C.Ellis

1inxs

Welcome to the DTVUSA Forum. The lines at the top and bottom of the TV are called letterbox and will not hurt your TV.
Letterbox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If your TV has a zoom capability this will eliminate the letterbox.

Piggie

Most of the converter boxes themselves have a Zoom button.

If your TV also zooms, you may have to play with the zoom on the converter box along with the zoom on the TV to get the best picture.

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C.Ellis

We found the zoom button on the remote it took a couple of tries but we got it to work. thank you.

DTVuser2009

If the broadcaster's aspect ratio (shows up in the 'display' mode of a converter box or browse banner) and the locally set aspect ratio in the box's menu match, you may get a 'aspect ratio cannot be changed on this channel' and you're stuck with the black bars, or if you own a regular non-widescreen TV you may get a 'window box' dead center of your screen of maybe 15-19" and black bands around it on all four sides.

Why the box won't allow zooming regardless is beyond me, i've got around it many times by changing the aspect ratio in the box's menu to the opposite the broadcaster's so i get the zoom available.

Orrymain

My box isn't hooked up yet, but I'm glad to know what to look for. So there's a zoom that lets us zoom in for a closer look? I think I like that!

staticMHZ

sometimes the stations keeps it on a certain setting, I know on the sub channels you can't change it, all SD quality 4:3.

On a widescreen TV you could, but the picture would look all stretched out and the people will look fat.

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Piggie

I do this trick with a DVD player I own, and didn't even think about trying it with a converter box.

Excellent work around! Should be somewhere sticky.

I started that Advance DTV Reception Sticky thread.

What about a sticky under Converter Box General Questions - DTV USA Forum

Called something like Converter Box Tricks. Or just one about zooming with a convert box that is sticky???

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Piggie

No it doesn't zoom that way. There are set level, but more like types of picture shapes.

Most boxes unless they have a setting for if you have a 4:3 or 16:9 can only do few things in zoom

On a 4:3 TV with a CECB most of them will do one of these by different names per box when displaying picture transmitted HD widescreen by a station.

1 Normal that is usually leterbox with bars at the top and bottom

2 Zoom that crops the left and right side of the picture so there are no black bars but you loose the left and right sides of the picture. Much like some station show now on their .2 subchannel

3 The stretch which doesn't change the width of the screen but pushes the picture to the top and bottom, and obviously distorts. The reason it's there is some TV's also zoom so you can stretch it sideways with the TV, many in 16:9 TVs that need a converter box.

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The more I understand, the less I know.