My friend has an 3 year old 4:3 HDTV monitor from RCA, and a new hughes HTLHD, connected via RGB out to DIGITAL TV in or SVGA2 on the back.
I have 2 questions,
1. When watching any 1080 programming such as HDNet the image is full screen, with no way to watch it 16:9? The only way to watch this in widescreen is to switch to 480p???? I dont think this is right but can find no way to change this in the Hughes menu Or the RCA menu?
2. Also when the hughes is switched to a SD channel everything is centered properly, but when it is changed to an HD channel, the image shifts to the left, enough that when you are watching a hockey game on HDNet the scoreboard is not visible! Is there anyway to shift the image to the right about 4 or 5 inches? Again In the menus for these two units I can find no solution to the problem!
I don't have either of these, TV or this STB, but I would point out two things:
First, make sure the STB is set for a 4:3 TV. If it is set for 16:9, the STB will fill the screen as you describe when watching HD programming. If the STB is set for 16:9, I am not sure how to solve the problem.
The second one you mentioned may not have a fix. RCA in its earliest HD efforts specifically wanted to match their HDTVs and STB, the RCA DTC-100. These earliest units did not use an HD standard raster. In fact, when using the DTC-100 with other HDTVs, you had to go into the service menu to adjust the raster. When you adjusted the raster, the picture would move left-right on the screen, so I think this may be the problem your friend is experiencing. I believe RCA TVs were designed to work with this initial version of the DTC-100. Later firmware updates on the DTC-100 fixed this and allowed it to work with any HDTV by giving you a choice of raster settings, but I don't think there were ever any updates for the TVs. So, it is possible your friend's RCA may not work correctly with a Hughes STB.
I have an "older" model RCA 4:3 HDTV which has user selectable "anamorphic" 16:9 mode, regardless of input (480i/480p/540p/1080i). It is changed by the "Fetch" key on the RCA remote. Your friend's model may or may not have this feature. If not, he needs a STB with letterbox format HD mode for non-anamorphic 4:3 TVs. The DTC-100 that RoyGBiv mentioned would be a good match. The older Hughes E86 also has LTBX for 4:3 TVs.
WRT the centering issue, he may want to try a different STB like the Samsung TS160. It has a centering option for RGB output, in:
Menu/Setup/Installation/Monitor.
Another option is to get a component to RGB adapter cable from RCA and use the component output on the STB. My TV came with an 8' one.....
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