# How is this possible?



## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

I thought after years of following the threads here on DBSTALK.COM that it would be pretty hard to stump me with a DirecTV issue...but I'm stumped!!

Here's the situation:

I have the hardware detailed in my signature line (R15's, R22, 3-LNB dish). I have a new HDTV hooked up to the R22 using HDMI but, of course, it only sends SD 480p signals to the HDTV since I don't have HD Access (or an MPEG4 dish).

The other night I went to watch "Dollhouse" from the local FOX LIL station (WITI-TV/ML6). There were gray bars inserted by the R22 that were never there before! I turned on an SD TV connected to the R22 via composite connection and the bars were there too! The other LIL stations didn't exhibit this behavior nor did any of the other channels in my package (choice plus w/dvr).

Fascinated, the "Dollhouse" show was eclipsed by experimentation as to just what was going on! I discovered that by setting the option on my HDTV to "full screen" and changing the option on the R22 to 16:9 the gray bars disappeared and I was able to watch the show completely filling out my 16:9 screen with the entire picture and no distortion in SD!!! This was the same, exact picture (although with lower resolution) that I could view by tuning my HDTV to this same OTA station using it's internal tuner. With the R22 I was literally watching a 16:9 SD picture!!!!

It gets better. I shuffled into the other room and tuned in this LIL channel on one of my SD TV's hooked up to an R15. No bars. And the usual "cropped" picture with portions included in the 16:9 version missing as usual. (Just like the other LIL stations)

What on earth is going on? As we all have probably guessed, DirecTV and FOX are in bed together with endless DirecTV commercials during FOX shows and even a "presented by DirecTV" bug above the FOX logo on many shows. And my LIL FOX affilicate is OWNED by FOX and has a fiber-optic feed to DirecTV. (trust me-I know this for a fact)

Is the local FOX affilate being sent in MPEG4 on the 101? Is it on the 110 and my R22 is picking it up there? WHAT'S GOING ON?????


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## Movieman (May 9, 2009)

I know that on Foxnews.com they have announced changes to their broadcast but I thought it was limited to channel 360. Maybe not.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Movieman said:


> I know that on Foxnews.com they have announced changes to their broadcast but I thought it was limited to channel 360. Maybe not.


The national FOX feeds (FOX news channel, FOX business news, etc.) have not changed. They still appear gray-bar-less and "cropped" on the R22.

It's only my LIL FOX station that has gone crazy! (I'm not complaining-it's kind of neat to watch a 16:9 SD picture! I just wonder how it's possible...)


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## dodge boy (Mar 31, 2006)

Only thing I can think of is maybe your locals are broadcast in SD and HD (2 feeds from the locals to D*) and your R22 is picking up teh HD feed and the R15 gets the SD feed.


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## HRJustin (Mar 5, 2009)

I am in a MPEG4 local market and NBC, FOX, CBS, ABC are the HD feeds. All of these channels for me have the gray bar at the top and bottom. The PBS and the CW channels are SD. The R22 without HD access defaults to 480p(as you know), letterbox Screen Format and Gray bar color. The four channels above that have the HD feed all have the gray bars for me. I have never seen gray bars on the other two channels. 

This is only a problem on the R22 because of the way HD was originally locked. Then once HD access is added to the account the HDTV tabs are unlocked. On the other H21 receivers I have I can change Screen Format and Bar Color no problem. I have never had HD access on my account the only reason I needed these receivers was because my locals are going to be MPEG4 only by December. 

It does seem strange that you are seeing this if your locals come from the 101. My only idea is that the maybe the HD feed is starting to replace the SD feed for your local channels.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

dodge boy said:


> Only thing I can think of is maybe your locals are broadcast in SD and HD (2 feeds from the locals to D*) and your R22 is picking up teh HD feed and the R15 gets the SD feed.


With a dish that only picks up the 101, 119, and 110 satellite?


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## dodge boy (Mar 31, 2006)

ThomasM said:


> With a dish that only picks up the 101, 119, and 110 satellite?


Aren't some locals on the 110 or 119?


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## codespy (Mar 30, 2006)

ML6 Milwaukee Fox affiliate was one of the originals on the 101 sat.

What is interesting today is on my Sony A55 which is the only IRD on my 30" round 101 sat dish, there is bad interference on Fox (ML6). All the other channels come in perfectly. All my other IRD's come off my Slimline-5 and ML6 is clear like the other channels.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

ThomasM said:


> With a dish that only picks up the 101, 119, and 110 satellite?


Wow...

This is really a weird one, and I can only offer a rather sizable speculation here. But FWIW here goes,...

Could it possibly be that DirecTV (for some reason, experimental perhaps?) is actually transmitting your local Fox outlet WITI-DT in downrezz'ed 16:9 SD and receivers like the R15 are able to preform a 4:3 center-cut on an incoming 16:9 signal for display on SDTV sets?

I mean, I always wondered how MPEG-2 legacy receivers would really handle a 16:9 formatted input signal and largely assumed that they simply couldn't and would blank out or some other. However, perhaps they actually can receive it by automatically cropping it to 4:3.

Like I said, I know it's a pretty large guess, but I really can't figure out much else here to be honest.


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I know there is a "widescreen flag" that can be part of an OTA broadcast. It's supposed to alert a sufficiently advanced TV to a widescreen signal and set it appropriately. In practice this is hardly ever used and as far as I know it's obliterated by the re-encoding practice. However, I wonder if something like that came through and is causing your receiver's odd behavior.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Stuart Sweet said:


> I know there is a "widescreen flag" that can be part of an OTA broadcast. It's supposed to alert a sufficiently advanced TV to a widescreen signal and set it appropriately. In practice this is hardly ever used and as far as I know it's obliterated by the re-encoding practice. However, I wonder if something like that came through and is causing your receiver's odd behavior.


Yeah, but what's still a mystery Stuart is where or how is the R22 getting the extra picture information to display a widescreen image even if it is getting such a flag since it is supposedly still receiving a 4:3 center-cut image on an SD Ku band channel from 101? 

If the image were being stretched to 16:9 by the R22 maybe so, but the OP says it's a full 16:9 *undistorted* picture.

A really big "go figure" on this one...


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

HoTat2 said:


> Yeah, but what's still a mystery Stuart is where or how is the R22 getting the extra picture information to display a widescreen image even if it is getting such a flag since it is supposedly still receiving a 4:3 center-cut image on an SD Ku band channel from 101?
> 
> If the image were being stretched to 16:9 by the R22 maybe so, but the OP says it's a full 16:9 *undistorted* picture.
> 
> A really big "go figure" on this one...


OK, as a long time CE participant and someone who thought they knew how DirecTV worked, I'm still tearing my hair out on this one!!!

The ONLY way I can think that a full 16:9 no-distortion image from a LIL station (even if it is in SD) can be received is if it is being transmitted in HD (MPEG2 or MPEG4) and then down-rezzed by the R22. A 4:3 signal simply is not compatible with 16:9!!!

Today, I set up a SD TV set near my HDTV. The SD TV is connected to one of the R15's. The HDTV, of course, is connected to the R22. I tuned in FOX and set the R22 to 16:9 and the HDTV to "FULL". While viewing an HD program from the FOX network there is actually more picture information on the HDTV so the picture is NOT CROPPED or SQUEEZED!! It's really a 16:9 SD picture in 480p!!!

For my next trick tomorrow I'm going to put a coffee can over the 110 and 119 LNB's to see if this signal is really coming from the 101 orbital location. Wouldn't it be interesting if the R22 went "searching for signal" and the R15 didn't????


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## LOCODUDE (Aug 8, 2007)

ThomasM said:


> OK, as a long time CE participant and someone who thought they knew how DirecTV worked, I'm still tearing my hair out on this one!!!
> 
> The ONLY way I can think that a full 16:9 no-distortion image from a LIL station (even if it is in SD) can be received is if it is being transmitted in HD (MPEG2 or MPEG4) and then down-rezzed by the R22. A 4:3 signal simply is not compatible with 16:9!!!
> 
> ...


I say......Let the fun begin..........


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

I'm still a bit curious on something though;

Does anyone know for sure how SD only MPEG-2 receivers (R15, 16, SD DTIVOs, SD STBs, etc.) would respond (if at all) to the reception of a 16:9 SD signal?


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## Keybounce (Jun 19, 2009)

ThomasM said:


> it's kind of neat to watch a 16:9 SD picture! I just wonder how it's possible...)


The same way that a Wii can display widescreen (16:9) on an SD. They actually send out a 4:3 image that is thin-compressed.

It sounds like your local station is giving Direct TV two versions of the station feed. One is normal 4:3, and one is a thin-ified 16:9. Since you have a 16:9 set, and a receiver that knows your set is 16:9, it gives you the nicer feed.

Test case:


> It gets better. I shuffled into the other room and tuned in this LIL channel on one of my SD TV's hooked up to an R15. No bars. And the usual "cropped" picture with portions included in the 16:9 version missing as usual. (Just like the other LIL stations)


So the same station -- your local LIL Fox -- on the R22 (direct TV in-house, widescreen aware box) uses the 16:9 thin-compressed feed, and the R15 (third party software, not widescreen aware) uses the standard feed.

That's a really simple hypothesis, that doesn't require any special action other than Direct TV and Fox doing something to give Fox programs on DTV "better quality" than the corresponding show on Dish.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

By 'thin-ified" or a "16:9 thin-compressed feed," are you referring to a anamorphically squeezed 16:9 image into a 4:3 frame?

And if so are saying that the OP's Fox outlet WITI-6 and DirecTV are then collaborating to send out two SD feeds on 101. A standard 4:3 center-cut received by the R15 and a 16:9 anamorphic signal picked-up by the R22 which then expands it back to 16:9?


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Keybounce said:


> It sounds like your local station is giving Direct TV two versions of the station feed. One is normal 4:3, and one is a thin-ified 16:9. Since you have a 16:9 set, and a receiver that knows your set is 16:9, it gives you the nicer feed.
> 
> Test case:
> 
> So the same station -- your local LIL Fox -- on the R22 (direct TV in-house, widescreen aware box) uses the 16:9 thin-compressed feed, and the R15 (third party software, not widescreen aware) uses the standard feed.


Nope. It's not "thin-compressed" or distorted in any way!! And the R22 has no idea it's feeding a 16:9 TV because I disconnected it's HDMI cable and fed it to the SD TV via a composite output with the same result!

The picture on the R22/HDTV looks EXACTLY like it does when watching the same program using the HDTV's internal tuner in 720p 16:9 HD.

The picture on the R15/SDTV looks EXACTLY like it does when the SD TV is being fed by one of those ota "converter" boxes set to "cropped" which cuts off the sides of the 16:9 picture (but doesn't distort the image).

PS: It rained all day so I never got around to the coffee can/LNB experiment but tomorrow....


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

I went to run some more tests today and ML 6 WITI-TV FOX6 in Milwaukee is back to being just like the other LIL stations!!! 

Apparently, other R22 owners without HD Access weren't amused with the gray bars at the top & bottom of the picture and advised the DirecTV CSR's about it. And so they put it back the way it was. Wahh!!

But I do have a recording of "Lie to Me" in case anyone thinks I'm crazy and it plays back in 480p SD 16:9!!


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## xmguy (Mar 27, 2008)

Damn. I thought DirecTV was on a new LIL revolution. I was already looking forward to watching my locals in SD 16:9.  Very weird Thomas.


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## Keybounce (Jun 19, 2009)

ThomasM said:


> I went to run some more tests today and ML 6 WITI-TV FOX6 in Milwaukee is back to being just like the other LIL stations!!!
> 
> Apparently, other R22 owners without HD Access weren't amused with the gray bars at the top & bottom of the picture and advised the DirecTV CSR's about it. And so they put it back the way it was. Wahh!!


Hmm. Another possibility is that the feed from the local station to DTV was "letterboxed", and the receivers did whatever the proper resizing was -- you indicated that watching the over-the-air HD signal gave you more detail but the same "frame", so that's consistent.

Frankly, I'd LOVE to see more letterboxing -- wide shows. Heck, I'd really, really love to see a TV that can zoom on a letterbox without losing the top and bottom. For some reason, we have three different makes of 16:9 TV's, and all of them clip either the top, bottom, or both of letterbox shows when we go to "wide zoom".



> But I do have a recording of "Lie to Me" in case anyone thinks I'm crazy and it plays back in 480p SD 16:9!!


The name of that show ... do you have any other shows? .


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Keybounce said:


> Hmm. Another possibility is that the feed from the local station to DTV was "letterboxed", and the receivers did whatever the proper resizing was -- you indicated that watching the over-the-air HD signal gave you more detail but the same "frame", so that's consistent.
> 
> Frankly, I'd LOVE to see more letterboxing -- wide shows. Heck, I'd really, really love to see a TV that can zoom on a letterbox without losing the top and bottom. For some reason, we have three different makes of 16:9 TV's, and all of them clip either the top, bottom, or both of letterbox shows when we go to "wide zoom".
> 
> The name of that show ... do you have any other shows? .


Well, it's all pretty much academic now since DirecTV has now reverted to the standard center-cutting of WITI-6's HD down-rezzed signal. But nevertheless for the record at the time this phenomenon was occurring, for WITI to merely feed a separate letterbox SD version of their programming to DirecTV as you suggest, for use on their Ku band SD locals system for the Milwaukee Wisconsin DMA subscribers, still would not have answered the issue.

A 16:9 picture letterboxed into a 4:3 frame would be treated as a 4:3 signal by the receiver and appear naturally as a window-box image on a 16:9 (HDTV) set with mattes on all four sides. Or a letterbox image on a 4:3 TV with matte bars on the top and bottom.

So I'm still theorizing that it was an actual 16:9 SD signal coming from 101 at the time to completely fill the screen with an undistorted image on an HDTV connected to the R22 on the 16:9 menu setting. However, while I realize I am somewhat going out on a limb on my assumption that a SD only receiver is probably capable of performing center-cut on a 16:9 signal with the appropriate flag settings in the satellite stream, until someone else can know for sure that this is not possible for an SD receiver, I'm sticking with it.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Here we go again!!!

Yup, the "mystery" 480p 16:9 no distortion image identical to the HD version is back on LIL ML6 WITI-TV FOX6!!!

But the R22 threw me for a loop.

When I posted that the R22 went back to showing this LIL just like the others it didn't register with me that I had a 5 second power failure due to a big windstorm causing the R22 to reboot. Last night, the R22 was acting particularly obnoxious and ignoring my remote commands for way too long so I powered it down and powered it back up and PRESTO! the magic returned.

Here's why. When the power failed, the HDTV (with an HDMI connection to the R22) was turned off so when the R22 started up it didn't "handshake" with the HDTV. Last night, the TV was on when I plugged the R22 in so it knew immediately it was connected to a 16:9 HDTV and the magic returned!

Not only that, I noticed that if the HDTV is turned off the R22 refuses to display channel 100 but instead displays a pop-up saying something about unauthorized content and use component to view the channel. Unplugging the HDMI connector from the turned-off HDTV allows a different TV with a composite connection to the R22 to view the channel. So it's all about the R22 KNOWING it is connected to a 16:9 HDTV!

I watched "Lie to Me" in beautiful full-screen distortion-free 480p SD 16:9 from either the 101, 119, or 110!! It's raining again today but tomorrow the coffee can comes out and covers the LNB's one by one to see which orbital slot this programming is coming from! Stay tuned.... :sure:


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Keybounce said:


> The name of that show ... do you have any other shows? .


"Lie to Me" is one of the few shows on FOX that I bother to watch.

How about "Dollhouse"? I like Eliza Dushku!! :lovenote:


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

ThomasM said:


> "Lie to Me" is one of the few shows on FOX that I bother to watch.
> 
> How about "Dollhouse"? I like Eliza Dushku!! :lovenote:


And soon Summer Glau joins the case...

Keep us updated with your coffee can experiment...

- Merg


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

The Merg said:


> And soon Summer Glau joins the case...
> 
> Keep us updated with your coffee can experiment...
> 
> - Merg


YES!! I remember those promos with Summer and Eliza pushing their respective shows but "Sarah Conner Chronicles" got canceled...

There is someone from "Buffy" coming to Dollhouse too. Love that Josh!

....and now :backtotop before the mods yell at me!!


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Hey ThomasM;

I'm just curious, if you go into the display settings of your R15 hooked-up to an SDTV and change the setting to 16:9 instead of 4:3 does the picture become stretched vertically when tuned to WITI?

Just trying to eliminate the possibility this has actually been a 16:9-4:3 anamorphic signal all along with the proper flags set in the stream, and the R15 is expanding it back to 16:9 and then cropping, whereas the R22 is expanding to 16:9 and letterboxing when on the 4:3 menu setting thus the appearance of those initial bars you saw at the beginning of this ordeal. 

This of course would fill the screen on the HDTV with the R22 on the 16:9 menu setting.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

HoTat2 said:


> Hey ThomasM;
> 
> I'm just curious, if you go into the display settings of your R15 hooked-up to an SDTV and change the setting to 16:9 instead of 4:3 does the picture become stretched vertically when tuned to WITI?
> 
> ...


The R15 displays this channel in 4:3 "cropped" (sides chopped off) mode.

The local station puts a "FOX6 HD" bug on the screen cleverly placed so that if you are watching a cropped image you don't see it. No matter how you adjust the R15, you can't see this bug (even if it's connected to the HDTV via S-VIDEO). Only the R22 can display the entire 16:9 picture info. 

Another local station puts a red "HD" box in the lower right corner of the screen during their HD newscasts. There is no way to display this bug on either the R22 or R15 (or see the chopped off picture info only present if viewing in 16:9). I can only see it if I watch OTA on the HDTV or use a DTV OTA converter box and set it to "stretch-o-vision".


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

ThomasM said:


> The R15 displays this channel in 4:3 "cropped" (sides chopped off) mode.
> 
> The local station puts a "FOX6 HD" bug on the screen cleverly placed so that if you are watching a cropped image you don't see it. No matter how you adjust the R15, you can't see this bug (even if it's connected to the HDTV via S-VIDEO). Only the R22 can display the entire 16:9 picture info.
> 
> Another local station puts a red "HD" box in the lower right corner of the screen during their HD newscasts. There is no way to display this bug on either the R22 or R15 (or see the chopped off picture info only present if viewing in 16:9). I can only see it if I watch OTA on the HDTV or use a DTV OTA converter box and set it to "stretch-o-vision".


Yes I understand this, but I'm asking if you go into your display settings on the R15 setup menu and change the aspect ratio to 16:9 does the picture change in any way, like become stretched vertically maybe when viewing WITI?


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

HoTat2 said:


> Yes I understand this, but I'm asking if you go into your display settings on the R15 setup menu and change the aspect ratio to 16:9 does the picture change in any way, like become stretched vertically maybe when viewing WITI?


Changing the setting on the R15 from 4:3 to 16:9 does nothing-on any channel. (I have no idea why it exists)


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

ThomasM said:


> Changing the setting on the R15 from 4:3 to 16:9 does nothing-on any channel. (I have no idea why it exists)


You have to have your R15 hooked up to your 16:9 capable TV in order to see any affect from it. Are you only trying that setting on your old SDTV with the R15?

- Merg


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

The Merg said:


> You have to have your R15 hooked up to your 16:9 capable TV in order to see any affect from it. Are you only trying that setting on your old SDTV with the R15?
> 
> - Merg


No Merg that wasn't the purpose of my asking ThomasM to adjust that setting. I was still trying to unravel the mystery behind WITI's 16:9 SD signal (from 101 degrees?) on the OP's R22. And I was curious as to wether or not this was actually an anamorphic squeezed image with the appropriate flags set in the stream to instruct both the R22 and R15 receivers to stretch to image back to 16:9 and output directly when connected to an HDTV as the R22 is doing. Or to restore it to 16:9 and then either letterbox or crop it to 4:3 if connected to an SDTV as the R15 might be doing on it's 4:3 aspect ratio menu setting.

Therefore, I asked ThomasM to change the setting on the R15 to 16:9 to see if it would supply a 16:9 signal to the SDTV thinking it was an HDTV which would of course result in a distorted squished or vertically stretched image confirming my suspicions.

But it's all for not anyhow since the experiment failed,  so it's back to square one and maybe I'll just await ThomasM's coffee can experiment before offering anymore theories.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

ThomasM said:


> Changing the setting on the R15 from 4:3 to 16:9 does nothing-on any channel. (I have no idea why it exists)


Supposedly it's for receiving an anamorphic 16:9 squeezed into 4:3 signal with the appropriate indicator flag set in the TS to instruct the receiver to restore (or un-squeeze) it back to 16:9 for letterbox, crop, or supplying directly when connected to an HDTV. But DirecTV hasn't transmitted any anamorphic feeds since the onset of their HD channels, though the capability is still built into the SD receivers.


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

HoTat2 said:


> No Merg that wasn't the purpose of my asking ThomasM to adjust that setting. I was still trying to unravel the mystery behind WITI's 16:9 SD signal (from 101 degrees?) on the OP's R22. And I was curious as to wether or not this was actually an anamorphic squeezed image with the appropriate flags set in the stream to instruct both the R22 and R15 receivers to stretch to image back to 16:9 and output directly when connected to an HDTV as the R22 is doing. Or to restore it to 16:9 and then either letterbox or crop it to 4:3 if connected to an SDTV as the R15 might be doing on it's 4:3 aspect ratio menu setting.
> 
> Therefore, I asked ThomasM to change the setting on the R15 to 16:9 to see if it would supply a 16:9 signal to the SDTV thinking it was an HDTV which would of course result in a distorted squished or vertically stretched image confirming my suspicions.
> 
> But it's all for not anyhow since the experiment failed,  so it's back to square one and maybe I'll just await ThomasM's coffee can experiment before offering anymore theories.


I wasn't debating the reason you asked ThomasM to try that setting. I was just responding to his post that it did nothing. I remember using it when I had my R15 hooked up to my HD-ready TV.

- Merg


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

So ThomasM;

What's are the results of the coffee can experiment (assuming you have done it yet) for WITI's enigmatic 16:9 SD signal?


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## Keybounce (Jun 19, 2009)

ThomasM said:


> Nope. It's not "thin-compressed" or distorted in any way!! And the R22 has no idea it's feeding a 16:9 TV because I disconnected it's HDMI cable and fed it to the SD TV via a composite output with the same result!
> 
> The picture on the R22/HDTV looks EXACTLY like it does when watching the same program using the HDTV's internal tuner in 720p 16:9 HD.
> 
> ...


First, how does the R22/SDTV signal look?

Second, I may have been misunderstood when I said "Thin-ified". I did not mean that the signal was/would be distorted.

To clarify: The TV signal is something like 570 pixels across for SD, and 760 for HD. You can take those 760 across and compress them down to 570; this gives an SD-compliant feed that will be distorted if shown on a 12:9 (4:3) TV, but will look just fine if shown on a 16:9 TV.

What I suggested is that your local station is supplying all of the following:
1. Normal SD signal for SD receivers and SD sets
2. Normal HD signal for HD receivers
3. A "thin-ified", or horizontally compressed feed for display on 16:9 TV's by SD boxes.



> And the R22 has no idea it's feeding a 16:9 TV because I disconnected it's HDMI cable and fed it to the SD TV via a composite output with the same result!
> 
> The picture on the R22/HDTV looks EXACTLY like it does when watching the same program using the HDTV's internal tuner in 720p 16:9 HD.


Let me get some clarification here. If you use the HDTV internal HD tuner, you see the full frame, in high quality. Right?

If you use the R22 on a 16:9 TV, you see the full frame, in low quality. Right? Does this depend on the cable (HDMI or normal) used?

When you give the R22 signal to a 12:9 TV, what do you see?


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

HoTat2 said:


> So ThomasM;
> 
> What's are the results of the coffee can experiment (assuming you have done it yet) for WITI's enigmatic 16:9 SD signal?


Well, I couldn't find a coffee can but yesterday (10/21) was a beautiful day so I trekked out to the dish with a roll of Reynolds super-duty aluminum foil which I discovered does a great job of changing all signal levels to ZERO. (I'll have to tell the neighborhood kids about this-won't it make a clever "trick" in a week to pull on DirecTV customers who don't supply candy?? )

MEANWHILE, I discovered that my mysterious 16:9 SD signal is indeed coming from the 101 spot-beam LIL satellite. So are all of my SD locals. In fact, for fun I set my fav list to ALL CHANNELS just to see what came from where.

There are a couple basically worthless channels coming from the 119 like shopping, religious, and spanish channels. It was not so when I bought the 3-LNB dish as several channels I now watch (RFD, NASA, etc.) were on the 119.


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

Keybounce said:


> First, how does the R22/SDTV signal look?


Probably like it would look on any HR2x/R22 set to "480p/16:9"



Keybounce said:


> What I suggested is that your local station is supplying all of the following:
> 1. Normal SD signal for SD receivers and SD sets
> 2. Normal HD signal for HD receivers
> 3. A "thin-ified", or horizontally compressed feed for display on 16:9 TV's by SD boxes.


Well, as for #3 it would have to be an SD box capable of 16:9 which is, of course, an HD receiver nowadays...



Keybounce said:


> Let me get some clarification here. If you use the HDTV internal HD tuner, you see the full frame, in high quality. Right?


Correct. WITI transmits in 720p which is what I get when using the TV's internal tuner for an OTA pickup not related to DirecTV.



Keybounce said:


> If you use the R22 on a 16:9 TV, you see the full frame, in low quality. Right? Does this depend on the cable (HDMI or normal) used?


Not familiar with a cable type "normal" but HDMI and component support 480p/16:9, S-Video and composite do not as there is no such thing as 480i/16:9. Viewing the program using one of these 480i connections results in gray bars on both the HDTV and a SD TV. Viewing the program using component or HDMI with the R22 set to 16:9 results in an IDENTICAL picture to the one received by the TV in OTA mode using it's internal tuner....but it is in 480p quality and not 720p.



Keybounce said:


> When you give the R22 signal to a 12:9 TV, what do you see?


Nothing since a 12:9 TV doesn't exist.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

ThomasM said:


> Well, I couldn't find a coffee can but yesterday (10/21) was a beautiful day so I trekked out to the dish with a roll of Reynolds super-duty aluminum foil which I discovered does a great job of changing all signal levels to ZERO. (I'll have to tell the neighborhood kids about this-won't it make a clever "trick" in a week to pull on DirecTV customers who don't supply candy?? )
> 
> MEANWHILE, I discovered that my mysterious 16:9 SD signal is indeed coming from the 101 spot-beam LIL satellite. So are all of my SD locals. In fact, for fun I set my fav list to ALL CHANNELS just to see what came from where.
> 
> There are a couple basically worthless channels coming from the 119 like shopping, religious, and spanish channels. It was not so when I bought the 3-LNB dish as several channels I now watch (RFD, NASA, etc.) were on the 119.


Well...

The way I see it now is that there can be only one of two possibilities then. Either DirecTV is transmitting two different SD feeds of WITI from 101. A 16:9 one down-rezzed from the station's HD signal, and a 4:3 one center-cut from the same HD feed.

Or DirecTV is only sending the 16:9 one and the MPEG-2 only SD receivers like the R15 are capable of internally performing a proper center-cut when fed a 16:9 signal for display on a 4:3 television.

This is why I asked earlier if someone really knew how an MPEG-2 SD only receiver would respond when fed a 16:9 signal, but I guess no one here really knows...


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## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

HoTat2 said:


> Well...
> 
> Or DirecTV is only sending the 16:9 one and the MPEG-2 only SD receivers like the R15 are capable of internally performing a proper center-cut when fed a 16:9 signal for display on a 4:3 television.
> 
> This is why I asked earlier if someone really knew how an MPEG-2 SD only receiver would respond when fed a 16:9 signal, but I guess no one here really knows...


YOU GOT IT!!!!!

I was experimenting again today and noticed when I was watching a 4:3 program on this mystery LIL channel on my R15 and I selected MENU and MANAGE RECORDINGS the little postage stamp image of the current channel had BLACK BARS on the left and right sides! Amazingly, when viewing the program guide or any other selection that brings up the postage stamp image (known formally as PIG-Picture In Guide) the bars aren't there!

So I went into settings and changed the display type to 16:9 and the bars were there all the time!!! So the R15 AND the R22 are aware of what this is and it obviously is an MPEG2 signal (since the R15 decodes it) with the entire 16:9 information contained in it.

Very bizarre!


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## Keybounce (Jun 19, 2009)

> > 3. A "thin-ified", or horizontally compressed feed for display on 16:9 TV's by SD boxes.
> 
> 
> Well, as for #3 it would have to be an SD box capable of 16:9 which is, of course, an HD receiver nowadays...


I think this is the point that you misunderstood me on.

I can take an SD receiver, hook it up to a 12:9 TV (aka 4:3), and see something normal.

I can take that SD receiver, hook it up to a 16:9 TV set to 12:9 display, and see something normal.

I can take that SD receiver, hook it up to a 16:9 TV in 16:9 mode, and see something streched wide.

I can take a 16:9 780p signal, and convert it to 16:9 480p, and record that to DvD. I can take that DvD, convert it to 480i, and send it to a TV over "normal" (coax) antenna cable. It will look very "thin" on a 12:9 display, but just fine on a 16:9 display.

Now do you understand what I was asking?

It's moot now -- you've found out what's happening.



> So the R15 AND the R22 are aware of what this is and it obviously is an MPEG2 signal (since the R15 decodes it) with the entire 16:9 information contained in it.


Let me see if I understand this. If I hook up a 16:9 TV to an r15-500, and I set my receiver to say "16:9 TV", I should see a 16:9 frame, 480i picture?

I don't -- I see a 12:9 frame, 480i picture.


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## HoTat2 (Nov 16, 2005)

Keybounce said:


> ... Let me see if I understand this. If I hook up a 16:9 TV to an r15-500, and I set my receiver to say "16:9 TV", I should see a 16:9 frame, 480i picture?
> 
> I don't -- I see a 12:9 frame, 480i picture.


No, what ThomasM seems to be saying is that for whatever reason, perhaps just the way the DVR software is designed, the "picture in guide" ("PIG") feature on the various UI settings screens allows you to see the true aspect ratio of the signal the box is actually receiving from the satellite. Therefore, during a period in which WITI was televising up-converted 4:3 material the small PIG image in the R15's UIs was showing a 16:9 pillar-box display.

This indicates that the R15 was indeed aware it is receiving a 16:9 SD signal and must be internally performing a center-cut or pan and scan on the 16:9 image to produce a 4:3 output signal.

Additional Note: Also if I'm reading him correctly ThomasM explains that setting the R15 to it's 16:9 output option simply allows you to see the true aspect ratio of the satellite input signal in the PIG on all UI screens instead of only when the "Menu" and "Manage Recordings" screen is being shown.


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