Chicago, IL - Comcast - Page 100

Channel 7 'zoom-stretches' all SD material on their HD broadcast, turning everybody into munchkins. The only time you see pillarboxes on the sides is when a NETWORK HD feed does it, usually only on commercials. SD network shows are shown 'zoom-stretched'. I often watch the analog 7 instead, or 217 for news, because I find it annoying.

vj9999,

Thanks for the idea. I got another one from klbee in a pm. He suggested going into the onscreeen menu and resetting audio to matrix.
That did the trickand I have my dolby back.

ABC is still completely zoomed in.

andyross63. I was refering to where normally ABC is zoomed in, but small pillar boxes are left on either side (not like regular 4:3 pillar boxes, but more lie 14:9 kind of look). As of last night it completely fills the screen and the amount of zoom is much more anoying (peopleheads are alot more cut off).

I noticed this too the other day. ABC7-HD is zoomed in more than usual. Although for me I never had pillar boxes. I have a CRT, so overscan most likely was the cause of that.


tim

Remember that WLS-TV is owned by Disney/ABC. This is the company that calls full-screen P&S movies 'Family Friendly.' ESPN-HD used to zoom-stretch until a few months ago.

Yes..the small pillar boxes are gone! Also, the bottom crawl on the morning news is unreadable now There is definately some zooming going on

Just curious. Did people get the Oscars in DD 5.1 last night? I only got dolby pro logic. Do I need to reset my box?

My receiver indicated 5.1 Al

DD5.1 here - it was really noticeable during the audience applause.

I definitely was receiving programs in DD 5.1 before. Anyone else have this problem? I thought I read it might be fixed by powering the DVR box off and then back on. Why would this fix anything?

Does anyone else have a problem with the audio on Video On Demand where the sound level is way higher than watching normal cable channels? Everytime I go into the VOD menu, the sound from the preview window is very loud it makes me jump. I connect the sound using the digital coaxial output into my receiver, NOT the analog outputs. Anyone else with this kind of setup have a similar issue with VOD sound output?? I tried playing with the audio settings in the cable box setup menu (with no improvement), but i really thought these stereo settings were just for the analog outputs, not the digital audio outputs. Thanks.

I too connect the sound using digital coaxial output into my receiver and have the same sound output issue with VOD. I just turn the volume down before I switch over to VOD to compenstate for the higher sound output. I'm not sure if there is a fix.

And now it seems that the zooming is gone.


tim

At least someone is getting a high speed. Out here in Oswego, after the speed increase, I'm pulling a whopping 1.9mpbs. Of course, the Comcast techs always want to blame my slow speed on spyware (which I don't have on my PC).

This came up recently in this thread - the solution was in the audio settings. I believe someone set the audio to Matrix format and got their 5.1 signal back.

To get by 5.1 sound back I simply unplugged the box, let it sit a minute, then replugged it back in. Everything seems to be back to normal. Strange. I will check to see about the matrix setting.

Check out the Voom message threads in the HDTV Programming section. It isn't as bleak as it seems...

I've noticed recently, while watching Stargate on Sci-Fi channel, that the aspect ratio seems to be 2.35:1 (letterbox). I have a comcast two tuner dvr and a Replay dvr. The comcast box is connected via DVI. The replay, via component. I have a samsung dlp (hlp 5685).

Most shows recorded on the SD channels appear as 4:3. In fact, with a component input, the TV is normally set to 4:3 (my replay is only recording analog channels 2 through 99). But, I've noticed some shows, including Stargate, appear letterboxed in the TV's 4:3 display. While watching Stargate, when I switch to "Wide" picture size on the TV, I get a nice "aspect ratio correct" view.

My question is: Is this a precursor to a High Def sci-fi channel? Any thoughts? Anyone else notice this? When is comcast going to go digital on all the analog channels?

Sci-Fi does present a lot of movies and a few series in letterbox format. They've actually been pretty good about presenting material in its OAR version.

What's really fun is watching Bravo (I think) when they broadcast the Cirque du Soleil shows. They sometimes use the anamorphic widescreen version which looks very compressed on a standard 4:3 television, but looks normal when shown on a widescreen 16:9 display. I don't know if that was by accident or on purpose, but I was pretty thrilled when I first saw that a few years ago.

Current season Stargate SG1 episodes have always been widescreen (16:9, 1.78:1) on SciFi, and I think have been since it was on Showtime. Older episodes in repeat are aired using 4:3 versions.

Battlestar Galactica appears to be filmed/recorded in HD. An edited 3-hour version of the mini-series/pilot aired in HD on NBC just before the series premiere on SciFi (both are owned by NBC/Universal.) I would guess Atlantis and later SG1's are originally HD, too.

This is a good reason to get widescreen TV's. More and more shows are widescreen/letterboxed. Not just major network shows but also stuff on Science Channel, National Geographic, etc... Too bad it's the movie channels that are letterbox-phobic.

On my bill last month it advertised a Starz! free preview for this past weekend. I already subscribe to Starz!, but I was plesantly surprised to find that I also received Showtime over the weekend.

I know (from other forums) that D* was having a Showtime free preview, but didn't think it was going to run on Comcast. Anyone else out there get this as well?

Yes, Atlantis is aired in HD (somewhere) I have most of the first season in HD. Stargate SG1 is not though.
I wish they would air SG1 in HD though!

I noticed that the encryption was removed from the Showtime SD channels so that my QAM tuner was able to receive them. Couldn't find Showtime HD though, nor any Starz channels at all.

Does anyone know when we are supposed to get firmware v9.15 on the 6412's?

I hope it is soon. I missed SG-1 again on Friday because of the analog freezing problem.

There is a 'free preview' of digital Showtime channels March 3-10. Unlike the previous HBO previews, SHO-HD is also available on my box.

Starz! channels will have a free preview April 7-10.

Apparently 88-2 & 88-10 are not part of the Showtime freebie. They both ran a brief XXX film clip early this afternoon, and then went blank. Perhaps a porno channel that should have been encrypted.

Edit: Last night these two channels were carrying PBS Kids. One extreme to the other it seems.

I'm trying to set up my Comcast e-mail in Outlook 2003, but whenever the Outlook e-mail set-up wizard tries to send a test e-mail, it gets an error.

I've gone on the comcast.net site and looked at the FAQ, but I'm doing everything it says to do.

Any guesses?

tim

what are you using as an outgoing mail server?

It should be "smtp.comcast.net"

The Comcast mail server seems to be a bit out of whack this morning (I'm getting error messages right now trying to send out test emails to my other accounts). Try the test again later today.