[shultz]

hi james,
i have 4-vip211's and all of mine are hooked up with a hdmi cable. there all set at: offair, 1080i, and 16:9. try this on your remote: down on the very bottom, on the left side, you'll see a * button that says "format" above it. while on a sd channel (or any channel for that matter) hit the format button and you should be able to change how the picture fills the screen. just keep punching the format button till you get the type of picture (zoom, wide zoom, etc...) your looking for. as for the 118.7 bird, i don't know about it. our local hd channels here in indiana have only been uplinked since the first of the year and we haven't got them yet! there suppose to be on that sat, but rumors have it they may not. if your shows come in allright without any freezing, i wouldn't worry to much about the signal strenght.
and welcome to the forum!!!

 

[shultz]

it will work on sd channels. you can set the format button to "stretch" which is what i use. that will fill the screen on the tv, but sometimes like on the weather channel or espn, it will cut off some of the banner at the bottom. once you choose a channel and use the format button, you shouldn't have to use the format button again unless you want to use "zoom" or "wide zoom" or another setting.