[RCinFLA]

There was an earlier thread asking about format conversion on S-video and composite video output ports.

In addition to direct HDMI connection to my 16:9 HD TV, I have connected a UHF regular NTSC modulator to provide a non-HD feed to my master antenna distribution system.

With the TV type set for 1080i yielding 16:9 for the HDMI (in setup TV type), the composite video output is a 4:3 width compression of the 16:9 video presentation.

This means a format setting of Pillar for showing non-HD 4:3 correctly on the 16:9 HD TV will show on the composite as a crunch width 4:3 with the black side bars. To get a normal non-HD to show correctly you have to change to 'stretched' mode so the stretched 16:9 will be compressed back to a 4:3 on the composite output.

With the TV type set to 16:9 for the HDMI, there is no mode setting to show an HD program without distortion. Again, it basically compresses the 16:9 down to 4:3 so the HD will have skinny people.

As the primary use is to feed the 16:9 HD TV I have not experimented with the setup options of lower res TV types as I don't want to compromise the HD TV feed. There may be a way to get the HD 16:9 program to present with black bars on top and bottom, preserving proper aspect ratio with 480i setup configuation.

 

[jedster]

There was an earlier thread asking about format conversion on S-video and composite video output ports.

In addition to direct HDMI connection to my 16:9 HD TV, I have connected a UHF regular NTSC modulator to provide a non-HD feed to my master antenna distribution system.

With the TV type set for 1080i yielding 16:9 for the HDMI (in setup TV type), the composite video output is a 4:3 width compression of the 16:9 video presentation.

This means a format setting of Pillar for showing non-HD 4:3 correctly on the 16:9 HD TV will show on the composite as a crunch width 4:3 with the black side bars. To get a normal non-HD to show correctly you have to change to 'stretched' mode so the stretched 16:9 will be compressed back to a 4:3 on the composite output.

With the TV type set to 16:9 for the HDMI, there is no mode setting to show an HD program without distortion. Again, it basically compresses the 16:9 down to 4:3 so the HD will have skinny people.

As the primary use is to feed the 16:9 HD TV I have not experimented with the setup options of lower res TV types as I don't want to compromise the HD TV feed. There may be a way to get the HD 16:9 program to present with black bars on top and bottom, preserving proper aspect ratio with 480i setup configuation.

I haven't found a fix to this; I use 2 of my HR20s purely as S-VIDEO boxes outputting to my MCE machine. Why? Because the HR20 DVR is horrid compared to MCE which is vastly superior. But also because the HR20 does have much much better SD output than the HR10.

The only thing I haven't played around with is the native setting. For me, it doesn't matter that much because I don't connect the HR20 to a 16:9 display, but you might be able to come up with a work around if you try the native on/off feature. I doubt it though.