Black Bars on non HD Channels on HDTV Sets?

[jsattv]

Hope this is the right Forum for this HDTV Reception Question:
My 17 year old Sony Tube set is just about done and I lose the picture at times every day. So I have been looking at purchasing an HDTV Set for my Bell Express Vu service. I currently subscribe to Satellite 91 and have been told its about $10 - 12 more per month to get the HDTV Channels on Satellite 82. I have the 9200 PVR Receiver with capability of 25 Hours of HD Recording. There are 2 cables coming down from the roof into my Bell 9200 Receiver.

Today I went to the Electronics Store and everything was showing full screen on their canned HDTV, I asked the salesguy if he could show me the local CBC Channel 226 - without HDTV ON IT, (it was a 50 inch Panasonic HDTV) and to my great dissappointment there were 2 Wide Black Bars on the left and right hand side of the Picture? The salesguy showed me and demonstrated that the picture could be stretched to fill out those Black Bars but then the Picture is distorted!! Is this normal for NON HD Channels on ALL HDTV Sets?? My concern is that I have the 6 Basic Packages and East and West Feeds and I would think that certainly all of the channels would NOT be HDTV. So does this mean that say to watch CBC news or CTV news every evening I have to expect those annoying wide Black Bars on all the non HD Channels on a new HDTV Set??

 

[mexsunny]

Once you get your HDTV in place you will find that in set-up there is a selection for format. On mine I chose automatic and it selects the best picture framing for the channel, which eliminated the cutting off (cropping) of some of the picture.

 

[Alex99]

... there were 2 Wide Black Bars on the left and right hand side of the Picture?

The issue isn't HD/non HD. On a 16x9 set, ANY content in 4:3 format will have the bars on either side, unless you stretch (and distort) to fill the screen. If you pop a fullscreen format DVD into your player, you'll see the bars.

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi Jsattv and the group. Have you looked into getting your locals OTA? Not sure of the schedule for the switch to digital TV for Canada but down south in the states most of the cities have already started digital TV broadcast. The picture for HD digital OTA is stunning!

If you have any interest in this check out the HD OTA forum.

Also look into a all HD package instead of SD with HD. Dish Network offers some great pricing on HD only packages, perhaps Bell Express Vu does too.

Hope this helps, DC

 

[Pepper]

It is a problem in the way many people think.

You just have to decide which is more important to you. A picture which fills the entire screen and is distorted sometimes (a.k.a. Stretch-O-Vision), or a picture which looks decent, and has bars on the sides sometimes. Since some pictures are 4x3 and some are 16x9, you can't have it both ways.

 

[jsattv]

Hi Jsattv and the group. Have you looked into getting your locals OTA? Not sure of the schedule for the switch to digital TV for Canada but down south in the states most of the cities have already started digital TV broadcast. The picture for HD digital OTA is stunning!

If you have any interest in this check out the HD OTA forum.

Also look into a all HD package instead of SD with HD. Dish Network offers some great pricing on HD only packages, perhaps Bell Express Vu does too.

Hope this helps, DC

Thanks for all the great replies guys. Delta_charlie I don't believe we have any HD on OTA up here in Winnipeg, Canada, (unless I can pick it up from the USA - we are only about 85 miles North of the US border, & Grand Forks is about 150 miles from here), but in the bigger Canadian cities like Toronto or Montreal OTA HD may be available. As far as Dish network - don't think its available in Canada, our only Subscription choices are: Bell Express Vu, and Starchoice.

On my big 31 inch Sony tube set I have seen BlackBars above and below the picture during many commercials, but I've never seen those wide Big Black Bars on the left and right hand side of the picture before as I saw in the Video Store - that was downright annoying!! I guess that is why they only run these new HD Tv's in HD in the store, since they might lose sales if they showed the TV on normal digital TV?? I'll check with Bell (& get ready for a long 30 minute wait, ie press this, & press that, & your call is important to us!!), since I think they may have as many as 50 HD Channels now.

 

[uplinkguy69]

Hope this is the right Forum for this HDTV Reception Question:
My 17 year old Sony Tube set is just about done and I lose the picture at times every day. So I have been looking at purchasing an HDTV Set for my Bell Express Vu service. I currently subscribe to Satellite 91 and have been told its about $10 - 12 more per month to get the HDTV Channels on Satellite 82. I have the 9200 PVR Receiver with capability of 25 Hours of HD Recording. There are 2 cables coming down from the roof into my Bell 9200 Receiver.

Today I went to the Electronics Store and everything was showing full screen on their canned HDTV, I asked the salesguy if he could show me the local CBC Channel 226 - without HDTV ON IT, (it was a 50 inch Panasonic HDTV) and to my great dissappointment there were 2 Wide Black Bars on the left and right hand side of the Picture? The salesguy showed me and demonstrated that the picture could be stretched to fill out those Black Bars but then the Picture is distorted!! Is this normal for NON HD Channels on ALL HDTV Sets?? My concern is that I have the 6 Basic Packages and East and West Feeds and I would think that certainly all of the channels would NOT be HDTV. So does this mean that say to watch CBC news or CTV news every evening I have to expect those annoying wide Black Bars on all the non HD Channels on a new HDTV Set??

My solution on SD channels with black bars on both sides of the screen, is to use the "Zoom" feature of my system, if I don't want to see the black bars. It chops off the top and bottom portions of the show, but at least it doesn't stretch and distort the picture. The only down side though is if there are graphics on the bottom of the screen that you want to read, they may be chopped off.