HD pillars with HR20

[hershamboy]

Hello, I hope I am posting in the right forum, I just had a HR20 installed went from my old DVR-80 to this. I have not had any HD service hooked up to the tv before so I have nothing to compare the picture to. I am getting the pillars on the Hd local chanels and the hd 70-80 chanels when the feed is not in HD (ex. durring local non prime time tv, and espn having the verticle hd bars on both sides of the picture) the question i have is the bars are uneven the left one is about an inch narrower thatn the right one, and its driving me crazy. Is this just a product of a setting on my box or a setting on the tv. I do not have any problems with the picture in HD or from My dvd player, it fills the screen correctly. Sometimes durring the local news on the hd channels I get the left bar completly gone and only a bar on the right. I do not appear to be missing any of the picture, it seems I should be able to adjust the picture like a computer screen but do not see any settings on the HR20 box or my Tv. any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
Craig

[HolmesCo]

Hello, I hope I am posting in the right forum, I just had a HR20 installed went from my old DVR-80 to this. I have not had any HD service hooked up to the tv before so I have nothing to compare the picture to. I am getting the pillars on the Hd local chanels and the hd 70-80 chanels when the feed is not in HD (ex. durring local non prime time tv, and espn having the verticle hd bars on both sides of the picture) the question i have is the bars are uneven the left one is about an inch narrower thatn the right one, and its driving me crazy. Is this just a product of a setting on my box or a setting on the tv. I do not have any problems with the picture in HD or from My dvd player, it fills the screen correctly. Sometimes durring the local news on the hd channels I get the left bar completly gone and only a bar on the right. I do not appear to be missing any of the picture, it seems I should be able to adjust the picture like a computer screen but do not see any settings on the HR20 box or my Tv. any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks
Craig

I had this same thing my first day and found the TV's own pciture centering fixed it. Mine was way off too, not sure how it could happen, but that did fix it. I know of nothiing myself in the hr20 that can correct for that. But I could be wrong.

And welcome to DBSTalk. Lots of good info and people here to help out.

[bonscott87]

Most local stations will still broadcast in 16x9 and upconvert 4x3 material to 1080i or 720p and send it out. Thus they are the ones inserting the piller boxes. Not a thing you can do about it, just the way the technology works.

As for centering, your TV probably has to much overscan to one side or has a centering setting that is off.

[bwaldron]

Most local stations will still broadcast in 16x9 and upconvert 4x3 material to 1080i or 720p and send it out. Thus they are the ones inserting the piller boxes. Not a thing you can do about it, just the way the technology works.

As for centering, your TV probably has to much overscan to one side or has a centering setting that is off.

May or may not be the O.P.'s TV -- I have seen cases where the station is actually sending out the uneven pillars.

[bonscott87]

May or may not be the O.P.'s TV -- I have seen cases where the station is actually sending out the uneven pillars.

Yep, I've seen that as well. Good point. My local NBC used to do that. They actually piller boxed at 14x9 meaning they cut just a bit off the top and bottom and had less sidebars. Talk about looking crappy.

[bwaldron]

Yep, I've seen that as well. Good point. My local NBC used to do that. They actually piller boxed at 14x9 meaning they cut just a bit off the top and bottom and had less sidebars. Talk about looking crappy.

Our local NBC affiliate still does the 14x9 "semi-stretch" for SD. It's quite awful.

[bonscott87]

Watched Heroes last night live (gasp!) and paid attention during the commercials a bit and when they would do local SD commercials they still do the 14x9 stretch and the black bar on the left is about 3 inches wider then the right (which almost is to the edge). It appears exactly the same on my Hughes E-86 so it's nothing to do with the HR20. So this is a problem with how they encode and send out their signal.