What Happened to Stretch Funtion??

1045 Views 16 Replies 9 Participants Last post by Stuart Sweet, Aug 25, 2008

jones2416

Discussion Starter · Aug 24, 2008

So today I was watching TV.. I turned on a standard Def channel on my HR21 and I had pillar blocking on the left and right sides. Nothing I could do would fill the screen.. So then I was watching a HD Channel and the entire 16*9 frame was filled but when it cut to commercial it blackbared my on the Left and Right sides again and then if the commercial was in wide screen it was like I was watching a little tiny square in the middle of the TV.. What Gives?

1 - 17 of 17 Posts

veryoldschool

· #2 · Aug 24, 2008

With HD and going to commercials, it's the broadcaster doing it.
As for your other format problems, they aren't consistent enough with the way the HR21 functions to suggest what is happening.
The settings in the HR need to be compatible with the settings in your TV, to have everything work correctly.
Your "lack" of format control on SD suggests the DVR is set to a 4:3 TV.
Your "squished" HD suggests your TV isn't set to "full".

Recheck your settings in both your DVR and TV.
Then if they're correct, and you still have problems, go into the DVR and do a menu reset/restart recorder, to see if that clears it up.

Grentz

· #3 · Aug 24, 2008

Many broadcasters do not worry about the commercials on HD stations, they broadcast the commercials from the SD feed and then just make the main program feed in HD.

dcowboy7

· #4 · Aug 24, 2008

maybe stretch is dead....yay !!

Grentz

· #5 · Aug 24, 2008

dcowboy7 said:
maybe stretch is dead....yay !!

We can only hope! :lol:

Ugg, I hate stretched content.

davring

· #6 · Aug 24, 2008

Grentz said:
Many broadcasters do not worry about the commercials on HD stations, they broadcast the commercials from the SD feed and then just make the main program feed in HD.

I also have read that many advertisers do not want to pay for commercials to be produced in both HD and SD, so they opt for one or the other.

jones2416

Discussion Starter · #7 · Aug 24, 2008

My settings have not changed. I have two 16:9 TV's and a HR21 and HR20 hooked to them. Lets not look at the commercial angle how about just non HD material. If I have the function to stretch should'nt fill the tv Frame? I can cycle it though Stretch, Crop etc.. and it does not change. I was watching something on VH1 last night and the entire tv was filled with a picture and now today that same epsiode is playing and it is croped on the left and right.. I have tried reseting the boxes and I got nothing.

Any ideas?

davring

· #8 · Aug 24, 2008

The format control does not function when receiving HD programming. Maybe your TV set will let you control it.

jones2416

Discussion Starter · #9 · Aug 24, 2008

Ok maybe I am not explaining myself right. Let take a station like MTV that does not broadcast in High Def. Now a show like the hills.. Its on right now. It is filmed in letter box so I get the black bars at the top and bottom.. That is cool I completly understand letterboxing but it also is pillar boxed on the left and right so I am watching a tiny square of a show only in the middle of my TV.. I have the box resolution set to 720p + stretch so it should (and always in the past) stretched the picture.. Does anyone else have this issue?

Grentz

· #10 · Aug 24, 2008

Here is why (sorry if I was vague in my explaination before). With SD channels, the receiver is receiving a 4:3 frame, it can then stretch this frame when you have it set to stretch mode and thus fill your whole screen.

On HD channels though, the broadcasters send a full 16:9 frame, so the letterboxing and pillars you see on most of the HD channels are actually coming right from the broadcaster, not from your receiver. This is very apparent on some stations like NBC that actually add their own logoed pillar bars, but the same effect is on the other channels just they leave them black.

So your box thinks that it is getting a full 16:9 picture and thus cannot stretch it like it can when it gets a 4:3 picture. It does not know that it is black bars, gray bars, or whatever.

Broadcasters do this so that their content is shown in its proper aspect. In your situation though with MTV, that is just because MTV does not broadcast anything in HD yet and thus is just mirroring their SD feed over to the HD channel and adding the pillar bars.

Understand?

See less See more

jones2416

Discussion Starter · #11 · Aug 24, 2008

no I completely understand.. I called directv and they told me they have been getting calls all morning about the stretch function not working properly on the HD receivers. They told me they would call back once the problem has been fixed.... or at least that is what they told me.

davring

· #12 · Aug 24, 2008

If your HR is outputting 720P/1080i, the stretch function has never worked. If you are watching MTV SD the format button will do what ever you like. I double checked and my HR's continue to stretch/crop SD just fine.

Geekzilla

· #13 · Aug 24, 2008

There seems to be a bug. For example go to channel 356 on live tv and the format button doesn't work. Press the record button, then play the show from the playlist and now the format button works. I just stumbled on this myself and figured out this workaround.

davring

· #14 · Aug 24, 2008

Geekzilla said:
There seems to be a bug. For example go to channel 356 on live tv and the format button doesn't work. Press the record button, then play the show from the playlist and now the format button works. I just stumbled on this myself and figured out this workaround.

That is strange, I appologize to the OP for not fully understnding what he was encountering. I don't watch enough SD to use that feature anymore.

Lanthom

· #15 · Aug 24, 2008

jones2416 said:
Ok maybe I am not explaining myself right. Let take a station like MTV that does not broadcast in High Def. Now a show like the hills.. Its on right now. It is filmed in letter box so I get the black bars at the top and bottom.. That is cool I completly understand letterboxing but it also is pillar boxed on the left and right so I am watching a tiny square of a show only in the middle of my TV.. I have the box resolution set to 720p + stretch so it should (and always in the past) stretched the picture.. Does anyone else have this issue?

The same thing happened to me. Was watching NICKHD which all shows have the left/right pillars. For some reason right in the middle of the program the screensaver turned on and when I clicked it off the screen was completely surrounded by black. Seems it may be a D* problem.

richiephx

· #16 · Aug 24, 2008

I wish the HR21 had a format button for HD like the E* receivers so that we can format SD programming on an HD channel. Not all of us have the option using our HD tv format button.

Stuart Sweet

· #17 · Aug 25, 2008

...moving this to the HD DVR forum.

1 - 17 of 17 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.