data/resolution). I don't think we have a definitive answer to that question yet.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Yes it is. I've done it. With the suggested settings, the HR20 will output 480i 4:3 video when watching an SD source and will output 720p or 1080i 16:9 video when watching an HD source.... all without having to switch anything on the HR20 when switching between SD and HD sources.


You can't get SD 480 4x3 to output as 480 4x3 with HDTV set to 16x9 without crop, pillar, or stretch. The TV shows the input signal 480 16x9. If you do not see the problem that's great for you but I need letters from those who would like to see the fix, that's all.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> Sure would be nice to verify what resolutions are actually output as the various settings are changed...
> 
> Otherwise, as you mention, a lot of conjecture...
> 
> ...


I can and have verified everything using the scaler. But I sure would like people to drop it, if you read the letter it's not the scaler. I don't know why some people don't understand I am just asking for non-modified signals. Some want the TV to fix the problem. Not a solution here.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

mgavs said:


> You can't get SD 480 4x3 to output as 480 4x3 with HDTV set to 16x9 without crop, pillar, or stretch. The TV shows the input signal 480 16x9. If you do not see the problem that's great for you but I need letters from those who would like to see the fix, that's all.


Those are not the settings that you have been told will give you what you need.

If you would rather write letters than use the solution provided in this thread, great for you, but that looks like an unnecessary exercise in futility.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Folks, I was looking for support here. I know many have tried to help and part of the confusion was my reference to native resolution instead of aspect ratio. If you don't have the problem that's great for you. But it is real and I have it here on 2 TVs. At least a couple of people posted here they saw it as well. I really would prefer people sympathetic to the problem write to Directv. There is no other solution or workaround available here, regardless of what some might think. I have been working on this for 3 straight weeks and need letters. Many thanks to all who tried to help.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Those are not the settings that you have been told will give you what you need.
> 
> If you would rather write letters than use the solution provided in this thread, great for you, but that looks like an unnecessary exercise in futility.


I am sorry you feel that way since we will never see eye to eye on this. Thanks for you attempts though.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

LoopinFool said:


> Wow, here we go again!
> 
> mgavs, please don't jump on me -- I agree with you now. :eek2:
> 
> ...


I think youre on to something with the tagging issue. But I think it's intentional on the HR20s part since it always adds crop, pillar or stretch to the picture. BTW, boy am I glad to see a couple of people saw a difference! And thanks for the aggreement, it helps my frustration a lot!


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

mgavs said:


> I am sorry you feel that way since we will never see eye to eye on this. Thanks for you attempts though.


It's not a matter of how I feel. I completely understand what you want and why you want it, and I am trying to help you to recognise that no changes to the HR20 are necessary to get what you want, but the fact that in your previous reply to me you still didn't understand what the HR20 settings have to be to get what you want is troubling.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

LarryEH said:


> I'd be curious to know how the Sony HD200 handled this and why it was so different.


When the Sony is set to Variable 1 and Normal (the equivalent of native) it always outputs 480 4x3 as such. It never expanded 480 4x3 to 480 16x9 as the HR20 does. I verified this with the VP which showed 480i 4x3, even though the display was set to 16x9. This allowed the TV or processor to do the work. I kept the Sony to use as an OTA receiver.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Since my Sony displays aspect ratio and using native "on":
With 16:9 set, both HD & SD channels are tagged 16:9
With 4:3 set, SD is tagged 4:3, while HD is tagged 16:9


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## kwsmithphoto (Oct 19, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> The Phillips plasma is 16:9, but doesn't have a DVI input?


It does, I just haven't gotten around to trying it with an HDMI adapter yet.



> Why do you have it set to "standard" TV instead of 16:9?


Good question, I just changed it which did absolutely nothing, it was always running at 16:9 anyway, even with a composite source! Apparently it resamples everything without changing the AR.



> In the setup menu how many resolutions does the monitor support? Clearly it supports 480p, but what about 720p?...When I looked at plasmas five years ago, there were no plasmas that had 1080i native resolutions. While yours may accept a 1080i signal, it is scaling it down to fit your screen. You may get a better image if you use 720p, as it should fit the native screen resolution better [there is no point to scaling an image any more than needed]. There are two scaler involved: the HR-20 and your plasma. Native "on or off" is for which one you want to use [mostly for SD programing].


I don't know what it's native resolution is because it's not in the manual, but it "supports" - without it's companion tuner but over component - virtually everything up to 1080i including 720x576 i and p which isn't used by anything, as far as I know. The system is old and strange but cost $5000 for a 42" display, including the oddball VGA tuner thing, so my guess is it was the best one in the store she went to at the time (Magnolia's first store in LA). My -guess- is that it's 720p native though since the display syncs faster to that than it does it 1080i. Can't tell much about image quality during the day, the room is too bright, but I'll investigate that later.



> Native off uses the HR-20, so there is no format functions when tuned to either 720p or 1080i HD channels. If they use "side bars", you have no adjustments. If you are tuned to an SD channel, then the HR-20 remote will stretch, crop, or pillar box, if HDTV is set to 16:9. If set to 4:3, the SD has no format functions and HD has stretch, crop & letter box. [FWIW: I just set mine to prove this again].
> Your plasma has similar format functions, so you need to find which settings between the HR-20 and your plasma that give you the image you want. With my TV that is "full" [the others are normal, zoom, wide zoom]. Each maker has their own names and slightly different options.
> Native on is for when you want to have the TV do the scaling and you select the resolutions your TV supports in the HR-20.
> I only use "crop or zoom" for SD letter box programing, and then use my TV for it as it does a much better job, but the GUI [guide, menus DVR controls] will off screen, while using it. Using the HR-20 crop will keep them on screen.
> Give the way the HR-20 functions, "I'm a bit curious" about your settings. I'd spend some time and play with all of them to see what looks best. If you still have questions, either post or send me a PM.


Apparently what I posted about Native On or Off above is incorrect - now if I set Native to On, the HR20 puts out 1080i, 720p, or 480i, depending on the source. Must have had something else set wrong since I just went in and told the HR20 that the display accepts everything, so now it switches. In any case, the display always rescales without changing the AR, as I mentioned above, whether Native is on or off.

There is no Format button on the display's remote, just Zoom. If I go into it's menu, Format, Sync, and Phase are all blanked out. Apparently, the display gets that info over the composite cables and disables the user controls.

Thanks for your offer of offline help, I just might take you up on it! But for now I'm going to run it for a while with Native On and let the HR20 follow the source and see how it looks tonight. That didn't work before and now it does. Very strange!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

kwsmithphoto said:


> Thanks for your offer of offline help, I just might take you up on it! But for now I'm going to run it for a while with Native On and let the HR20 follow the source and see how it looks tonight. That didn't work before and now it does. Very strange!


Feel free to since we don't want to hijack this thread.
You might try "un-check" 1080i and let the HR-20 output it in 720p. It would [should] reduce the number of scaling steps for 1080i signals.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Since my Sony displays aspect ratio and using native "on":
> With 16:9 set, both HD & SD channels are tagged 16:9
> With 4:3 set, SD is tagged 4:3, while HD is tagged 16:9


Wow, _that_ sounds eerily like what the OP would need in order to be able to do his scaling outside of the HR20. Someone should tell him.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

deleted


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Since my Sony displays aspect ratio and using native "on":
> With 16:9 set, both HD & SD channels are tagged 16:9
> With 4:3 set, SD is tagged 4:3, while HD is tagged 16:9


I can't understand the confusion some have. That's basically what's in my letter. Someone needs to read it slowly and carefully. With 4x3 set, HD has bars on top/bottom. BTW, this is the reason I hate "email meetings" with clients, a few minutes on the phone is worth days of email sometimes.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> I can't understand the confusion some have. That's basically what's in my letter. Someone needs to read it slowly and carefully. With 4x3 set, HD has bars on top/bottom. BTW, this is the reason I hate "email meetings" with clients, a few minutes on the phone is worth days of email sometimes.


Now I don't have "your setup", but I just tried this on mine:
HDTV set to standard 4:3
Stretch mode.
HD doesn't have bars top & bottom.

Try this with yours.


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

mgavs said:


> I can't understand the confusion some have. That's basically what's in my letter. Someone needs to read it slowly and carefully. With 4x3 set, HD has bars on top/bottom. BTW, this is the reason I hate "email meetings" with clients, a few minutes on the phone is worth days of email sometimes.


I can understand the frustration.

But 98% of the TVs out there have no problem with this.

You, rather unfortunately, have both a $3000 scaler and probably equally expensive TV that are mis-interpreting the signal coming from the HR20. Sucks to be you. But not the fault of D*.

There is no aspect ratio information coming from HR20.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Redlinetire said:


> There is no aspect ratio information coming from HR20.


Then what does my Sony trigger on over HDMI?
The same settings on my TV and same SD channel will display 16:9 or 4:3 depending on the settings in my HR-20.
I must think there IS a flag or bit being sent from the HR-20, since the image size never changed.


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## ub1934 (Dec 30, 2005)

LarryFlowers said:


> I am somewhat perplexed by this and other threads I have read with information about the "Stretchovision".
> 
> I have my HR20-700 set to 16x9, Native, Pillar Box, and 720 & 1080 resolutions.
> 
> ...


I have the same set up but i keep 480 P also , my Sony seems to like the 480P output from the HR 20-700 HDMI out better then the 480 I, the SD 4x3 chs NASA MSNBC ect look much better this way .


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

Redlinetire said:


> ...
> There is no aspect ratio information coming from HR20.


Don't think that is true in the case of HDMI.

HDMI being a recent digital standard, it is to not unreasonable to believe that they setup a way to communicate aspect ratio.

If you look back a few pages (in a post by me), there's an excerpt from the VP50 manual where it talks about an "AutoAR" feature of HDMI, how the information can be invalid, and how you can setup the VP50 to ignore it. It makes specific mention of HDMI. I don't think they'd put it in the manual if it wasn't a real feature. And I don't think they'd put the feature in if HDMI couldn't carry AR information...


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Then what does my Sony trigger on over HDMI?
> The same settings on my TV and same SD channel will display 16:9 or 4:3 depending on the settings in my HR-20.
> I must think there IS a flag or bit being sent from the HR-20, since the image size never changed.


It seems, based on what others have posted, that when the HR20 is set to 16x9, it sends out a 720x480 signal.

When set to 4x3, it sends out the same signal at 640x480.

I have no doubt, based on these reports, that some TVs are seeing the 720x480 signal and are assuming it's 16x9. Evidently the scaler has the same problem. And I'm sure the D* engineers *HAVE* heard of it. The change D* would have to make is to always send 640x480.

But since 98% of TVs (a guess based on no real data!) don't have a problem, and take both signals as 4x3 they're likely not to do anything soon unless it can be fixed in software. And maybe it can. But clearly this just isn't a big enough problem, or else they would have fixed it a long time ago..


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> Don't think that is true in the case of HDMI.
> 
> HDMI being a recent digital standard, it is to not unreasonable to believe that they setup a way to communicate aspect ratio.
> 
> If you look back a few pages (in a post by me), there's an excerpt from the VP50 manual where it talks about an "AutoAR" feature of HDMI, how the information can be invalid, and how you can setup the VP50 to ignore it. It makes specific mention of HDMI. I don't think they'd put it in the manual if it wasn't a real feature. And I don't think they'd put the feature in if HDMI couldn't carry AR information...


HDMI may have the capability. But the standard definition television signal has no AR information in it. And I thought it was reported this was a problem with HDMI or component...but I may be mistaken. And this thread is too freakin' long to look it up! :lol:


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Now I don't have "your setup", but I just tried this on mine:
> HDTV set to standard 4:3
> Stretch mode.
> HD doesn't have bars top & bottom.
> ...


I tested everything in the past 3 weeks. But to humor some here, I just ran this test again right now with my wife. We already know that if 4x3 and pillar are set then HD gets bars top/bottom. And if 4x3 and STRETCH HD does not get bars. In fact, _on some HD channels there is little difference and on others there is a visible difference in quality_ between 4x3 and 16x9 settings. My wife just sat on the couch 14 feet from the TV and I ran the test between 4x3 and 16x9 with STRETCH on HD only. Again, some channels had little difference such as CNNHD while others such as HDNET showed a visible difference here. So.... since I spent so much money and time in the last 5 years on this stuff I want everything (video and sound) to be the best possible. Through all these tests, my letter states what provided the best images. Some may see no difference and that's great for them, but they should not be telling me what I see. BTW, if it makes any difference I was a radio/TV repairman and now in computers for 30 years. This stuff is not rocket science and I know how to perform tests. There is no mystery here, just a minor option needed on the HR20 to help some of us get a better picture. I feel like I'm on a mousewheel here going nowhere fast. If some of you don't see what I see fine. But don't argue that I am not seeing it when you're not here. I notice no one volunteered to write, even the ones who made the change and saw an improvement. Letters are what we need to fix this for those of us who experience it. Many thanks to VOS for really trying to figure this out, and to the few people who made changes and found improvement.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Redlinetire said:


> HDMI may have the capability. But the standard definition television signal has no AR information in it. And I thought it was reported this was a problem with HDMI or component...but I may be mistaken. And this thread is too freakin' long to look it up! :lol:


So you're saying you're a light weight? :lol: 
The first time this was "kicked to death" took over 250 postings, and that was with just using the 16:9 setting.
This can easily match that one since this is for the 4:3 setting. :eek2:


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> So you're saying you're a light weight? :lol:
> The first time this was "kicked to death" took over 250 postings, and that was with just using the 16:9 setting.
> This can easily match that one since this is for the 4:3 setting. :eek2:


I bet of the HR20 had the option I am requesting these types of threads (4x3, aspect) will be cut by 80 percent. Just piling on more posts won't get this fixed.


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

mgavs said:


> I bet of the HR20 had the option I am requesting these types of threads (4x3, aspect) will be cut by 80 percent. Just piling on more posts won't get this fixed.


I can't tell if you simply are complaining about the _quality_ of the HR20 output.

OR

That the HR20 sends you only 16x9. (which it doesn't for most of us)

OR

Your equipment can't handle 720x480 properly.
(Which the guy on AVSForum said was the problem).

Or it's a combination of all the above.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> I tested everything in the past 3 weeks. But to humor some here, I just ran this test again right now with my wife. We already know that if 4x3 and pillar are set then HD gets bars top/bottom. And if 4x3 and STRETCH HD does not get bars. In fact, _on some HD channels there is little difference and on others there is a visible difference in quality_ between 4x3 and 16x9 settings. My wife just sat on the couch 14 feet from the TV and I ran the test between 4x3 and 16x9 with STRETCH on HD only. Again, some channels had little difference such as CNNHD while others such as HDNET showed a visible difference here. So.... since I spent so much money and time in the last 5 years on this stuff I want everything (video and sound) to be the best possible. Through all these tests, my letter states what provided the best images. Some may see no difference and that's great for them, but they should not be telling me what I see. BTW, if it makes any difference I was a radio/TV repairman and now in computers for 30 years. This stuff is not rocket science and I know how to perform tests. There is no mystery here, just a minor option needed on the HR20 to help some of us get a better picture. I feel like I'm on a mousewheel here going nowhere fast. If you don't see what I see fine. But don't argue that I am not seeing it when you're not here. I notice no one volunteered to write, even the ones who made the change and saw an improvement. Letters are what we need to fix this for those of us who experience it.


Well, I can match my thirty years with.... but it isn't the point.
I've had a HD receiver from D* that wouldn't work for both SD and HD [requiring me to change 4:3 to 16:9] so it didn't last long, and I think I understand your point.
What I don't understand is how [or why] you think a letter writing campaign will do anything. I've had CSRs give me the same "line" and written.
"general" consensus here seems to be about 2% have the issue, and 100% of the VP50 uses would along with "some" percentage of your TV owners.
Some still think the VP50 can be set and I wonder if the software update for it has any effect. They seem to be still refining it.
I'm afraid you will be feeling like you're on a mousewheel, until you get to the right place to get this addressed.
Good luck with your letters.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

mgavs said:


> I can't understand the confusion some have. That's basically what's in my letter. Someone needs to read it slowly and carefully. With 4x3 set, HD has bars on top/bottom.


Not if you set the HR20 format to "Stretch" while displaying HD output, which by the way doesn't stretch anything when the HR20 AR is set to 4:3..... it actually turns off the "squeeze and insert letterbox bars" processing within the HR20 when outputting HD source and the HR20 then outputs the full HD frame in either 720p or 1080i with no letterbox bars.... which seems to be what you want.


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

So, I think the question(s) that we are down to, are these:

Is the _actual video signal_ different when using 16:9/stretch vs. using 4:3 mode on the HR20? Or, is the only difference the AR flag?

I still don't think there is any difference (when using component) between the 16:9 version and the 4:3 version. There is certainly no qualitative difference that I am capable of seeing. _Is there really a resolution difference between these two modes when using HDMI (720x480 vs. 640x480)?_ Or, again, is it just the flag?

I would be very curious to know the result if mgavs could set up the VP50 to ignore the AutoAR flag, as RehabMan suggested. This could show if the signal is really different, or if the difference is just how the scaler is handling the signal because it is making an assumption based on the flag.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

Redlinetire said:


> HDMI may have the capability. But the standard definition television signal has no AR information in it. And I thought it was reported this was a problem with HDMI or component...but I may be mistaken. And this thread is too freakin' long to look it up! :lol:


I think the OP is only using HDMI. I don't think he'd have this problem with component, because as you state there is no AR info in the signal. But, of course, that woudn't get him the "best picture possible."

Looking at the manual for his TV, there's a bunch of features on this set for auto-detecting the AR such that things can be letterboxed, de-pillarboxed, pillarboxed, stretched, scaled, nipped, tucked, and munged... Some of which happen automatically if you enable certain features such as AutoSize, SideMask Detection, etc.

Of course there are also manual controls...

mgavs: What settings are you using to display HD on your set? I'd like to know why you are getting letterboxed HD... Willing to bet it is your set and/or scaler and not the HR20.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Well, I can match my thirty years with.... but it isn't the point.
> I've had a HD receiver from D* that wouldn't work for both SD and HD [requiring me to change 4:3 to 16:9] so it didn't last long, and I think I understand your point.
> What I don't understand is how [or why] you think a letter writing campaign will do anything. I've had CSRs give me the same "line" and written.
> "general" consensus here seems to be about 2% have the issue, and 100% of the VP50 uses would along with "some" percentage of your TV owners.
> ...


I didn't not talk to a CSR, I wrote the letter to the DirecTV Office of President. The next week I was called by a man who said he spoke with another person and engineering and understood my issue. He said that they understood that a certain demographic needed this. He said they that engineering would take a look but if more people wrote in then it would be given a higher priority. I am only requesting what the person at DirecTV said should be done to move the issue up the ladder. BTW, after talking to CSRs over the years I just about dropped dead when I got the call and not only did the person agree but spent almost an hour on the phine with me. And, he was _very_ knowledgeable.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Not if you set the HR20 format to "Stretch" while displaying HD output, which by the way doesn't stretch anything when the HR20 AR is set to 4:3..... it actually turns off the "squeeze and insert letterbox bars" processing within the HR20 when outputting HD source and the HR20 then outputs the full HD frame in either 720p or 1080i with no letterbox bars.... which seems to be what you want.


Please see my test results above. What you say would seem obvious but there is a quality issue I can't explain.


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> I think the OP is only using HDMI. I don't think he'd have this problem with component, because as you state there is no AR info in the signal. But, of course, that woudn't get him the "best picture possible."


Funny, when I bought my 'ancient' CRT (5 years ago?) the sales guy told me NOT to use the DVI connection on it. (I don't think HDMI was out yet). He said "every manufacturer does it different and half of them just threw it in so they can market it that way. Doesn't mean it works well. Component is by far the best picture because they've been doing it a lot longer..."

And so far, in my opinion, the guy was right!


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cygnusloop said:


> So, I think the question(s) that we are down to, are these:
> 
> Is the _actual video signal_ different when using 16:9/stretch vs. using 4:3 mode on the HR20? Or, is the only difference the AR flag?
> 
> ...


The test I mentioned above shows a difference. As for the flag, during the test the flag was always 1080i. But I did not note other things such as color (444), frequencies, etc. to see if they were different.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> I think the OP is only using HDMI. I don't think he'd have this problem with component, because as you state there is no AR info in the signal. But, of course, that woudn't get him the "best picture possible."
> 
> Looking at the manual for his TV, there's a bunch of features on this set for auto-detecting the AR such that things can be letterboxed, de-pillarboxed, pillarboxed, stretched, scaled, nipped, tucked, and munged... Some of which happen automatically if you enable certain features such as AutoSize, SideMask Detection, etc.
> 
> ...


Please see test above as to why we get letterboxed, HR20 was set to pillar to detect 4x3 quickly so we could make the HDTV change. When set to STRETCH no boxes but minor (but unacceptable) quality issue.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cygnusloop said:


> So, I think the question(s) that we are down to, are these:
> 
> Is the _actual video signal_ different when using 16:9/stretch vs. using 4:3 mode on the HR20? Or, is the only difference the AR flag?
> 
> ...


Like before we seem to have part of the DBSTalk "brain trust" working here.
So far it seems:
there are now two "work-a-rounds" to use the TV scalers for stretching SD. Like before "stretch" seems like a poor label, but resolves the issue. 16:9 or 4:3.
This seems to solve ALL of the problems with TVs, but not the problem with the VP50.
Now this may be just the "blonde" in me, but doesn't it look like a problem with the VP50?


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

cygnusloop said:


> So, I think the question(s) that we are down to, are these:
> 
> Is the _actual video signal_ different when using 16:9/stretch vs. using 4:3 mode on the HR20? Or, is the only difference the AR flag?
> 
> ...


ding. ding. ding....

Thanks for summarizing where we are. I concur.

Not sure how we are really going to find out what the heck the difference is, as none of us seem to have the equipment necessary to test it. What we need is some kind of HDMI detective device that would tell you the technical info about the signal currently being rec'd. Somebody probably makes one, but it is probably expensive.

If I was to bet, I'd bet this is just a AR tag/flag issue across HDMI and that there is no difference in the actual frame resolution or image quality.

Now getting the display/scaler in question here to do the right thing, ignore the [bad - if you want to call it that] tag/flag... that's another thing.

BTW, mgavs... have you tried setting your "screen size" (Pioneer's term for viewing format) as is outlined on page 68 and 69 of your user manual? And... do double check you've got the HR20 in stretch when doing that test for HD in 4:3 mode (don't be afraid of 'stretch' -- it ain't stretchin' nothin')...


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> ding. ding. ding....
> 
> BTW, mgavs... have you tried setting your "screen size" (Pioneer's term for viewing format) as is outlined on page 68 and 69 of your user manual? And... do double check you've got the HR20 in stretch when doing that test for HD in 4:3 mode (don't be afraid of 'stretch' -- it ain't stretchin' nothin')...


Please, I am not that dumb, every combination of settings have been tested over 3 weeks (since I got the HR20s). Please see my test for VOS above.


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## TITAN_53 (Jul 23, 2007)

I know this has probably already been said but im too lazy to look back through all the posts but what i want to know is with native on is that the hr20 scaling or the tv scaling??


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

mgavs said:


> every combination of settings have been tested over 3 weeks (since I got the HR20s)


Including trying your tests with a component feed instead of HDMI?


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

mgavs said:


> The test I mentioned above shows a difference. As for the flag, during the test the flag was always 1080i. But I did not note other things such as color (444), frequencies, etc. to see if they were different.


I think you misunderstood my (well, RehabMans) suggestion. The core question here, I think, is if there is truly a difference in the video signal for SD programming when the HR20 is set to 4:3 mode vs. 16:9 mode. Or, is the difference that you are seeing a result of how the processors that you are using (be it the VP or your HDTV) react to the _aspect ratio flag_ (not resolution).

The suggestion was to convince your VP to ignore the _AutoAR_ information in the HDMI signal that _could be_ causing the problem, as the HR20 seems to be setting that flag based on the 16:9/4:3 setting, instead of the OAR of the program (if that info is even available).

What I am suggesting, is the possibility that the video signal is actually the same, but the AR flag is causing your scalers to behave in an unwanted fashion. I understand that you are convinced that the signal itself is different, but that just doesn't fit with most everyone else's experience. I didn't see that this avenue had been pursued by reading your previous posts.

Sure, it's possible that DIRECTV could fix this, but there may still be a way for you to help yourself in the mean time.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

cygnusloop said:


> I think you misunderstood my (well, RehabMans) suggestion. The core question here, I think, is if there is truly a difference in the video signal for SD programming when the HR20 is set to 4:3 mode vs. 16:9 mode. Or, is the difference that you are seeing a result of how the processors that you are using (be it the VP or your HDTV) react to the _aspect ratio flag_ (not resolution).


Actually what he's saying now is that he thinks that there is a difference in the *HD* signal when the HR20 AR is set to 4:3 as opposed to 16:9. Others don't see it, but he says he does.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

wprince614 said:


> I know this has probably already been said but im too lazy to look back through all the posts but what i want to know is with native on is that the hr20 scaling or the tv scaling??


With "native on", the only "scaling" done by the HR-20 is from the SAT data to the output resolution intended by the program provider. D* compresses some resolutions to less than what was intended. Some 1080i [1920 x 1080] is sent over the SAT as 1280 x 1080 & 480i [640 x 480] is sent over the SAT as 480 x 480.
If pillar box is used for SD programing, there is NO issues. If a user wants to use their TV or other scaler to stretch the SD image, then this is where this topic comes in. There are two work-a-rounds that make the TV scaler work, but so far the OP hasn't been able to have their external scaler [VP50] function to their desire.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

mgavs said:


> I tested everything in the past 3 weeks. But to humor some here, I just ran this test again right now with my wife.


As you requested, I'm looking at the test you mention in this post... I must have missed it before.



> We already know that if 4x3 and pillar are set then HD gets bars top/bottom.


There is no pillarbar setting with the HR20 set to 4:3. Only crop, letterbox, and stretch. If you previously had 16x9 mode set and pillarbar, then pillarbar automatically changes to letterbox when you select 4:3 from setup.



> And if 4x3 and STRETCH HD does not get bars.


Whew! One mystery solved. You don't get letterboxed HD content when the HR20 is in 4:3 native stretch mode. This is a great advance! It would have been nice had you mentioned that you were using 480i/letterbox in 4:3 mode and were getting letterbox on HD content therefore making staying in 4:3 mode unworkable. Sheesh!



> In fact, _on some HD channels there is little difference and on others there is a visible difference in quality_ between 4x3 and 16x9 settings. My wife just sat on the couch 14 feet from the TV and I ran the test between 4x3 and 16x9 with STRETCH on HD only. Again, some channels had little difference such as CNNHD while others such as HDNET showed a visible difference here. So.... since I spent so much money and time in the last 5 years on this stuff I want everything (video and sound) to be the best possible.


I don't notice anything different between HD with HR20 set to 4:3 vs. 16:9. I had my TV set to dot-for-dot mode (well, it calls it full screen for 720p, since it is a 1080p TV).

Note that it is very difficult to do an A/B test like this where there is such a significant time required to make the change.



> Through all these tests, my letter states what provided the best images. Some may see no difference and that's great for them, but they should not be telling me what I see. BTW, if it makes any difference I was a radio/TV repairman and now in computers for 30 years. This stuff is not rocket science and I know how to perform tests. There is no mystery here, just a minor option needed on the HR20 to help some of us get a better picture. I feel like I'm on a mousewheel here going nowhere fast. If some of you don't see what I see fine. But don't argue that I am not seeing it when you're not here. I notice no one volunteered to write, even the ones who made the change and saw an improvement. Letters are what we need to fix this for those of us who experience it. Many thanks to VOS for really trying to figure this out, and to the few people who made changes and found improvement.


I'd like to help you out here, but I don't see anything real to complain about.


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## TITAN_53 (Jul 23, 2007)

So does native on= hr20 scaling and native off= tv scaling for vice versa?


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

wprince614 said:


> So does native on= hr20 scaling and native off= tv scaling for vice versa?


native on = hr20 does "less" scaling, scaling as necessary depending on your settings in Setup.HDTV.Resolutions tab.

native off = hr20 always scales to selected resolution/format as determined by your finger and the format button (selections available with the format button being determined by Setup.HDTV.Resolutions tab)


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

wprince614 said:


> So does native on= hr20 scaling and native off= tv scaling for vice versa?


other way around.
"Native on" sends the signal out the way it was meant.
"Native off" means you manually select the output resolution and the HR-20 send what ever the program comes in that resolution. SD can be sent in 1080i, or 720p, and HD can be sent in 480i or 480p.
It all depends on what you select.


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## TITAN_53 (Jul 23, 2007)

So since i have a 1080p tv and that is not a resolution on the rec. what is the best way to set the rec. options for native? Currently i have native off and resolution 1080i


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

wprince614 said:


> So does native on= hr20 scaling and native off= tv scaling for vice versa?


Native=on works in conjunction with the resolutions you have selected under HDTV resolutions.

When Native is set to on, the HR20 automatically changes the output to match the original resolution of the program, or if that resolution is de-selected, the next higher resolution. When Native=OFF, the HR20 does not change resolutions automatically. You must manually change them by pressing the FORMAT button on the remote. You will be able to cycle through all the enabled resolutions.

Here is a couple examples (assume native=on, all resolutions selected, and using a 1080p HDTV):

Watching an SD program in 480i: The native 480i is sent to the TV, and it is de-interlaced, and scaled by the TV to 1080p.

Watching a 720p program: The HR send the 720p to the TV where it is scaled to 1080p and displayed.

Watching a 1080i program: The HR sends the 1080i to the TV where it is de- interlaced and displayed at 1080p.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

It all depends on your TV. You might get a better picture by turning native=on and selecting more resolutions in setup.

The only way to find out is to try different settings and decide what you like best.


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## TITAN_53 (Jul 23, 2007)

So with native off the hr is scaling everything to 1080i and then the tv is scaling it again to 1080p right?


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

wprince614 said:


> So with native off the hr is scaling everything to 1080i and then the tv is scaling it again to 1080p right?


Assuming you have only 1080i selected that is close.

Technically, the HR is scaling everything to 1080i, maybe with crop or pillarbox, then your tv is *de-interlacing* it to 1080p.


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## TITAN_53 (Jul 23, 2007)

Ah ok. Believe it or not im fairly technical just never paid attention to all the scaling and de-interlacing stuff until i looked at these posts. Ive tried both ways before and dont see much of a difference on my tv either way but just wanted to know technical wise what the settings were doing. Thanks for the info.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Actually what he's saying now is that he thinks that there is a difference in the *HD* signal when the HR20 AR is set to 4:3 as opposed to 16:9. Others don't see it, but he says he does.


Bingo. I can't tell you why and sometimes it's not noticeable sometimes it is depending on the channel. Not an HR20 hw issue since I have 2 connected to the same TV and both have identical results. I also wanted to add this: I may be seeing more of a difference because I am testing on the 60 inch which obviously expands any problem.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

wprince614 said:


> Ah ok. Believe it or not im fairly technical just never paid attention to all the scaling and de-interlacing stuff until i looked at these posts. Ive tried both ways before and dont see much of a difference on my tv either way but just wanted to know technical wise what the settings were doing. Thanks for the info.


As others have said it depends. The best thing to do is record a show that you can replay. Then test as many combinations as possible with native on and off and setting 480-1080 differently. The reason is that depending on the source, the HR20 may be better or TV may be better at a given resolution. For instance, the HR20 may be better then your TV at 480 but the TV may be better at 720. So it takes time to get it just right. In my case the shows all look better with NATIVE and 480-1080 all set.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

A true test would be to place two identical TVs side by side each hooked up to a different HR20, one set at 4:3 and one at 16:9. Then do a side by side A/B compare on them (native, stretch, various HD content). To account for hardware differences between the two setups, swap the TVs around, then do another side by side A/B compare.

Any body got 2 HR20s and 2 identical TVs to do this test?


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> A true test would be to place two identical TVs side by side each hooked up to a different HR20, one set at 4:3 and one at 16:9. Then do a side by side A/B compare on them (native, stretch, various HD content). To account for hardware differences between the two setups, swap the TVs around, then do another side by side A/B compare.
> 
> Any body got 2 HR20s and 2 identical TVs to do this test?


I don't need to do this since on some channels the difference was seen by my wife, and _she didn't know what I was doing._


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> A true test would be to place two identical TVs side by side each hooked up to a different HR20, one set at 4:3 and one at 16:9. Then do a side by side A/B compare on them (native, stretch, various HD content). To account for hardware differences between the two setups, swap the TVs around, then do another side by side A/B compare.


There is another factor to eliminate.
Have this be a "blind" test. The viewer should not know what TV has what settings.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> There is another factor to eliminate.
> Have this be a "blind" test. The viewer should not know what TV has what settings.


....and should include cases where both TVs are running with the identical setup in addition to the two different setups, which will demonstrate that some people will "see" a difference even when there is no difference.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cartrivision said:


> ....and should include cases where both TVs are running with the identical setup in addition to the two different setups, which will demonstrate that some people will "see" a difference even when there is no difference.


I changed mine in the setup from 480i to 480p [unchecked 480i]. I watched the program for a while and decided it looked better. Then I noticed the box was still in 480i [since I hadn't changed channels].
The power of suggestion. :lol:


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

Here's something:

We all know that when the HR20 changes resolutions, there's a lot of fireworks while the HR20, and then the display (particularly if HDMI is involved) re-adjust to the new resolution. Right? It has been surmised that when Format=Pillarbox the HR20 is sending 720x480 (or perhaps lines intended to be viewed 16:9), and when Format=Stretch the HR20 is sending 640x480 (or lines intended to be viewed at 4:3).

When watching a 480 SD channel, and I cycle through the available 480 formats the change from pillarbox to stretch is nearly instantaneous, as in no resolution change is being made.

_What does this say about the horizontal resolution of a line of video?_

My brain hurts at the moment, but this would seem to be a clue to what is actually going on "under the hood"


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

cygnusloop said:


> Here's something:
> 
> We all know that when the HR20 changes resolutions, there's a lot of fireworks while the HR20, and then the display (particularly if HDMI is involved) re-adjust to the new resolution. Right? It has been surmised that when Format=Pillarbox the HR20 is sending 720x480 (or perhaps lines intended to be viewed 16:9), and when Format=Stretch the HR20 is sending 640x480 (or lines intended to be viewed at 4:3).
> 
> ...


Uh. Yeah. Probably always 720, eh? Or at least always the same thing. Or displays are really fast at syncing to new horizontal timings.

Who knows... Too bad somebody from D* engineering couldn't just pipe in here and answer the question for good.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

Here's a fun thought:

In another thread:



> > Originally Posted by Jeremy W
> > Then what does it do in pillar box mode? Squash the picture? Come on now.
> 
> 
> ...


I was just thinking what the HR might do in 4:3 mode, if it does something different than the above. If it, amazingly, created a 640x480 frame for 4:3 mode:
[more math on scrap paper]. In order to generate a 640x480 image from the 480x480 source, the HR could just blt (copy unmodified) the 480x480 image then add 80 black pixels on each side (80+480+80=640). Wow! That's the unmodified 480x480 original source material in there. And for the case of "stretch" mode it would have to scale the 480x480 to the 640x480. In this case the better image [in the case of outboard scaler or really good TV scaler] would be obtained by extracting the 480x480 buried in the pillar box image and scaling that to the native panel res.

OK, this is making my brain hurt... and all for SD content, which I try to not even watch. I think it is time to go to bed... and... watch some HD!


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> Uh. Yeah. Probably always 720, eh? Or at least always the same thing. Or displays are really fast at syncing to new horizontal timings.


Well, my TV displays the resolution being received, and it always displays 720x480 for an SD source coming from the HR20 regardless of the format setting or the aspect ratio setting on the HR20. The only thing that changes the SD resolution coming from my HR20 is turning off native.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Well, my TV displays the resolution being received, and it always displays 720x480 for an SD source coming from the HR20 regardless of the format setting or the aspect ratio setting on the HR20. The only thing that changes the SD resolution coming from my HR20 is turning off native.


Wish my TV did that. Have you ever fed it a 640x480 source, just to see if it recognizes it and displays it as such? I ask just because even if my TV did display horizontal resolution, I woudn't trust it until I could verify it was accurate. Component or HDMI?


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

One additonal note here. 

If, in fact, SD has to be run at 720x480, what we'd really want for those folks with fancy scalers and TVs with super-flexible scalers would be for the HR to output a signal that has 720 horizontal pixels but preserves the original 480x480 image. It could do something as simple as output the 480x480 image with a blank 240 pixel right side (right-only pillar?). A smartly configured scaler/TV would extract the 480x480 on the left side and do what it wants to with it, ignoring the black on the right.

Fat chance that ever gets out of the D* lab, though...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

For anybody that has seen what the 480 x 480 image does look like [from hacked boxes it has been posted in HD lite threads], there is NO WAY what we're seeing from the output is 480 x 480.
As to the changes between [say] 720 and 640, in timing [or lack of buffer delay], since the video is coming in a "line" [whether p or i], the line either is longer [analog] or has more bits [digital].
The "sync time" changing channels has to do with the vertical resolution change that requires the scalers to "dump", determine what is the resolution [ever watch the resolution lights on the HR-20 cycle?] and start all over in both the HR-20 and the TV.


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## cartrivision (Jul 25, 2007)

RehabMan said:


> Wish my TV did that. Have you ever fed it a 640x480 source, just to see if it recognizes it and displays it as such? I ask just because even if my TV did display horizontal resolution, I woudn't trust it until I could verify it was accurate. Component or HDMI?


It only displays the resolution for the HDMI and component inputs, and I don't have any devices that put out a 640x480 signal on HDMI or component, so I've never seen that resolution reported, but it does correctly display the resolution for 1080i or 720p HD sources.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> Wish my TV did that. Have you ever fed it a 640x480 source, just to see if it recognizes it and displays it as such? I ask just because even if my TV did display horizontal resolution, I woudn't trust it until I could verify it was accurate. Component or HDMI?


You can't get anymore 640 x 480 than NTSC.
I just tuned my TV to one and got no format info [duh it's NTSC] but the amount of my display used was EXACTLY the same as what my HR-20 shows with pillar box.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> One additonal note here.
> 
> If, in fact, SD has to be run at 720x480, what we'd really want for those folks with fancy scalers and TVs with super-flexible scalers would be for the HR to output a signal that has 720 horizontal pixels but preserves the original 480x480 image. It could do something as simple as output the 480x480 image with a blank 240 pixel right side (right-only pillar?). A smartly configured scaler/TV would extract the 480x480 on the left side and do what it wants to with it, ignoring the black on the right.
> 
> Fat chance that ever gets out of the D* lab, though...


My two cents: 
Fat chance a TV would display a 480 x 480 image as something anybody would want to watch.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cartrivision said:


> It only displays the resolution for the HDMI and component inputs, and I don't have any devices that put out a 640x480 signal on HDMI or component, so I've never seen that resolution reported, but it does correctly display the resolution for 1080i or 720p HD sources.


Depending on what computer you have and its video card, you _ can output various resolutions over S-video, component, & DVI -> HDMI.
Before I got my HR-20 I built an media center PC for OTA HD. It's easy to output a give setting to the display & TV, while running test patterns.
Currently it's the only 1080p input I have._


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> My two cents:
> Fat chance a TV would display a 480 x 480 image as something anybody would want to watch.


Uh... since D* is using 480x480 as the native sat feed for SD programming, isn't that what we are all watching when we are watching an SD channel?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> Uh... since D* is using 480x480 as the native sat feed for SD programming, isn't that what we are all watching when we are watching an SD channel?


No the output is scaled to a higher resolution.
The MPEG-2 SD is sent compressed to 480 x 480, like some HD is sent compressed to 1280 x 1080. Both of these show the compressed [squashed] image if captured before the output scaling [stage].
This is how more channels are sent within a given bandwidth. SAT & cable providers do this to offer more channels [at the expense of PQ]. MPEG-4 is used to reduce the need for this.
What the "final" SD output is scaled to seems to be in question. NTSC 4:3 is 640 x 480.
My cable company outputs 520 x 480, which was noticeably less than the H20 I had at the same time.


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## funners (Aug 26, 2007)

mgavs said:


> That is a different issue since I am only concerned about 480i 4x3 shows here and stretch is just part of the problem for me.


am i missing something...maybe i misread... but sounds like he's trying to stretch what is truly a 4x3 picture into stretch on a 4x3 tv... of course it's not going to look right...........i have a 4x3 standard tv and i just use native off with letterbox for hd channels so crop doesn't rear it's ugly head.......sounds like he's trying to stuff a elephant into a yugo and expecting a pretty picture... like i said maybe im reading it wrong


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## funners (Aug 26, 2007)

nevermind i just noticed exactly what was said....... ignore that set of jibberish i type.....sorry lol


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> No the output is scaled to a higher resolution.
> The MPEG-2 SD is sent compressed to 480 x 480, like some HD is sent compressed to 1280 x 1080. Both of these show the compressed [squashed] image if captured before the output scaling [stage].
> This is how more channels are sent within a given bandwidth. SAT & cable providers do this to offer more channels [at the expense of PQ]. MPEG-4 is used to reduce the need for this.
> What the "final" SD output is scaled to seems to be in question. NTSC 4:3 is 640 x 480.
> My cable company outputs 520 x 480, which was noticeably less than the H20 I had at the same time.


I realize _all_ of that. My point being that no one is going to actually watch a 480x480 image in the upper left corner of their 1920x1080 display, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be an option to output that resolution (in some way compatible with the 720x480 for HDMI/component) such that a smart scaler and/or smart TV could up-scale it as desired to the 1080p (or other native resolution) of the TV.

You aren't really "watching" a 720x480 image or 640x480 image (in the case of composite) either. Your TV is scaling it to its native resolution.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> I realize _all_ of that. My point being that no one is going to actually watch a 480x480 image in the upper left corner of their 1920x1080 display, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be an option to output that resolution (in some way compatible with the 720x480 for HDMI/component) such that a smart scaler and/or smart TV could up-scale it as desired to the 1080p (or other native resolution) of the TV.
> 
> You aren't really "watching" a 720x480 image or 640x480 image (in the case of composite) either. Your TV is scaling it to its native resolution.


This seems to need repeating:
"My cable company outputs 520 x 480, which was noticeably less than the H20 I had at the same time."
This was over HDMI -> DVI input of a 51" RPTV. While it "filled" the screen, the pillar box were larger than the output of the H20.
I don't know your definition of a "smart scaler", but with the setup in post #213, I've been able to adjust the output [or input to the TV], in both vertical and horizontal, pixel by pixel, in all three resolutions. If I send an image greater than 720 x 480, it's clipped. If I send an image less than 720 x 480, it doesn't fill the screen.
This is why I say that if the HR-20 output was the distorted 480 x 480, the TV would scale it to a large size to "fit", but would still be a 3 x 3 image unless stretch mode was used on the TV and then this wouldn't be the "native resolution".
Now if I don't look at it from how a TV functions, and change to a "smart external scaler", would a 480 x 480 output get scaled "better"? Most likely as it would all be done in one step.
Would D* make this change? I think this would have even less chance than getting them to give the option of "unmolested native SD", simply because they'd be admitting they're compressing the image in the first place.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> This seems to need repeating:
> "My cable company outputs 520 x 480, which was noticeably less than the H20 I had at the same time."
> This was over HDMI -> DVI input of a 51" RPTV. While it "filled" the screen, the pillar box were larger than the output of the H20.


I don't know what your cable box was doing... or whether it was wrong or right... or whether your TV couldn't deal with it, without having more information. But it sounds not so good, in the fact that if the pillars were wider (taking a greater % of screen space), then that would mean the 4x3 image in the middle would be unecessarily squished from the sides, and people, buildings, etc would all seem taller/skinnier.



> I don't know your definition of a "smart scaler", but with the setup in post #213, I've been able to adjust the output [or input to the TV], in both vertical and horizontal, pixel by pixel, in all three resolutions. If I send an image greater than 720 x 480, it's clipped. If I send an image less than 720 x 480, it doesn't fill the screen.


A good scaler would be able to deal with a native 480x480 image and display it on the TV correctly. Most (I don't know of any) TVs don't have scalers with the configuration options required to deal with it. Maybe the hardware is there, but the UI on the TV doesn't expose it to the end-user. The VP50 mentioned in this thread, according to what I read in the manual, has the capability. Check out the manual on the VP50 if you don't believe me.



> This is why I say that if the HR-20 output was the distorted 480 x 480, the TV would scale it to a large size to "fit", but would still be a 3 x 3 image unless stretch mode was used on the TV and then this wouldn't be the "native resolution".


A good scaler would have the capability to stretch it to 4:3 and place the pillar bars on the side. Thus, no distortion. Certainly TVs could be produced to do the same thing, but I've never seen one that does (doesn't mean one doesn't exist that will).



> Now if I don't look at it from how a TV functions, and change to a "smart external scaler", would a 480 x 480 output get scaled "better"? Most likely as it would all be done in one step.


Yes -- and that's what I'm getting at. Not only could it be done in one step, but the opportunity to place really nice scaling hardware in a $3500 box is much greater than the opportunity for a high-quality (expensive) scaler in a $400 SAT STB.
Note that the same issue exists with 1080i, since the D* signal is not a true 1080i, as the horizontal resolution has been stated at 1280 instead of the spec'd 1920, so it is not just SD we are talking about here.



> Would D* make this change? I think this would have even less chance than getting them to give the option of "unmolested native SD", simply because they'd be admitting they're compressing the image in the first place.


I agree. Certainly not something they want to admit. The cable guys would be all over it. Of course, they are probably doing the same thing.
Maybe there is a chance of getting this in the HR21-pro? I think they've got to put something extra in that box other than just making it look cool in a rack.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> I don't know what your cable box was doing... or whether it was wrong or right... or whether your TV couldn't deal with it, without having more information. But it sounds not so good, in the fact that if the pillars were wider (taking a greater % of screen space), then that would mean the 4x3 image in the middle would be unecessarily squished from the sides, and people, buildings, etc would all seem taller/skinnier


When I first connected it and went through the setup, it looked "wrong" [no matter what I tried].
The DVR had a 1394 output, so I could send it to my computer and use my editing software to "see" what it was. This is how "I know" it was 520 x 480 [matching what I was seeing].
Since the HR-20 doesn't have a 1394 output, I can't measure it with software, but I can with a ruler on my TV:
step 1 remove overscan on the display.
step 2 change pillar box to gray
If the output is 720 x 480, then:
There is 70 pixels of pillar box on each side [720-140=580].
On the SD channel I used there were also two black "bars" between the gray pillar box and video, which totaled 15 pixels, so for this channel the video was 565 [x 480].
All NTSC TVs have overscan, so while 640 x 480 is the full size, most broadcasters use part of it for sending closed captioning and the "video" is less than 640 x 480 [since overscan clips it]. This is what is called the "safe zone".


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> When I first connected it and went through the setup, it looked "wrong" [no matter what I tried].
> The DVR had a 1394 output, so I could send it to my computer and use my editing software to "see" what it was. This is how "I know" it was 520 x 480 [matching what I was seeing].
> Since the HR-20 doesn't have a 1394 output, I can't measure it with software, but I can with a ruler on my TV:
> step 1 remove overscan on the display.
> ...


The 4:3 part in between the pillars should come out to 540, assuming a 720x480 resolution. Here's the math. You are putting a 4:3 image inside a 16:9 display. Need a common denominator, so 4:3 is same as 12:9. 12/16 is 0.75. So the active 4:3 area should be 75% of the total 16:9 area. 720x0.75 is 540.

I measured mine. Eliminated overscan. The total 16:9 display area width was 698mm. The area between the gray bars on an SD station was 527mm. 527/698 is .755. Converting to 720x480, leaves the 4:3 image at 527/698*720, or 544 (rounding up), leaving 88 for each pillar bar. Obviously there are inherent errors in this method, but 544 is pretty close to 540... Likely the HR is doing a 90/540/90 for pillarbox 4:3, not a 70/580/70 (the math doesn't work there) as you measured.

At least that's what my observations and a little math tell me...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> The 4:3 part in between the pillars should come out to 540, assuming a 720x480 resolution. Here's the math. You are putting a 4:3 image inside a 16:9 display. Need a common denominator, so 4:3 is same as 12:9. 12/16 is 0.75. So the active 4:3 area should be 75% of the total 16:9 area. 720x0.75 is 540.
> 
> I measured mine. Eliminated overscan. The total 16:9 display area width was 698mm. The area between the gray bars on an SD station was 527mm. 527/698 is .755. Converting to 720x480, leaves the 4:3 image at 527/698*720, or 544 (rounding up), leaving 88 for each pillar bar. Obviously there are inherent errors in this method, but 544 is pretty close to 540... Likely the HR is doing a 90/540/90 for pillarbox 4:3, not a 70/580/70 (the math doesn't work there) as you measured.
> 
> At least that's what my observations and a little math tell me...


I looked solely are the horizontal. "outside" gray bars was 30" with several inches before the edge of the display on both sides.
From left to right: 2 7/8 gray, 1/4 black, 23 5/8 video, 3/8 black, 2 7/8 gray.
If the horizontal is 720, then there were 24 pixels [of output from the HR-20] per inch of display area [direct view LCD].
*Edit:* correcting for 5% overscan 24 pixels/inch becomes 22.86 pixels/inch


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I looked solely are the horizontal. "outside" gray bars was 30" with several inches before the edge of the display on both sides.
> From left to right: 2 7/8 gray, 1/4 black, 23 5/8 video, 3/8 black, 2 7/8 gray.
> If the horizontal is 720, then there were 24 pixels [of output from the HR-20] per inch of display area.


I'm looking at only horizontal as well - vertical is not relevant (we have a constant height, variable width setup here).

You're getting 78.75% active 4:3 (I put your numbers into Excel, really quick), close enough to 75% to say we are seeing/expecting the same thing. 0.7875*720=567, close to your 565 stated previously.

It is possible that you haven't completely eliminated overscan on your set. As the overscan increases so will the active 4:3 percentage (because we can't measure where the overscan was clipped on the left & right sides).


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

cartrivision said:


> Including trying your tests with a component feed instead of HDMI?


Whoops, no. I had no intention of using component.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

funners said:


> am i missing something...maybe i misread... but sounds like he's trying to stretch what is truly a 4x3 picture into stretch on a 4x3 tv... of course it's not going to look right...........i have a 4x3 standard tv and i just use native off with letterbox for hd channels so crop doesn't rear it's ugly head.......sounds like he's trying to stuff a elephant into a yugo and expecting a pretty picture... like i said maybe im reading it wrong


Read my letter in the first post carefully, it's all there. Except that I assumed people would know the Pioneer plasmas are all 16x9.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Thanks again for all the feedback. However, I think so many people have posted we are off target. If you are going to post about what I need, please, first reread my letter in the first post to make sure you understand all the particulars. Whatever happens, it looks like at least a few people now know how to get a better picture from all this.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

RehabMan said:


> It is possible that you haven't completely eliminated overscan on your set. As the overscan increases so will the active 4:3 percentage (because we can't measure where the overscan was clipped on the left & right sides).


"good catch". 
The HDNet test pattern shows it has overscan.
Though I selected "normal" on my TV, which gave me "nothing" on both sides of the output, since it is 480i, my TV still has what it calls "normal" overscan and the full pixel mode [zero overscan] is only available with 1080i from the user menu. I would need to go into the service menu to get zero overscan with 480 [which isn't going to happen].
So it looks like 540 video + 15 of black edges to the pillar box.
"normalizing" this: 80 pixels of pillar box on each side and 560 in between.
Now how many posts back did someone post this very thing? :lol:


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mgavs said:


> Thanks again for all the feedback. However, I think so many people have posted we are off target. If you are going to post about what I need, please, first reread my letter in the first post to make sure you understand all the particulars. Whatever happens, it looks like at least a few people now know how to get a better picture from all this.


While your thread has been hijacked [it always happens with a topic like this].
Along the way the views to it have grown to 2,886, which can only help your cause [I think] as it keeps the thread on "page one" of the forum.


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## Robert L (Dec 13, 2005)

I saw your post awhile back in the processor forum on AVS. I've followed the links and read over this thread off and on over time. The problem I have is understanding the way you say the VP50 handles the HR20. I had a VP50 for about a year and now have the VP50pro. Its currently hooked to a 1080P projector, the RS1 to be exact. 

So, I tried all the things you list and I just don't see the same thing. I don't know how your plasma sets react outputting the native resolution from the VP50, but the way it sounds you can still change aspect ratio's. At 1080P from the VP50pro the RS1 is always in 16:9.

Anyway, when I go to a 480i signal the processor says 480i, 4:3 full frame. The Frame AR -- 4:3 , Active AR -- 1:33:1. That is with the HR20 set at 16:9. So with native using stretch on the HR20, that's what I see on my screen. It is not stretched because the processor is only showing me a OAR of 4:3. Yes the pillar box and crop will change the the way it looks, but of course its suppose too. But it doesn't change what the processor reads. It certainly doesn't fill my screen out either. 

So then I change the HR20 to a 4:3 display. Nothing at all changes, the VP50pro still lists the exact same thing, in the input information and Frame & Active AR, and I still see a 4:3 picture. Now of course the format button does nothing, but so what since I'm seeing exactly the same thing on my screen. 

Picture quality, no change at all. I think I could see it on a 110 inch screen. I wish it would improve the SD channels, they are pretty bad even with a processor. Course they would look a lot better on a CRT type display. I know because I have a Pro630 Pioneer elite set and the Directv picture looks completely different on it. 

Yes I have a back ground in electronics, since my family ran a business in consumer electronics including repair for quite a few brands for warranty. So I was involved in that for a long time. 

Also when I leave the HR20 in 4:3 and change to a HD channel, nothing is cut off at the top or bottom. I don't know why you would see that, unless it just your display doing something weird. 

The processor changes to Frame AR - 16:9 and Active AR - 1:78:1. So everything looks exactly like it does when the HR20 is set to 16:9. The guide is not off the screen either. 

Regarding the stretch mode the VP50 has, Panorama, well it works fine. I mean its there to be used whether the HR20 is set to 4:3 or 16:9. Personally I cannot stand it, Pioneer use to have a much better stretch than that. It has too much distortion on the sides and lots of people think that, Panorama I mean. 

Most likely I would use a stretch of some type if I was using a plasma but I don't care for stretch so I only look at 4:3 as 4:3 with the bars of course. Also the picture is large enough anyway since I'm using a projector. 

The VP50 will remember whatever you set it at, as I'm sure you know. I don't use the auto AR. So what you describe happening just isn't what I see. I mean I can leave the HR20 in 4:3 and never know the difference, except the format button does nothing, which I don't need or use. I'd use the VP50pro to do letterbox or whatever else anyway. That's one of the reasons I like a processor, because of so many different things I can control and change on my screen. I like to shift a 2:35 ratio to the bottom of my screen, so its only black at the top. 

Honestly though, I'd rather use the zoom setting and setup my on AR in the output area of the VP50 for 4:3 rather than use Parorama. I've actually done that in the past but to get it the best I had to also setup a profile in the output because I created most of the changes in the AR there. But that was with a different projector than I use now. 

So just thought I'd let you know what I see, not that it actually helps you any I guess, since you want Directv to change the HR20. But if you are happy with the HR20 set at 4:3 then everything works the same on my setup, not sure why it doesn't on yours.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

Quick easy question: Are you using HDMI or component to feed the HR20 signal to the VP50?


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## Robert L (Dec 13, 2005)

I only use HDMI for everything. Well, DVI converted to HDMI when using a HTPC. I have a HDMI cable run to the projector, nothing else. Anyway, I don't see the type of changes he does when using the VP50. Of course someone can change the setting on the processor to do about anything, but on its on for me it works the same for either 4:3 or 16:9.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

The key may be that you have the AutoAR feature off (thus ignoring the AR info in the HDMI stream). I'm not sure if the OP does or not.

BTW, What do you think of your scaler? I'll be in the market for one next spring/summer. Lots of talk of problems and lack of support from DVDO on that VP50Pro, but that could be squeaky wheel making the most noise...


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

Robert L said:


> The VP50 will remember whatever you set it at, as I'm sure you know. *I don't use the auto AR.*


I still wonder if this is the cause of mgavs issue. The AutoAR setting is something we asked about days ago, but I don't know if he ever looked into it. After reading your (nicely done) post, I think this is a strong possibility. Hmmm....


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cygnusloop said:


> I still wonder if this is the cause of mgavs issue. The AutoAR setting is something we asked about days ago, but I don't know if he ever looked into it. After reading your (nicely done) post, I think this is a strong possibility. Hmmm....


I've followed this thread from the beginning. Not to put too fine a point on it, but:
mgavs has problems with two TVs. One doesn't use the VP50 and the other does.
He hasn't found settings that work for both [to his liking] and comes to the conclusion that the HR-20 needs to be "fixed".
As this thread has progressed [not for letter writing]:
1) Someone with the same TV has shown there are settings to have it work.
2) Someone else has shown there are settings [that may be different] to have VP50 work.
3) there is no one setting fits all, since the manufactures use different methods. Some trigger off resolution while others trigger off aspect ratio.
The names may not be intuitive, but the options all seem to be there for everyone between their TV, external scaler, & the HR-20.


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## Robert L (Dec 13, 2005)

RehabMan said:


> The key may be that you have the AutoAR feature off (thus ignoring the AR info in the HDMI stream). I'm not sure if the OP does or not.
> 
> BTW, What do you think of your scaler? I'll be in the market for one next spring/summer. Lots of talk of problems and lack of support from DVDO on that VP50Pro, but that could be squeaky wheel making the most noise...


Well, the Pro just came out and I'm not even sure if they've shipped all the orders yet. The VP50 had plenty of bugs including audio dropouts for certain combinations of equipment. DVDO is ok for support, especially if you go straight to them, but nothing is ever perfect. The biggest thing is if a certain "bug" applies to you and its something they are slow to address.

It appears on the Pro changing to another chip-set for 1.3 HDMI has caused some issues with certain types of input signals. I'm pretty sure they will get that solved. They've also had some problems with 1080/24 in and 24hz out. It appears they pretty much got that fixed on the VP50, but for some on the Pro its still not working, unless you unlock the output.

But yeah, I like the processor, it gives me a better picture, especially when converting from something like 1080i to 1080P to my projector.

I like processors even if its kind of overkill, plus it gives me options to do things I cannot do without one. You might want to look at the Lumagen Radiance also when they finally get it out of Beta. I think its been about a year now since they announced that.

Prep works rather well on the DVDO's for people that only have a 480P output from a dvd player, pc or whatever, instead of 480i.

Regarding the auto AR, its been a long time since I even tried it. For whatever reason its known not to work all that great. The processor will remember pretty much anything for each resolution, 480i, 480P, ect.


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

Robert L said:


> I saw your post awhile back in the processor forum on AVS. I've followed the links and read over this thread off and on over time. The problem I have is understanding the way you say the VP50 handles the HR20. I had a VP50 for about a year and now have the VP50pro. Its currently hooked to a 1080P projector, the RS1 to be exact. .....


Thank you for your post and work. I have done all the things talked about before posting including autoAR, etc. However, I also have a Pioneer PRO110FD without a processor. When I started this I was just asking for what Directv told me they wanted to add the option I requested (_he asked for letters, it was not my idea_). I find it odd that someone from the Office of the President called me and said he and another person understood the problem and also checked with an engineer before calling me. They did this using my first letter which was not anywhere as clear as the second. Anyway, _many thanks_ to all who participated here and I am glad some people got to improve there picture from this. I only wish someone agreed with Directv and wrote a letter or two. Oh well...


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## Robert L (Dec 13, 2005)

mgavs said:


> Thank you for your post and work. I have done all the things talked about before posting including autoAR, etc. However, I also have a Pioneer PRO110FD without a processor. When I started this I was just asking for what Directv told me they wanted to add the option I requested (_he asked for letters, it was not my idea_). I find it odd that someone from the Office of the President called me and said he and another person understood the problem and also checked with an engineer before calling me. They did this using my first letter which was not anywhere as clear as the second. Anyway, _many thanks_ to all who participated here and I am glad some people got to improve there picture from this. I only wish someone agreed with Directv and wrote a letter or two. Oh well...


I got a HR20 hooked to a crt type Pioneer set, Pro630 Elite, without a processor and it works the exact same way. If there is a problem then well, I guess there is a problem, but not much use for me to write when I don't see it. Also, SD on Directv isn't very good for the most part, so for it to really improve a lot they would need to stop compressing so bad.

I've talked to DVDO quite a few times over the years, and to be honest they will agree with someone if a problem can be blamed on another source, besides their product. But if Directv knows there is a problem, well they should just fix it! But maybe they got a long list already before they could get to something like this.

But if I saw what you're saying you do, then I'd say so, that's for sure. But since I have two displays, well actually three counting another projector, and none of them act the way you describe, then nothing much else I can say.


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## nuke (Aug 14, 2003)

The original poster is asking for "native - native".

Not only scan rate, but format. ie, if the source is sending 480i, then output 480i 4x3, whether or not the TV is set to 16x9. No stretch, no squeeze, no pillar box, no letter box.

What is nice about such a setting is that if someone has a better means to deal with scan rate and 4x3<->16x9 conversions, they can use it in lieu of what the HR2x provides.

The challenge is half-solved in that the scan rate can be set to pass through native. However, there's no means to disable the stretch/crop/pillar-letterboxing.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

nuke said:


> The challenge is half-solved in that the scan rate can be set to pass through native. However, there's no means to disable the stretch/crop/pillar-letterboxing.


If you read through the 240 posts here, you will find that the HR2x has setting to do that.
While they may not seem "intuitive" by their labels, they're there.
Native "resolution" is simple, "native" format, is where depending on what your TV or external processor triggers on, it would be setting the HR2x to 4:3 or 16:9. While in one combination, "stretch" will show a stretching, this is more how the TV or external processor responds. With changes made to the TV [I don't have a external processor, but someone that does has it working the same way], "stretch" is just the "not sending" pillar bars or letterbox bars.
If your TV has settings for 480 resolution and will adjust to them when a 480 signal is sent, then stretch & 16:9, work.
If your TV has settings for 4:3 [flag sent over HDMI], then stretch & 4:3, works.
My first HD TV triggered off resolution, for it's format settings. [HR2x set to 16:9]
My new HD TV triggers off the aspect ratio flag for it's format settings. [HR2x set to 4:3]
Both of my TVs are 16:9, so while the settings are there, it takes some time seeing how each reacts to what, to find the correct settings [and why it isn't as "intuitive" as one might wish].


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## nuke (Aug 14, 2003)

veryoldschool said:


> If you read through the 240 posts here, you will find that the HR2x has setting to do that.
> While they may not seem "intuitive" by their labels, they're there.
> Native "resolution" is simple, "native" format, is where depending on what your TV or external processor triggers on, it would be setting the HR2x to 4:3 or 16:9.


My HR20 has been through 3 software updates since being turned on two days ago.

However, I have found no means to convince the HR20 to produce a completely and totally unmolested output signal.

I can set native scan rate/resolution.

However, the HR20 steadfastly insists on "correcting" whatever signal it gets to fit the selected 4x3 or 16x9 aspect ratio selected for the display device in the setup menu.

Unless there's some kind of "secret" method to disable this, it is not possible to set up the HR20 for a native x native mode of operation. It will always stretch/crop/letter/pillar-box whatever it gets into whatever format you've told the HR20 your display is.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

nuke said:


> My HR20 has been through 3 software updates since being turned on two days ago.
> 
> However, I have found no means to convince the HR20 to produce a completely and totally unmolested output signal.
> 
> ...


The HR20 needs to work with your TV. What settings have you tried there?
What your looking for is how your TV defaults to a 4:3 SD 480 resolution signal.
My current TV seeing the 4:3 aspect coming over the HDMI. I can set the HR-20 to:
4:3 TV, native on, stretch.
I get 4:3 with my TV's format set to "normal" and HD in full 16:9. [option #1]
option #2 is to set the HR-20 to: 16:9, stretch, and have the TV change when it sees the 480 signal. Though it's set to stretch, some TVs take the signal and either show it in 4:3 or use their own stretch mode.
I don't have your TV to go through all of the settings to find out how it works, but in all of the posting in this and other threads before about this, there has always been settings that work. You simply [or not so] need to see how your TV reacts to the "similar" settings in the HR-20.
I can select settings that make the image half the normal size or twice the normal size. Clearly these aren't what I want, but show that what ever you see is a combination of the HR-20's and the TV's settings.


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## nuke (Aug 14, 2003)

Look, you aren't getting it.

It's not the TV that needs changing. My display is smart enough to do the "right thing" with whatever signal I feed it. It is a 16x9 display, if I feed it a 480i signal, it will pillar, stretch, crop, zoom or justify to my preference. If it is fed a 720p or 1080i, it is smart enough to automatically go into full mode.

So we go back to the HR20 and we check the "native" box. Now it will output whatever scan rate the incoming channel is, 480, 720 or 1080.

The problem is the setting of 4x3 or 16x9 on the HR20. 

If the native mode HR20 is set to 4x3 and is tuned to a 4x3 channel, it outputs the picture in 4x3 format. However, if it is tuned to a 16x9 channel, it will letterbox the incoming signal to fit a 4x3 display.

If the native mode HR20 is set to 16x9, and it is tuned to a 4x3 channel, it will format the image with pillarbox and/or squeezed 4x3 aspect ratio to fill the 16x9 screen. If it is tuned into a 16x9 channel, it outputs a normal 16x9 aspect ratio image.

That's just how it works. It will pad the output scan to whatever screen aspect ratio you have in the setup. 

What needs to be there is three settings on display size, 4x3, 16x9 and "no aspect correction". 

The last setting is for more sophisticated systems that have external video processors or more advanced televisions that can do a better job of zooming, cropping, scaling and boxing than the HR20. Just pass through the native scan rate and do no zooming, cropping or boxing. If the HR20 is tuned to a SD channel, supply the output in the SD scan rate and do not crop, box or zoom. If it is tuned to an HD channel, output the native scan rate and do not crop, box, zoom or squeeze. 

But the HR20 doesn't do that.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

nuke said:


> If the native mode HR20 is set to 4x3 and is tuned to a 4x3 channel, it outputs the picture in 4x3 format. However, if it is tuned to a 16x9 channel, it will letterbox the incoming signal to fit a 4x3 display.


"Look, you aren't getting it."
With the above settings [HR20 set to a 4:3 TV, and you change *letterbox* to *stretch*]
What happens?
I have a 16:9 TV and with the above settings, I set the TV to "normal" [from full that I use with pillar bars and the HR20 set to 16:9 TV].
HD channels come in full 16:9 [no letterbox] and with a simple channel change to a SD channel I get 4:3.
Does yours do something else? 
Or are you "Look, you aren't getting it." still?


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

Try turning off your TV's Aspect Ratio autodetect.
Or try using a different input other than HDMI.

There is some evidence that an aspect ratio signal is sent by the HR20 for 480 signals when using HDMI.

Of course, there is no format information in a true 480 signal, so most TVs ignore it. But there seem to be a few out there that use it anyway, even for a 480 signal, which would possibly cause the problem you're seeing.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Redlinetire said:


> Try turning off your TV's Aspect Ratio autodetect.
> Or try using a different input other than HDMI.
> 
> There is some evidence that an aspect ratio signal is sent by the HR20 for 480 signals when using HDMI.


My Sony definitely detects the aspect ratio signal [bit] being sent over HDMI. If I set the HR-20 to 16:9, the TV always displays in the info overlay 16:9 regardless of the channel. If I set the HR-20 to a 4:3 TV, then my TV show 16:9 or 4:3 depending on the channel in the info overlay.
Not all TVs may do this, but setting mine to "normal" [from full, wide zoom, zoom] will have it give a "normal" aspect ratio for every channel the HR-20 sends it in native on, BUT I need to set the HR-20 to STRETCH to have an unaltered image for all channels.
This is what I think is the "stumbling block" to most users. Stretch doesn't sound like an unaltered output, but in FACT it can be depending on several other settings in both the HR-20 and the TV.


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## Redlinetire (Jul 24, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> This is what I think is the "stumbling block" to most users. Stretch doesn't sound like an unaltered output, but in FACT it can be depending on several other settings in both the HR-20 and the TV.


Bingo.

This definitely caused me a ton of grief when moving from my old Samsung and even the cable box. It took me several hours to figure out what the heck D* was doing with all these settings, regardless of what labels they used to describe them.

It's almost like they added an extra layer of complication that they didn't need to. I guess that's due to the HDMI signal, a feature my other boxes never had.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Redlinetire said:


> Bingo.
> 
> This definitely caused me a ton of grief when moving from my old Samsung and even the cable box. It took me several hours to figure out what the heck D* was doing with all these settings, regardless of what labels they used to describe them.
> 
> It's almost like they added an extra layer of complication that they didn't need to. I guess that's due to the HDMI signal, a feature my other boxes never had.


Well, "my mother" had no problems finding the right settings for her old 4:3 SD TV. :lol: Me on the other hand, spend hours every time I bring in a new box [be it a TV or receiver].
BTW: I've had this TV since Dec and the H/HR20s longer than that, and only in this thread did I find out how the 4:3 setting in the HR-20 worked with my TV over HDMI.

Maybe the labels should be changed to either letters or numbers and then there could be a truth table for: if this, then this [for all combinations].
Well may be not, as how many would read it? :lol:


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## cygnusloop (Jan 26, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> This is what I think is the "stumbling block" to most users. Stretch doesn't sound like an unaltered output, but in FACT it can be depending on several other settings in both the HR-20 and the TV.


Maybe we should start a thread. We'll eventually get to the bottom of it. 
!rolling !rolling !rolling

:bang


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

cygnusloop said:


> Maybe we should start a thread. We'll eventually get to the bottom of it.
> !rolling !rolling !rolling
> 
> :bang


Now if they were to ever delete these threads, our post counts would drop in half. :lol:


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## mgavs (Jun 17, 2007)

First post edited to mention Direcv fix!


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## weaver6 (Nov 3, 2005)

mgavs said:


> Update 01/12/08 - Seems Directv listened to me..... http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=115710 should resolve this problem. Since I only have 100s I will have to wait to test it but it should do the trick! ...


The 100's also have this on the latest CE. Download it tonight.


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