Anomalies Present On 5 Star MaxHD - White Dashes On The Very Bottom Of The Screen

[FCom911]

Some of you may or may not be aware of anomalies that appear on the bottom of the screen concerning HBO's ' 5 Star MaxHD ' feed.

These appear as randomly generated white bars, running the approximate length of about 3 to 4 inches, dancing across the very bottom lines of screen (in my case, via my 722 via HDMi as presented on my 46" Aquos 1080p LCD) when viewed in ' dot by dot ' mode. They are present at all times no matter what the context of the media presented.

I addressed HBO engineering directly on the matter. HBO's reply, the occurrence of the anomalies are ' not to be there ' and HBO thanked me for identifying the problem and are in the process of rectifying the issue.

For those of you NOT familiar with ' dot by dot ' imaging on your HD set, it keeps the framing in the absolute original aspect of the data stream. That is to say, you'll see exactly what you're intended to see. Some of you may have your sets set up in a mode referred to as ' smart-stretch ,' etc. This mode actually blows up the picture slightly (or zooms). Subsequently, you miss some of the picture as it is zoomed in tighter than the original intent. It also causes a slight amount of detail devaluation when used in this matter (blow-up effect).

In SD days, we referred to this as the picture ' safe frame ' zone. With SD pictures, the picture was tweaked on your original set to overlap the screen frame, to zoom and exclude elements that reside on the extreme edges of the picture frame (CC: Closed Captioning, Affiliate Info, etc.).

With true HD programming, there is no need for a ' safe zone ,' that is, unless you're viewing SD content on a HD feed.

 

[Bruuce]

I've seen this. I chalked it up with Cinemax's incompetence.

 

[SteveinDanville]

I believe this is the digital encoding of the Closed Captioning.

 

[hammerdown]

CC is usually on the top edge (line 21) not bottom, but I guess it could be some kind of data embedded in the video.

 

[allargon]

I saw that in one particular movie. I thought it was just a bad film transfer where I was seeing edges of the film when they did a transfer to digital.

 

[dholmes_chem]

I've seen this as well, but only on one of my widescreen HDTV's. It appears on some channels and not others. I thought it might be due to the overscan setting. I've not done anything about it, though.

 

[patmurphey]

There are other channels that do this intermittently - a minor nuisance - the dot by dot setting on a 1080p TV is worth the occasional aggravation.

 

[AriesGodofWar]

I just shifted the vertical adjustment on my Vizio VU42LF a few pixels and that took care of it, but I did notice it also. In all honesty, I thought it had something to do with the CC or the DD5.1 streams, as my set had the a similar thing crop up at the top on some of my HD locals when I first got the set and had to make a minor adjustment then.

 

[ClevelandRob]

There are other channels that do this intermittently - a minor nuisance - the dot by dot setting on a 1080p TV is worth the occasional aggravation.

Absolutely. I do switch it for the stations that have the "anomalies". It's amazing how much you miss when not in full dot-by-dot HD size. It also gives the perfect Aspect Ratio of your source.

Out of curiousity, is it only possible to get that full edge to edge (or dot-by-dot) viewing on a 1080p? It looks great on my 1080p Panasonic Plasma, but I haven't seen a view that full on either of my 720p LCDs or on my old 720p DLP.

 

[FCom911]

Absolutely. I do switch it for the stations that have the "anomalies". It's amazing how much you miss when not in full dot-by-dot HD size. It also gives the perfect Aspect Ratio of your source.

Out of curiousity, is it only possible to get that full edge to edge (or dot-by-dot) viewing on a 1080p? It looks great on my 1080p Panasonic Plasma, but I haven't seen a view that full on either of my 720p LCDs or on my old 720p DLP.

The term (dot by dot) is an industry standard as it refers to the exact representation of dots contained in a 1080p screen. It's a video format that has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The p indicates progressive scanning, which describes how each picture frame is written in one single scan.

This is different from the interlaced signal received from Dish at 1080i. The i indicates interlaced scanning. Again, this is represented by 1920 x 1080 pixels, but is based on the principle that the screen shows every odd line at one scan of the screen and then all the even lines in a second scan.

There is basically little difference between progressive and interlaced formats (but hardcore enthusiast will say otherwise and they're right).

( p ) = presented all at once (1/60 of a second, hence 60 Hz)

( i ) = half is presented in the first pass (1/30 of a second), the other half is presented in the second pass (1/30 of a second). They alternate back and forth equalling 60 Hz. Another analogy, 1920 x 540 followed by 1920 x 540 = 1920 x 1080 = 60 Hz.

Does your set have dot by dot mode? It's more than likely based on what your manufacturer determines how you'll view the data presented on the screen. Chances are, if you have a 1080p set, you do. If your set is 1080i, you'll have to look for it as you may or may not have the feature. I have a friend who has a rear projection interlaced HD set and he has no such option.

In the case of 720p, you're actually down converting from a 1080i signal, but presenting the interlaced signal as a progressive one, so you're also up converting the interlaced picture into a progressive picture. So, dot by dot isn't a reality for 720p, unless the signal is presented in 720p, which FOX Sports was presenting. So, your set may have dot by dot, but it will be relevant only to a 720p signal.

As I mentioned in the original post, there is no reason these anomalies are present as all HD content is contained in the data stream. HBO is working with their vendors to remove such anomalies.

Those of you sighting CC (Closed Captioning) are close in your assumption, yet those would be located at the top of the screen, not the bottom (as mentioned by hammerdown), and would only be evident in programming that is analog in nature.

BTW: If you happen to see such anomalies on any HBO HD network, please let me know and I'll bring it to the direct attention of the engineering staff at HBO.