First, my setup is a Sam 4665f, Onkyo 605, Shaw (Motorola) 6412 HDPVR, HDMI connections.

I have a couple of questions regarding the picture and sound on my TV.

A) there are a couple of channels that occassionally show some 'interference' or white lines at the top of the screen. they appear/disappear during some commercials, or when programming changes. they are also specific to the channel (ie - they only show up on specific HD channels). they appear to be from the broadcast source rather than my setup, but is there anything I can do about this?

B) the sound will be interupted during TV broadcasts for 1-5 seconds occasionally. this might happen once or twice and hour or so. can anything be done to remedy this (maybe a power conditioner, etc)?

both issues show up on recorded programming, which would again lead me to believe the problems are in the broadcast and not the reception. I find this annoying enough to consider switching sources (go with sat instead of cable) if I knew that doing so would resolve the issues.

any light that can be shed would be appreciated, even to the commonality of the problems that I have in different broadcast environments (ie - cable vs sat).

thanks much,

RK

Greetings

Set image to 16:9 rather than just scan... to overscan this. You are seeing the other 45 lines in the 525 line NTSC system. 480 devoted to picture and 45 to things like sync ... CC ... auto color ... auto clock setting ... etc.

Normally not meant to be seen, but a 1080 transmission certainly has the lines to contain this whole 525 line SD signal.

Just live with it or overscan everything to not see it. Sort of like punishing the kids in the class for doing good on the test because some kids were too lazy to study. (YOu would be degrading all the good HD images for the sake of a few commercials.)

Regards

What Michael said about the overscan thing.

Additionally, as to the audio, is there any matching picture freeze-up that accompanies it? It could be cable signal weakness and the receiver is glitching out and you're dropping the audio there, but usually the picture geeks up at the same time.

If not, and you're connected coax SPDIF for audio ensure that its a 75ohm cable.

Try bypassing the Onkyo for a couple of nights and run the HDMI from the cable box to the TV and use the speakers in the TV. If the audio problem persists, you know it's not the Onkyo. Then change the HDMI cable. If the audio problem persists, you know it's not the cable. So now you are down to the cable box or the TV causing the problem. Since the problem doesn't happen with any other source, it's not the TV. So you would have isolated the cable box as the problem.

If the cable box is older and has a DVI output and no HDMI output, I would return it to the cable company and ask for a new box with HDMI. Just tell them your new HDTV is not working well with the cable box and you'd like the newest box they have with HDMI. Audio problems like this often come from failed handshakes and that's most commonly a problem when one device has a DVI connection and the other has an HDMI connection (the DVI connector is much larger than the HDMI connector).

The only advantage to satellite services is that they typically have many more high-def channels than cable. Not that those high-def channels necessarily have any more content you want to watch! And many of them show letterboxed 4:3 so you have this tiny image in the center of the screen surrounded by a sea of black unless you zoom in - and when you do that, the picture quality tanks.

A power conditioner won't have anything to do with a problem like this, but you should be using one to protect your equipment. One lightning strike nearby and it's all over. Or even one power surge from some cell-phone talking, SUV driving attention lapsed person and the power surges from them hitting a power pole could also damage your equipment.

thanks a bunch for the info all.

cheers,

R