Any way to Stretch/Zoom OTA SD Channels?

[dnyce]

Is their anyway on the Voom reciever to adjust OTA 4:3 SD signal to fit the entire screen? I know I'll loose some quality but I don't think I'll ever get used to the 4:3 look.

 

[cajun_100]

I think most local stations transmit with the black bars on each side unless they're showing an HD program.

 

[tdillon]

You shouldn't loose quality, it is sloppy. Tight quality is better.

However distorting the 4:3 aspect picture to fill a 16:9 screen will cause you to lose picture quality.

 

[Ilya]

Is their anyway on the Voom reciever to adjust OTA 4:3 SD signal to fit the entire screen? I know I'll loose some quality but I don't think I'll ever get used to the 4:3 look.

It depends on whether this is an HD or SD channel. For SD channels you can change the STB settings ("Narrow-to-wide") to stretch the image. For HD channels you cannot do that, because the image is actually 16x9 and the black bars on some SD programs are part of the image the way it is transmitted by your local broadcaster. Some broadcasters actually stretch SD programs on HD channels: again, no way to adjust this within the STB itself.

 

[dnyce]

Thanks, Ilya. I'll try the 'Narrow to Wide' feature on the STB. I'd only use this for when I'm watching football and the game is not in HD. Even stretched I'm sure the OTA signal looks better than the locals I get from Dish.

 

[DarrellP]

Even stretched I'm sure the OTA signal looks better than the locals I get from Dish.

Don't count on it. Lots of times I will watch OTA SD fed downconverted through my DVR and set my PJ to Native, this gives me a 1:1 pixel mapping effectively REDUCING the picture size by about 40%, this makes it look very good. I don't care if the image fills my screen, I want it to look the best it can. Even reduced I still have about a 70" screen.