Help...picture "stretch" vs "normal"

mulderxcoltrane · Jul 17, 2009

HI everyone,

I'm a new HDTV owner and have a question I was hoping someone could answer. We just got DISH Network and it seems that a lot of channels (even some in HD) have their stations displayed on my TV in the "squished" format
there's a blue box that pops up on the upper right that sometimes says "stretched" and sometimes says "normal." I know there's a "format" button on my TV's remote, but I was wondering if there's a way to permanently set it on a certain format so I don't have to switch every time we go to a new channel.

Any help?

Hall · Jul 17, 2009

First, don't start using the "format" button on the Dish remote and on your TV's remote. Set your TV to "Default" or "Normal" or whatever does nothing to the picture. Or, set your Dish receiver to "Normal" and use your TV's remote to change the picture format. Again, just don't use both.

Because every channel sends their picture differently, Dish receivers deal with each channel individually. There is no "All" setting for what you want.

Brodieb · Jul 17, 2009

If you have HD programming you may need to set both HD and SD to be "Normal" - I have all my HD channels at "Normal" and all the SD at "stretch" so that I don't get the pillar boxes. I have a plasma so I am always paranoid about image retention - if I had an LCDTV I would have both at normal.

mulderxcoltrane · Jul 17, 2009

Brodieb said:
If you have HD programming you may need to set both HD and SD to be "Normal" - I have all my HD channels at "Normal" and all the SD at "stretch" so that I don't get the pillar boxes. I have a plasma so I am always paranoid about image retention - if I had an LCDTV I would have both at normal.

How do I do this?

dennispap · Jul 17, 2009

mulderxcoltrane said:
How do I do this?

The bottom left button on your dish remote . It is a * marked "format"
cycle through until you get to normal.
It has normal, grey bar, stretch, zoom, partial zoom

mulderxcoltrane · Jul 17, 2009

hall said:
First, don't start using the "format" button on the Dish remote and on your TV's remote. Set your TV to "Default" or "Normal" or whatever does nothing to the picture. Or, set your Dish receiver to "Normal" and use your TV's remote to change the picture format. Again, just don't use both.

Because every channel sends their picture differently, Dish receivers deal with each channel individually. There is no "All" setting for what you want.

I was only using the format button on my TV remote b/c I didn't realize there was a way to do this on the DISH remote. Is there?

mulderxcoltrane · Jul 17, 2009

dennispap said:
The bottom left button on your dish remote . It is a * marked "format"
cycle through until you get to normal.
It has normal, grey bar, stretch, zoom, partial zoom

Would you know how (as suggested by a PP) how to set all SD channels to stretch and all HD channels to normal?

TNGTony · Jul 17, 2009

What hasn't been made clear in the previous posts is that the Dish receivers remember your setting for standard definition and high definition separately.

Some HD channels stretch their upcoverted programs (A&E, History, Lifetime, TNT), most use black bars or some other frame to present 4x3 programs (Pillarbox). Remember that there are HD programs that are 4x3. And the discovery channels mostly show their older 4x3 programs in a partial zoom mode with small back bars on the sides. Some movie channels (especially Starz) show many of their HD movies in OAR which means that there may be some letterboxing (black bars on top and bottom of pic). And finally some channels show their SD 16x9 programs in a window box (black bars all around the picture). This is what the zoom function is really for.
See ya
Tony

Pepper · Jul 17, 2009

The receiver will remember, it uses the same setting for all HD channels and all SD channels separately. So you should theoretically only need to adjust it once for each type of channel.

dang Tony, beat me to it!

TNGTony · Jul 17, 2009

Hall · Jul 17, 2009

TNGTony said:
What hasn't been made clear in the previous posts is that the Dish receivers remember your setting for standard definition and high definition separately.

Are you sure ? I didn't think anyone knew for sure.... My main question is, how does the receiver know what channel is HD vs SD ? Does it base it on the aspect ratio, MPEG2 vs MPEG4, etc ?

tempVAdish · Jul 17, 2009

hall said:
Are you sure ? I didn't think anyone knew for sure.... My main question is, how does the receiver know what channel is HD vs SD ? Does it base it on the aspect ratio, MPEG2 vs MPEG4, etc ?

They probably look @ the resolution to tell if it's HD or SD...

mistercoke · Jul 17, 2009

What are grey bar for?

Bobby · Jul 17, 2009

mistercoke said:
What are grey bar for?

Some people would rather look at gray pillars as opposed to black. Some would say that gray leaves less retention than black.

TNGTony · Jul 17, 2009

Gray bars look great on B&W movies too. But as stated above, they are to prevent burn in on Plasma and CRT TV sets. If you use exclusively black bars especially on CRTs and older plasmas (and even newer plasmas for super-extended periods of time) you stand the risk of leaving permanent marks on the screen.

Hall. Yes, I am 100% certain. How it's done is irrelevant to me.

See ya
Tony

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Help...picture "stretch" vs "normal"

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