[Paul Bigelow]

Hello,


Is the Zenith HDV420 capable of outputting 480i widescreen at the S-Video jack? That is, if I hooked up a 16:9 TV using the S-Video cable should the widescreen picture be available for full display, or, would it be "widescreen" but letterboxed for 4:3 display? Ratio keys help any?


Best regards,


Paul Bigelow

 

[jckessler]

Short answer I believe is yes. The 420 can output widescreen material as follows:


1) Cropped (chop off the sides): This would be good for 4:3 material transmitted at 1080i for display on a 4:3 TV, or for getting rid of side black bars on a widescreen display to prevent burn-in.


2) Squeezed: Everything looks fine on a widescreen display (full 16:9 image raster displayed) but makes everything tall and skinny on 4:3 displays.


3) Letterbox: Adds top and bottom black bars and displays the full image, but of course you lose resolution to the black bars. This mode is only useful on 4:3 display.


You won't be able to change the aspect ratio of 4:3 broadcasts when outputting 480i.

 

[Raven_13]

I have the 420 and jckessler is correct. That set top box does lock the signals of native broadcasts. Most tv sets also have stretch modes and you can use those if necessary. I personally set the output to 1080i and stretch from either the 420 when possible and the tv when necessary. While I've never hooked up the S-Video, I believe it to be identical to the locking of the composite hookups. I only use the 480i mode if I want to record to VCR. Of course you may have other reasons to want to use the 480i output.


Dan

 

[Paul Bigelow]

Hello,


Thanks. What I would like to do would be record the 16:9 HD material in the 480i mode that my Sony DVD recorder will record in.


Best regards,


Paul Bigelow

 

[ThumperBoy]

I've recorded from the composite or s-video output from a Samsung SIR-T150 HD STB. While viewing the component output with 1080i format, it outputs the same 16:9 full frame video to the 480i outputs. This will be the same as an anamorphic widescreen DVD is displayed. I can record to an MPG2 file on my PC and mark it as a 16:9 anamorphic video that I can author as such to burn a DVDR. I belive standalone DVD recorders however only mark it as a 4:3 video.