My apologies if this has been asked before, I tried a number of search terms and came up empty handed.

I have a Visio 46 inch LCD, and am using an SA-8300 converter provided by Comcast (vomits), connected via an HDMI/HDMI cable.

My first issue is the most important. All of my Digital Channels and HDTV channels look fantastic, but all of the lower SD channels, which the wife always watches, look horrible, and even appear better on our old 4:3 television.

Does anyone have any recommendations on what I can do to improve the quality and at least take some of the noise out of the picture? On the old regular 4:3 TV, the SD channels were sharp and clear, but the quality of SD on the HDTV is unacceptable.

The second issue is minor, and I can live with, but is a bit of an annoyance. I've noticed that Comcast/SA toggle the screen settings based on the broadcast. If something isn't being broadcast in widescreen, it drops it down to 4:3 leaving bars on the left/right of my screen. I can effectively remove these bars (or at least reduce the size of them), by using the TV's or the 8300's Zoom option, but going back to my first issue, on some channels it makes the resolution worse, also I end up cutting off the top/bottom of the screen. Is there a way I can stretch the image horizontally only? I can live with stretched heads, but want my full top to bottom viewing field. The inststuction manual says that the TV has a Zoom-Panoramic mode that will do horizonal stretching, but I can't find it in the display modes.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide guidance.

You can try a second video cable from the STB (S or composite) and select that input on your display. That may improve the picture (no guarantees but worth a try).

Have you set the SA8300HD to up-convert to 720p for the TV? That is about all you can do. You have to understand that analog TV is best viewed on none other than an analog TV. When you enlarge an already crappy image up to 46", then you run into problems! Your TV was specifically designed to display an HD signal. Watch more HD and less analog, that is the best solution!

Generally... most see better results when following the recommendations in post #2.

You can try a second video cable from the STB (S or composite) and select that input on your display. That may improve the picture (no guarantees but worth a try).
Thanks, I had considered that, but didn't get a chance to try it yet


Have you set the SA8300HD to up-convert to 720p for the TV?
How do I go about doing that?

My 8300HD has a zoom and horiz.-only stretch mode by pressing the # key. (Works with YPbPr out, maybe not for HDMI.) Zoom works good for 4X3 images with both side pillars and letterboxing (top/bottom) bars (often PBS, IFC, Sundance, etc.), since geometric distortion is minimal, although translation captions that sometimes appear in the bottom black bar are then cropped out. Zooming can decrease PQ, but it's usually very slight here. The 8300HD's horiz-only stretch mode seems to exaggerate fat heads more than my RPTV's Panoramic stretch mode, which stretches more at the edges of images, and works with S-video, composite signals, but not component; don't have HDMI/DVI.

I watched 4X3 stretched via S-video for years to fill a 16X9 CRT RPTV and avoid 4X3 phosphor image retention. But since my newer STBs deliver good YPbPr 4X3 images upconverted to 1080i, with grey sidebars, I often watch 4X3 programs without as much concern about image retention. Now seems better to enjoy 4X3 without geometric distortion, and by sitting close enough to the display for ~33-degree-wide HD images (about 1.5X diagonal size), 4X3 images appear wide enough and grey side pillars are easy to ignore.

Analog cable signals, as noted, often don't deinterlace/scale well for fixed-pixel displays due to greater noise. Some cable systems now simulcast (duplicate) all analog sources in digital format; a letter suggesting yours do this because of your viewing problem might hasten their simulcast delivery. -- John

How do I go about doing that?

MntlyNSane: Turn the power off on your SA8300HD. Now, from the front panel of the box, hold down GUIDE and INFO simultaneously. This will bring the HD Setup Wizard on screen. Select Advanced Setup. Select Widescreen. Next the wizard will display various formats. Initially, probably only 1080i will be enabled. Press B to go to the next format (720p, which I usually don't use) and then B again to go to the next format, which is a 480 format. Hitting select here will enable that format. Then hit B to go to the next 480 format and repeat. I usually enable 1080i and all four of the 480s.

When that is the case, hit Exit to complete the setup, then Power to turn the box back on. Hit SETTINGS twice to go into General Settings, and look for Set: Picture Format. If this is on Fixed, change it to either Pass-Through or HDMI whatever.

What that will do, in short, is display HD channels at 1080i, filling the screen, and SD channels at 480, filling the screen. The only channels that you should see left/right sidebars, with this setup, in my experience, is on HD channels that are broadcasting SD/480 content. In those limited cases you can still use the SETTINGS button to get Quick Settings and use Stretch or Zoom.

doing that improved the SD channels alot!