Anyone else have weird flickering bars on the picture when viewing espn? I thought it was my tv. But then I went to a local restraunt and saw espn 2 of their flat panels and it was doing the same thing. I am not sure which service they have there likely just comcast, same as me. The picture during viewing of the sports, or commericals has flickering bars that appear on the top half of the screen. its very distracting to watch.

I just had comcast run my cable line to the wall where my tv is mounted so there are no spliters in line with it in my house.


Anyone eles with similiar problems?

If what you are seeing is in the very top lines of the picture then it sounds like you are seeing the vertical blanking interval which carries data such as closed captions. What do you have overscan set on your set?

I've been having issues with espn (hd) as well (and a handful of other hd channels). Most of the top row of pixels on the tv will be gray, some bright white. It comes and goes, and nobody (cable company, panasonic, internet) has been able to diagnose the problem. I can't adjust the overscan on my tv so I don't know if that is whats happening.

not at the very top. These are bands of whitish fade outs of the screen. Its a sharp tv and since i wittnessed the process else where i know its not banding, because i watch football games on local cbs channel and its perfect.

ideas?

I've been having issues with espn (hd) as well (and a handful of other hd channels). Most of the top row of pixels on the tv will be gray, some bright white. It comes and goes, and nobody (cable company, panasonic, internet) has been able to diagnose the problem. I can't adjust the overscan on my tv so I don't know if that is whats happening.

Do you see this problem on ESPNHD all the time or does it come and go. If it comes and goes during what programs do you see it? Is it only during SD upconverts on ESPNHD?

not at the very top. These are bands of whitish fade outs of the screen. Its a sharp tv and since i wittnessed the process else where i know its not banding, because i watch football games on local cbs channel and its perfect.

ideas?

Do you have a picture of it?

i can try to snag a picture of it, but the bands flash so quickly it may be hard to snap a picture of or to freeze the picture on the screen

Do you see this problem on ESPNHD all the time or does it come and go. If it comes and goes during what programs do you see it? Is it only during SD upconverts on ESPNHD?

My issue is with ESPNHD, ESPN2HD, FOXHD, and a couple others - and it doesn't happen all the time. When it does, I can see it on each of those channels, though the rest of my channels look fine. Doesn't seem to matter what the programming is either- it randomly shows up on everything - a 4:3 show with bars on the sides, an HD football game, etc. It will sometimes fix itself for awhile, then reappear again later.

Note: If I turn the tv off and back on again, the problem goes away for awhile - though the tech that Panasonic sent insisted the tv wasn't the problem.

I tried to attach a picture of the problem, hope it works. The bright white spot is about 1/3 from the right side of the tv. The darkened pixels to the left of the white spot continue the remaining 2/3 of the screen.

I'm considering trying Charter's DVR with an hdmi connection just to see if anything happens since I'm out of ideas.

ndd05, I believe what you are seeing is data that is transmitted in the vertical blankng interval (VBI) and on line 22 which normally is considered the first line of active video. Line 22 is used by Nielsen Research for their in-home boxes that are used for TV ratings.

Nielsen got a waiver from the FCC to use this line. This is an analog TV function, it has no purpose in digital TV. But much of the analog programming is fed into an MPEG encoder where it rides on through. Normally on a tube type TV set, the overscan would hide it. However, with bit mapped displays like LCDs and plasmas it can show up in the picture. I went round and round wth some Boston broadcaster engineers about this issue. The problem most had was with their digital encoders not being able to properly place the data correctly so that it could be hidden.

Your cable company has no control over this. I'm curious if changing to HDMI will help, please report back.

Mallego

Thanks for the info. I wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't for the ultra-bright white pixels...they pretty much ruin any non-white image on the screen. I'll definitely report back with any findings.

I saw the lines during last nights MNF game during some of the replay shots. I was watching the HD feed of ESPN on a non HD Tv. I also see it a lot when the local channels are broadcasting SD on the HD channel.

Has anyone called the cable company to see if they are having a problem with ESPN's feed? Sometimes they don't always know that there's a problem with a certain channel, unless a customer calls in to complain about it.

Sometimes poor reception of a single channel or network is broadcasting that way from the cable company's headend in your area.

- Cable Tech

On your Sharp, do you have the View mode set to "dot to dot"? I think that is what you are seeing. Try a different mode, I bet the line will go away.

is the dot by dot mode the 4:3 mode with the black side bars?
I tried in all viewing modes and it still shows up.
The two tvs I saw a local restratunt were a Pioneer Plasma and a daewoo tv. I can understand the daewoo but the pioneer? It has to be with the feed i think.

edit: had another issue that I figured out:P

I'm now using a dvr - we'll see if my issue goes away

I feel like I'm in the freaking twilight zone of HDTV. I brought home a new Charter DVR to test - the problem I was having hasn't shown up yet, but it would take a few days of watching to know for sure.

But this unit (Scientific Atlanta 8300HDC) doesn't seem to change output resolution automatically. When I'm watching SDTV I have to manually set the box to output 480i/p otherwise there will be black bars on the side. Then when I switch to an HD channel I have to manually change to 1080i/720p. That seems absolutely ridiculous to me - the cable box I just "upgraded" from changed resolutions just fine on its own - why can't this one? I'm going to look for some info about this dvr online, but if it won't automatically adjust the resolution then its going back to Charter. Maybe I wasn't meant to watch HDTV:P

You have to run the HD wizard on the DVR, so that the DVR knows which formats your HDTV can handle.

To access the HD wizard:

1> make sure the HD DVR is turned off.
2> press the "guide" and "info" buttons together on the front panel of the DVR, and wait for the HD wizard to show up on your TV (about 3 seconds).
3> release the "buttons" on the DVR, and follow the directions on the TV using the cable DVR remote.

After you've exited out of the HD wizard and the HD DVR is powered back on again, go into the menu settings of the DVR by pressing the "menu" or "settings" button twice on the cable DVR remote (depending on what kind of remote you have). Once there, scroll down to the "Set: Picture Format" option and select "Pass-through". Exit the menu, by pressing the "Exit" button on the remote, and your done. Now the HD DVR should change formats automatically, when tuning between different channels.

- Cable Tech

Appreciate it tech. I couldn't find the second menu screen at first to change the picture format - thats what had me stumped. Finally changed it from fixed to auto/pass through:)

Heres hoping the line on the top of my screen doesn't come back.

For anyone interested, I haven't noticed the rouge line at the top of my screen since hooking up the dvr. Whether the difference is in the cable box, hdmi connection, or both, I do not know. I just hope it stays fixed! Thanks for all who had input for me.

way to hijack the thread. :)