After a trip through Viewsonic hell (tip: never ever deal with them) I decided to just get an LCD TV.
I ended up getting a Toshiba Regza that’s turned out to be pretty awesome. Totally happy with it. It’s a lovely 1080p picture.
I’ve had something odd come up that I don’t understand, but I’m betting someone on here will have an answer. It used to be I’d turn on Wheel of Fortune, and in native mode (not stretching), I’d see a glorious full-screen picture. The readout would say it was 720p, and I’d see it across my whole screen.
Now, I turn it on and I’m seeing what looks like a 4:3 screen, and it’s still supposedly broadcasting at 720p. I switch to another station, and I’m getting a 1080i signal, and that one is also showing like a 4:3 screen.
I try another couple hi-def channels (1080i and 720p) and I get the 16:9 looking picture I’m used to seeing on the big networks during prime time.
What’s going on? Possibly something with my TV, or is it maybe just a matter of Comcast screwing around?
A few times I have been watching a show on CBS HD, and for some reason the intro before the first commercial break is shown in 4:3, in what is clearly not HD quality. After the commercial break it is back to normal 16:9 HD. I have no idea why that happened, I would assume it was on the part of the broadcast channel. Perhaps something like that is happening to you as well?
Sounds like something Comcast is doing, since your TV is displaying one 1080i 16:9 station correctly. If this continues, you might try calling Comcast.
It is also possible that the programs were not broadcast in 16:9. Maybe it was a repeat, or they had technical difficulties.
I would love to know what problems you had with Viewsonic. I’ve always been happy with them, and I am considering buying their 28" model as soon as I can afford it.
I ask because my dad got a Regza and had a Scientific Atlantic HD8300 box from Time Warner. We hooked the two together with an HDMI cable and had strange results, sort of like what you’re describing. After much bitching and cursing, the answer to the problem turned out to be that I needed to connect the Regza to the digital box with a component cable, not HDMI.
Wouldn’t hurt to try - you can get a good enough cable from Wal Mart for like $15. If it doesn’t help, you can return it.
I have had to RMA the same model TV 7 times. Yes, SEVEN. We are in June and I am about to send it back one more time. Oh, I started back in November. Of the seven TVs, six have done the EXACT SAME THING.
If you call their tech support, they will be very helpful and tell you all the right things. Then, when you call back later they will have no idea who you are. Your RMA will have disappeared from their system. The guy you talked to last time apparently existed only during your phone call - nobody has ever heard of him. You can’t talk to the same person twice because they have no extension number, and nobody you speak to can give you to their supervisor. As a matter of fact, they don’t even know how to reach their supervisor and don’t know their names either. You can call corporate, but they have nothing to do with thir call center, and if you explain to the receptionist what’s going on and why you want to talk to someone, you’ll get transferred to…well, nowhere. You’ll just get hung up on.
I was actually give this Viewsonic 37" HDTV as a “good job” bonus from work. Let’s just say that I got so disgusted with them (and was so certain I’d never get a working TV from them) that I went out and spent $2100 on my Toshiba.
I’d always thought they were a decent company. After all, I’d had who knows how many Viewsonic monitors over the years. Now, I’ll toast in hell long before I deal with those motherfuckers again.
Actually, I’m running the cable straight to the TV for all the sexy unencrypted goodness. The annoying thing is that I had previously had these channels the way they’re supposed to be.
I guess I could try the box - it’s just sitting there off to the side.
I think Comcast and the whole HDTV thing is going through some growing pains.
My Comcast HD channels with a full HD 16:9 signal come in great.
But then sometime you get an oddball station that’s non-HD but is still showing a movie in letterbox (16:9) format and I get black bars on the sides AND black bars above and below the picture so I essentially have a 16:9 picture floating in a field of black. Of course I can zoom in on it to fill the screen better but because it is non-HD the resolution only gets worse.
This is usually related to the local broadcast station (not the cable company - the local CBS affiliate) running local ad insertion. The equipment to do this is very expensive - a tech at one of our local network affiliates said that it added several million dollars per transmitter to the HD conversion price. So they retransmit the national feed and national ads in HD, and drop down to standard def for the local ads and programming. Makes sense to me that this could extend into the opening credits or cold opens.
I’ve even seen this on the over the air college football coverage. During the games, the feed would change from HD to standard and back. We had the opportunity to ask a network rep what was going on, and got an interesting explanation. The national network only had enough real-time HD resources to broadcast two or three games in HD at a time. So they would move the HD broadcast to the most highly watched games, and dump the less prominent games back to standard until the resources became available.
I Hate that double-letterbox BS.
I can forgive them for doing it on a non-HD channel, but there’s no reason to do it on a Digital broadcast station. I see it all the time on PBS. I don’t understand why the station can’t re-sample the low-def picture and broadcast it without the double-letterbox.