starting 8/04 i first got into hd/ht, etc. armed w/ sa8000hd stb and toshiba dr2, i started recording movies off the hd channels. they all looked pretty good and had letterboxes on all 4 sides. no prob! when i played them thru my shiny, spanking new panasonic hd pj, i thought they look darn good. hey, what did i know. it took about 6 mos before i realized that letterboxes on widescreen dvd-rs were 'verboten' . the 'manual' for the sa8000hd or any adelphia (at the time) stb was pathetic. no real info at all. somehow, i forget how, trial and error, i guess, i came to the realization that my stb had a 'normal, stretch, and zoom ' output mode button for some control of aspect ratios and if i used the 'stretch' mode i could get anamorphic widescreen dvd-rs. WOW!!! what a difference. so i had to go back and rerecord about 20-25 movies. id hate to have to do this now. for those who dont know, the ar control button for sa8000hd remote is at the far lower right of remote, just above PIP controls. any other similar stories?

apparently, the above stbs have SARA software which allowed me to make the anamorphic w/s dvd-rs. some sa8000hd stbs may have different software which precludes doing so.