[glangford]

On widescreen recordings I make on my Panasonic-EH85 from things like HBO HD, Starz HD, or HDnet, I get a wide screen recording, but when I play it back on a widescreen tv, I have a border all around and have to zoom. I've tried various settings, but nothing seems to work.


Is the problem my setup? I have an old 4x3 Sony 36" HD CRT set in the living room currently that my cable STB and dvd recorder are hooked to. Is the problem that my STB is set to a 4x3 tv? If set to 16x9 would this border on widescreen playback go away? What would that then do to my 4x3 picture. My bedroom tv is a 26" widescreen.


I know, I need to ditch the sony 36" CRT.

 

[Roger Lococco]

you need to record the anamorphic mode from your STB if it has one (it'll look "squished" on a 4:3 tv) a widescreen tv will display the recording properly, what you've been doing is recording the widescreen 4:3 image.

 

[glangford]

Changed settings on STB to widescreen, no apparent difference. When I set the STB to widescreen, HD widescreen programming still has the same appearance on my 4:3 (auto recognition?) and the analog channels are much smaller and don't fill the screen. I can do advanced set up on the STB where the widescreen tv is set and I can choose what formats to retain. I retain the 480i format and set the STB format to pass through and I get full screen 480i image on the 4:3 on non hd channels. It would seem the best option right now is to use as I have it and just zoom on widescreen and retain the proper 4:3 picture? Am I missing something?

 

[eaglecrest]



Quote:
Originally Posted by glangford /forum/post/15454175


Changed settings on STB to widescreen, no apparent difference. When I set the STB to widescreen, HD widescreen programming still has the same appearance on my 4:3 (auto recognition?) and the analog channels are much smaller and don't fill the screen. I can do advanced set up on the STB where the widescreen tv is set and I can choose what formats to retain. I retain the 480i format and set the STB format to pass through and I get full screen 480i image on the 4:3 on non hd channels. It would seem the best option right now is to use as I have it and just zoom on widescreen and retain the proper 4:3 picture? Am I missing something?

I think you will find that your STB will not output a 16:9 widescreen picture via the composite (yellow) or s-video output no matter what setting you use. They automatically reformat the picture to display on a standard TV.

 

[Westly-C]

Do you have the 16:9 setting selected on the E85 itself? With the ez47 & ez48, you must go into the setup menu under TV Screen tab > TV aspect, and select size that you want to record in.

 

[mdavej]

 HERE'S a brief list of boxes that can or can't do widescreen.

 

[jjeff]

Good thought and you're correct on the EZs recording from the tuner but on the older pre EZs that setting only has to due with output, not the recording.

On the EZs the setting not only controls the output but also the "output of the digital tuner". That is if recording from a 16:9 WS channel if you've selected 4:3 the machine will only record the 4:3 part of a 16:9 broadcast. Note the setting does not control the WS recording ability of line input recordings, only from the tuner.

When I first got my EZ-17 I made the mistake of setting it up for 4:3 since that's the kind of TV I had it hooked up to. Well all those initial recordings were only 4:3 and not 16:9 so when I now play those back on my 16:9 TV I only get 4:3

After a little while I figured out what was going on and changed the setup to 16:9. Problem then was I got the vertically stretched picture when watching things through the EZ-17 on my 4:3 TV

I guess you can't have it all

Also note if you have it setup the way I did, 16:9 and record a 4:3 program off a HD channel and play that DVD on a 4:3 TV you will get a vertically stretched 4:3 picture with bars on the side

 

[glangford]

I get widescreen recordings on my 4:3. (black bars top and bottom) on the widescreen tv it is widescreen, but needs to be zoomed to fill the screen (basically normal view is a wide screen image within a 4:3 that has to be zoomed to fill). When it is a 4:3 program I get full screen on the 4:3 tv and black bars on the sides on my widescreen TV, but full screen vertically. I was using my EZ27 and performed a test (I assume my EH85 behaves the same. I used every combination of settings that I could. All going through the S-video connection from the cable box. The following test was conducted.


1. Cable box set for 16.9 tv, recorder set for 16.9.

2. Cable box set for 4:3 TV Recoder set for 16:9

3 Cable box set for 16:9 TV Recorder set for 4:3

4 Cable box set for 4:3 Recorder set for 4:3.


In all cases the result was the same as described above, no difference. Is there no way to get full widescreen on the 16:9 as normal without zoom? I have the SA8300 HD (HDMI inactive) box the link above describes, but don't know how to check which version of SW it is using.


What else am I missing?

 

[eaglecrest]



Quote:
Originally Posted by glangford /forum/post/15456705


I get widescreen recordings on my 4:3. (black bars top and bottom) on the widescreen tv it is widescreen, but needs to be zoomed to fill the screen (basically normal view is a wide screen image within a 4:3 that has to be zoomed to fill). When it is a 4:3 program I get full screen on the 4:3 tv and black bars on the sides on my widescreen TV, but full screen vertically. I was using my EZ27 and performed a test (I assume my EH85 behaves the same. I used every combination of settings that I could. All going through the S-video connection from the cable box. The following test was conducted.


1. Cable box set for 16.9 tv, recorder set for 16.9.

2. Cable box set for 4:3 TV Recoder set for 16:9

3 Cable box set for 16:9 TV Recorder set for 4:3

4 Cable box set for 4:3 Recorder set for 4:3.


In all cases the result was the same as described above, no difference. Is there no way to get full widescreen on the 16:9 as normal without zoom? I have the SA8300 HD (HDMI inactive) box the link above describes, but don't know how to check which version of SW it is using.


What else am I missing?

What you are missing is the fact that your cable box is designed to re-format the picture when you use any outputs except component or HDMI.


You need a device that will convert component or HDMI to an s-video or composite signal. If your TV has a video output connection, you could try to record that signal. The disadvantage is the TV would have to be on whenever recording.


As a more expensive alternative, you could purchase a HD TiVo box that is compatible with your cable system. They send out 16:9 WS picture on all the video outputs.


I know this is not the answer you are looking for, but short of switching to a DBS satellite service or hacking your original cable box, there is not much else you can do.


-Bill