Official Sony XBR2 (60" & 70") Owner's Thread - Page 206

It would seem that CBS now has a stake in TVGOS.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/...ap3636389.html

I have been using a sony hdd250 for over 20 months which requires the TVGOS and the clock signal. After many problems trying to use TVGOS, I found that the cable company broadcasts the signals exactly as they receive them. I found that the PBS station in our area was experiencing various problems with the hardware used for broadcasting the signal. Ultimately, they upgraded the hardware. The equipment was very expensive. I also found that not all PBS stations have funding necessary to buy this hardware. I got a lot of wrong information until I was able to talk to the engineers involved in maintaining the signal. Also by talking to other people across the country and following various forums, and sorting through a lot of statements, I found the problems to be fairly consistent.

I could write a chapter on using cable cards and the various signal problems, but that has proven not to be related to the TVGOS problems.

I have read that ABC and CBS broadcast the signal in a few communities, but those are few and far between. Now with the recent changes as indicated by the link above, I am not sure what to expect.

I will follow the changes on this closely, as I am sure MANY interested people will too. Hopefully, there will be little interruption as they change over and introduce new transmitting hardware.

This is another awesome reason why I appreciate this AVS Forum and the expert knowledge (certainly not mine) that is shared in here.

I actually have experienced something similar with my hdd250. The embedded software for TVGOS is imported by the manufacturers, so aside from some version variations, we should have a lot of similarities. Maybe, my experience can help. I will take my experience on this offline with you through messages first so that we don't confuse things in here.

Please don't assume we solved this, so if anyone else has other ideas, chime in.

Here is some more info on the TV Guide function.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/fea...-tv-guide.html

This is a link to what channel carries it in various markets.

http://www.spiffspace.com/sonydvr.html#Section216

VideoGal provided a lot of help on TVGOS some time ago. She has/had an XBR1 with an HDD250/500 and seemed to have a good handle on audio/video digital communications and TVGOS. She helped me (and others) get in contact with the PBS engineers. Not sure if she is still out there...???

Hi Dinomon, Yes I beleive it is coming via analog broadcast, that would make since
since a majority of tuners out there are still analog and not QAM (hd/digital) like we have.

UMR also posted some info for us "thanks again" that talks about the guide and
and a guide channel list with zip codes that helps explain this.

I think un-hidding your PBS analogs should do it. I am going to do a test with mine also in the next few days.

Its funny you menitioned this because the first couple of weeks i had the new XBR2 the guide wasnt working and it was driving me nuts. I dont really need it
because I have Comcast HD box, but you just want it to work if its there!!!

UMR thanks so much again!!

MultimediaGeek thanks for your input as well. This is exactly what resources like this should be used for and its great!!

Let us know how that works Dinomon!!
Al

One of our concerns on the HDD 250/500 is that the firmware version that we have is that it's not set up to receive/read the TVGOS data from a digital channel. When I look at secured menus I can see which channel is used for the TVGOS. It is an analog cable channel that rebroadcasts the PBS station. This has been a big ongoing topic in other forums. I had my firmware updated recently to get the latest version to solve an unrelated problem. Unfortunately, I am not 100% sure what all that included.

Anyways, this hits on the idea that the TVGOS signal is coming from analog, over the air, PBS channels.

Thanks strutter. I actually found that thread the same day I found this one. Thanks though.

Yesterday I was determined to finally see a native 1080P movie from my Xbox 360 HD DVD add on drive displayed on my 70" XBR2. I bought the official Xbox VGA HD cable and removed the component connection. Truth be told, it seems strange and a step backward to expect a better resolution from a VGA connection than component but what do I know. Everyone says it can be done so why not.

I then downloaded the so-called spring update (which apparently has another update yet to come which fixes a multitude of problems on the HD DVD drive), connected the VGA cable, and began praying for visual nirvana. Long story short, after setting the Xbox system video resolution to 1920 x 1080 expanded, my otherwise wonderful 70" XBR2 spit the resolution back at me with an error message along the lines of "unsupported resolution." It might as well as said "you are a sucker for buying an HD DVD add on drive."

I grow weary over all the difficulty this industry has with various input and output connections all in the name of preventing piracy or some such nonsense. What about the guys in the white hats like us who are just trying to watch a movie in native 1080P? It should be a simple matter but for some reason, which escapes my logic, it is not.

Sorry for the rant.

So I then decided to call the local Sony store and ask if anyone knew whether or not the XBR2 70" VGA port could support 1920 x 1080 resolution. Wrong question apparently. As most everyone here can probably surmise, the well trained staff had not a clue. They were pretty sure though that the hardware problem was billion dollar Bill's because my Xbox 360 doesn't have an HDMI port. Therefore the Xbox 360 was to blame. They heartily recommended a PS3. Then the new Elite if I were a Microsoft "fanboy." Finally they suggested a $600 Blu-Ray player as another solution.

Funny how some salespeople think you have a new hardware issue when the real question is how to get the stuff you already own to work with each other. For all I know, I may never be able to get the Sony to cooperate with the 360 but it comes across as shallow to immediately leap to a new hardware purchase when I'm trying to understand the root cause to an error message by trying to find out if the VGA port can accept a 1920 x 180 signal.

So, I find myself once again in no-man's land with respect to my journey to 1080P viewing. Here are my questions if the helpful membership here can lend a hand:
1) Can one play an HD DVD on the Xbox 360 drive in native 1080P on the 70" XBR2 without any upconverting?
2) If so, how? I assume it is with the VGA cable connection but that didn't work for me.
3) Will the next Xbox update "fix" my problem or am I destined to be stuck at 1080i?

Thanks in advance.

The VGA port does accept 1920 x1080, but unfortunately the picture does not fill the screen (no one knows why, but it's documented in the manual). You'll find 6 inches of black bar all around. Quality will suffer because you won't have 1:1 pixel mapping. Doesn't the Xbox output 1080p via component here?

Thanks for your response. My understanding to your question is no. Of course, I could very well be wrong and am open to learning the truth on this point. I base my understanding on numerous posts such as fellow member ack_bk who posted this nugget in the HD DVD forum:
"The 360 add-on cannot play movies in 1080p via component (this is an AACS issue, not a Microsoft issue). The AACS does not allow 1080p movies to be watched via component even thought it is completely possible (games work just fine). If your TV has a VGA port, you need to buy the VGA cable for the 360. This will allow you to watch movies in 1080p and will also allow you to upscale standard definition DVDs."

Thanx much

I looked thru the forum for a possible answer to this but could not find it.

I have the KDS-R60XBR2 with my DVD running via component . When I watch HD TV the screen fills, when I watch a widescreen DVD I get black bars across the top. There is no where on the DVD player that I can find to set the output resolution, just the screen format which is set to 16:9.

Is it because I don't have an upconvert DVD? also, I'm not sure that the DVD player is putting put progressive either.. on the model I am using, you have to manually change it before the movie starts but after you turn it on.

I'm replacing it soon and need to avoid this in the future.

Black bars are created to compensate for movies that have different aspect ratios than your TV. You can read about black bars and why they are used with the link at the bottom of my post.

The reason you see black bars on some films is that films were shot in many different aspect ratios. SD TV is 4:3 or 1.33:1. HDTV (both 1080i and 720p) is 16:9 or approximately 1.78:1.

Most widescreen films are/were shot in 1.85:1, which won't show black bars at the top and bottom of the screen since the film-to-video transfer process usually slightly squeezes the image to 1.78:1. Quite a few were shot at 2.40:1 (CinemaScope) which will show black bars at the top and bottom.

There are other widescreen formats that were less popular. All will show black bars if transferred in their original aspect ratio, including (from Wikipedia):
2:1: Used primarily as a flat format in the 1950s and early 1960s by Universal-International, as well as Paramount for some of their VistaVision titles. Also used as one of the variable anamorphic ratios with SuperScope. Used as the aspect ratio for the DVD release of Apocalypse Now.
2.2:1: 70 mm standard. Originally developed for Todd-AO in the 1950s.
2.35:1 : 35 mm anamorphic prior to 1970, used by CinemaScope ("'Scope") and early Panavision.
2.55:1: Original aspect ratio of CinemaScope before optical sound was added to the film. This was also the aspect ratio of CinemaScope 55.
2.59:1: Cinerama at full height (three specially captured 35 mm images projected side-by-side into one composite widescreen image).
2.76:1: MGM Camera 65 (65 mm with 1.25x anamorphic squeeze). Used only on a handful of films between 1956 and 1964, such as Ben-Hur (1959).
4:1: Polyvision, three 35 mm 1.33 images projected side by side. Used only on Abel Gance's Napoléon (1927).

You will only get full screen with no black bars on material filmed/recorded in 16:9 (1.78:1 or 1.85:1). Anything else will show the bars unless you decide to zoom the picture, in which case you will also be cutting off the sides.

Anyone have experience with the XBR2 and any of Phillips' upconverting DVD players (specifically the DVP5982)? :wish:

pftaylor,

You are not alone in your dilemma and here is the unfortunate answer:

While component cable CAN transmit 1080p the problem is what is outputted and what is accepted.

Now, I believe the xbox 360 CAN output 1080p and the component cable CAN carry 1080p.

The problem my friend is your T.V. It will not ACCEPT 1080p via anything other than VGA or HDMI . . . which of course your XBox 360 does not have.

There is unfortunately no good answer to the problem.

I bought a VGA cable and hooked it up to my 32 inch Samsung LCD. It does not support 1080p even but I did it because of connections (I only have one component input on the T.V. which I wanted for the Wii and so wanted to see what the picture quality would be like with VGA).

While the resolution appeared the same (no surprise on only a 32 inch screen) there was definite color "fade out" which I had read about and been warned about.

So I went back to component and got a component switcher instead.

The upshot of all of this is that if you truly MUST have native 1080p (without upscaling) on your T.V. you need to buy a Toshiba HD-AX2 and an HDMI cable.

Which is a better buy than an Elite 360 which offers nothing but an HDMI port and a bigger hard drive.

That's my understanding of the problem, if I'm wrong I'd be happy to be educated.

Hope that helps.

Dennis

dfchang,
Thanks for putting everything into perspective. Your comments are greatly appreciated. So what we really have going on here is that 1080P sometimes really isn't 1080P for a variety of reasons. In my case, the Sony and the Xbox 360, by themselves aren't the problem. They are both "capable" of 1080P in limited ways. However, when combined, they accentuate each other's 1080P limitation. Funny how that works out isn't it?

If I understand you correctly then I really have two problems; the standard Xbox 360 doesn't have an HDMI port and the Sony XBR2 doesn't accept 1080P signals on any port other than HDMI. I wonder if Sony will ever offer a firmware upgrade to solve either the VGA problem or the component port limitation.

As I understand it I may have three, somewhat cost effective ways, to achieve true 1080P:
1) Buy an Elite (and sell the standard 360)
2) Buy a stand alone HD DVD player (and sell the add on HD DVD drive)
3) Buy a pre-amp which might be able to take the 1080P component signal from the Xbox 360 and output a 1080P signal through HDMI

While I'm not kicking myself for adopting a high defintition TV too early or for buying a high definition playback standard like HD DVD, I must say that I thought I had waited until the compatibility issues were resolved. I vowed to myself to not get cut by the bleeding edge of home electronics again (after always being an early adopter) and I find myself still bleeding.

It just goes to show you that one can never have too much information. Which is why I love this forum.

I just wanted to thank everyone here on the forum. I have been scavaging these forums for the last 6-8 months for info on the best RPTV. I came across the XBR2 and loved everything said about it. I have been wanting this TV for that long and just waited until the right deal came and the right time financially. I finally got mine delivered yesterday and couldnt be happier. I look forward to messing with this TV in the Tweak thread, but I just wanted to stop in and say thanks for the priceless information I have recieved. All the advice is highly respected and appreciated.

Thanks UMR. Very good links.

Hello Al, I UN-HIDE PBS analog channel only, and guess what? TV Guide is working for me now.
Thanks to you, MultimediaGeek, & UMR for your TV Guide guidance.

Another solution would be to connect via componet and send 1080i signal to the XBR2 which will de-interlace it to 1080P. If the 1080i source is clean you will probably not even be able to discern the difference between a 1080i HD image vs a 1080P one.

I tried searching the thread for the solution to my problem but after an hour of reading I gave up.....so let me apologize in advance for my request if it has already been discussed.

After putting up a crosshair test pattern on my XBR2 I have determined that the red chip is out of convergence by at least 2 pixels. The white crosshair is outlined on the right side by a solid red line and is pretty much uniform throughout the screen.

Would someone be so kind to send instruction via this thread or PM on how to adjust the red back so that I can correct my convergence? Since I am somewhat technically challenged please respond with as much detail as possible beginning with getting into the service menu and ending with how to get out. I would really appreciate that and once gain I apologize if this has already been covered.

When I switch from HD to non-HD channel, volume jumps a lot. Reviver is set on Dolby.

I have a 60" XBR2 connected to Dish Netwirk. Sound is directed through Yamaha receiver.

Hi Dinomon,
Excellent and thanks everyone for all input!!!
Al

I have the same problem on cable. It is not a problem with the TV or the receiver; it is the broadcaster or the satellite/cable provider. Nothing you can do about it except turn down the volume when it gets too loud.

Your option 3 is something I am curious about as well. I am concerned about what happens with the HDCP. There are a few combinations where the HDCP for the end HDMI could be lost or just nonexistent and then the HD/BluRay DVD may not play on the TV. Feels like I am back to work at NASA with all of the acronyms.

Anyway, I hope to test some of this, but it is going to take me a little while. I am not expecting much with the conversions and the associated losses and signal noise. Just more testing for me to do after Thursday.

Is the problem across the entire screen or just one side or area? On these TVs, you can only adjust the convergence over the entire screen from the service menu. There was some discussion in one of the XBR threads. I believe Kewlk posted instructions but I can't find them now. Check his posts here and in the related XBR SXRD threads. There are instructions in the Service Manual but they are difficult to follow.

Here is a link to the Service Manual.

Thanks cctvech! .....yes the problem is uniform accross the entire screen.

Not sure, but I remember I had my set unplugged for 30mins or so and I had to go through that initial set-up again.

Ooops, deleted my own post thinking nobody had answered. Sorry about that, but I had unplugged the TV for a few minutes and all it did was lose the time.

However, I regained my TVGOS again, which made me very relieved and happy