Hello,

I posted this about a month ago in the Display Calibration forum to no responses, not sure if its because I posted in wrong forum or everyone said, "This guy is beyond help!" - Prev Post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=807726)

Basically, a friend of mine is throwing his Optoma 739 again a blank wall above his fireplace (still no screen yet!). He's all about, the bigger the better, even though I'm trying to convince him to go WS because he won't lose much height becuase he's got more width than height to work with. I house sat a while ago, watched a DVD, used the zoom to maximize the width, and it looked great. But I just convinced him to get an HD cable (DVI-HDMI) for his Comcast HD DVR. But being a newbie (still haven't bitten the bullet on a PJ myself), I'm having problems calibrating it. Can someone tell me what settings (both on the Motorola DVR & 739) he should be using to get the best results? I can't remember what he currently has it set to, but some settings make it distorted. Should it be set to 720p or 180i? And how do we set it up for WS (for both TV & DVD) so that when viewing FS content (like SDTV), it doesn't display on the fireplace & ceiling? I tried the 739's WS mode, but all it does is compress the image (what good is that?!) MississippiMudMan told me this can be done, but I'm scratching my head. And since I don't live there, I don't have much time to play with it.

I'm going over there in a couple hours to let their dog out (although I don't expect a response before then), so I'll play with it some more then.

Thanks in advance,
Brian

OK, didn't really get anywhere, and something new happened. When I first started and turned it on an HD channel using the DVI input, I was getting the normal widescreen image inside of the Optoma's 4:3 image. But then all of a sudden it wouldn't output using the DVI input, even though the Optoma said it received a signal and hence stayed on DVI, it wasn't displaying an image...but it would via S-Vid. I then played with the settings on the Moto DVR, going through all the different types, 4:3 Letterbox, 4:3 P&S, & 16:9, and of course 720p & 1080i on both. I then decided to powercycle the Optoma, which got the DVI to come back, but still in full screen on an HD channel.

And then when going to a commercial in HD using DVI, some (but not all) commercials are compressed horizontially and hence distorted. And when switching to SVid, everything looks the way it should (WS image inside of the native 4:3 display area) other than not being the nice HD image that the DVI displays.

Then right before I left, I lost DVI again. Powercycled the PJ, and it was fine again. He's using a $55 10ft. DVI to HDMI cable from Walmart, I checked the connections, everything is good. Also powercycled the Moto DVR, although just a soft reset, I didn't unplug the power.

WHAT the F am I doing wrong?! Could there be something wrong with his cable? Optoma PJ? Moto DVR? Or just me?!

(Hope the attachments come through, couldn't figure out how to post them inline like I've seen in other posts.)

I'm trying to do the same thing (16:9 on a 4:3 projector) and have a post in the CRT projectors area. My understanding is that I can send 4:3 pixels for 16:9 content, then use the CRT controls to scale it back to 16:9 for display.

I'm not sure how you do this with a digital projector.