Weird white horizontal lines at the top of HD channels

[morac]

I've noticed that sometimes when watching HD channels there is a white broken horizontal line at the top of the pictures. It doesn't happen all the time and it doesn't matter if the source is OTA or cable as I watched a channel OTA and the same channel via my cable and both had the problem.

I think it has to do with the fact that I'm watching a wide screen program on a 4x3 TV with black bars on the top and bottom of the show. I would think that normally the white bars would be hidden if viewed on a wide screen TV.

Any idea what this is?

[Royster]

I think your TV is a little misadjusted and you are seeing part of the vertical refresh signal on the screen.

[DeathRider]

I think your TV is a little misadjusted and you are seeing part of the vertical refresh signal on the screen.

No, his TV isn't misadjusted.

That is part of the broadcast feed. I get it when watching 4:3 on my HDTV on some chanels. Hitting the 10% overscan eliminates them. I don't seem to get them through cable.

Since it's 16:9 on a 4:3 set, no way to adjust them out, unless the S3 has an adjustment for overscan.

[Dudesdad]

I was told by the Charter installers when they installed my cable cards that the flicker at the top of the picture was a problem from the source and not an issue with the cable system. Something to do with an oversanning issue from the broadcaster. He even told me which channels to expect it on, ESPN (SD and HD), HBO (SD and HD) local CW, CBS and quite a few others that are broadcast in digital. The local broadcast does it on cable. However only the OTA HD broadcasts, same stations that flicker on cable in HD and SD, flicker. The VHF SD broadcast does not flicker.

Only happens on my HDTV's (16x9) and not my SDTV's (4x3).

Might be a different issue for you.

[Mike Farrington]

What you are seeing is the closed captioning encoding. Closed captionion comes in on Line 1 of the video signal (i appears to be two lines when viewing an interlaced signal).

I see it all the time on a few local broadcast stations and it bugs the crap out of me. I've posted about it here, but no one else seemed to have the problem.

Here's the way I see it. The local HD stations are just upconverting their SD stuff to 1080i (one of my locals also stretches the image which bugs me). But, they aren't dropping line 1 during the uprezzing, so it appears as visual data.

I'm still busy trying to get my CableCARDs authorized. Once I finish that battle, maybe I'll sending emails to my local broadcasters.

[Royster]

No, his TV isn't misadjusted.

That is part of the broadcast feed. I get it when watching 4:3 on my HDTV on some chanels. Hitting the 10% overscan eliminates them. I don't seem to get them through cable.

Since it's 16:9 on a 4:3 set, no way to adjust them out, unless the S3 has an adjustment for overscan.

I'll take your message as a confirmation of my own. The broken lines are data in the vertical refresh which he shouldn't be seeing on the tube. I suppose it's arguable whether it's his TV or the TiVo which is misadjusted. The fact remains he can get rid of them by adjusting his TV.

[moyekj]

Threads such as these have come up several times already. The problem is many TVs with HDMI connection do not or cannot overscan. My TV has this problem and is one of the reasons I don't like to use HDMI connection. If you use component input to TV the problem will likely go away as overscanning does happen with most component connections.

[phox_mulder]

The fact remains he can get rid of them by adjusting his TV.

Not on a 4:3 TV.
Since the lines aren't at the top of the screen, but the top of the picture, with black bars above them, no adjusting of the TV will help.

It's a fact of life for 4:3 images in a 16:9 frame.

On a 16:9 TV, the overscan could be adjusted to get rid of them, but not on a 4:3 TV.


phox

[morac]

I can get rid of them by putting the TiVo's aspect mode in "Zoom" or "Full" which gets rid of the black bars, but also stretches or crops the picture.

I don't see them all the time even when watching the same channel. They are definitely from the source since I've confirmed that they are there with OTA HD channels as well.

Here's an example of where I saw them. I was watching 24 in HD and it was fine, but when the commercials came on, most of them had the white lines (some didn't).

I think whoever said that the Closed Captioning info is being stuck in the upconverted to HD signal is probably correct (though that doesn't explain why CC still works).

The TiVo should probably strip out image data that is outside the display area.

[moyekj]

morac, it's your TV. If you try component connection instead of HDMI it's very likely you won't see the problem. It's just an annoyance of some TVs - unless you can change overscan settings with HDMI connection there's not much you can do with HDMI connection.

[TNStangman]

Its because your TV is showing the whole image, some TV's do not overscan at all they show the entire HD image that way you can get what is called 1:1 pixel maping. The white lines are the CC data that is on the first line. I wish TiVo had a way of doing a little overscan and cutting off the first couple of lines with black to retain the 1:1 pixel map but not show the CC data. Other TV do the overscanning themselves and crop the image by a percent or two.

[Jerry_K]

I get the same lines on my 4:3 HD Ready TV when the programming is 16:9. It is hooked up component since there were no digital hookups years ago.

[DeathRider]

morac, it's your TV. If you try component connection instead of HDMI it's very likely you won't see the problem. It's just an annoyance of some TVs - unless you can change overscan settings with HDMI connection there's not much you can do with HDMI connection.

I have yet to see a 4:3 V have HDMI connectors :D

His TV basically displays a 16:9 like this - can't see him adjusting the white dashes out:

http://members.aol.com/deathriderpc/tv1.jpg

My old 55" Toshiba w/component.

[morac]

His TV basically displays a 16:9 like this - can't see him adjusting the white dashes out:
Yep, basically it looks like that. The good news is that it doesn't happen all the time (it must be source based) and I can get around it using the TiVo's aspect button (though reluctantly).

[moyekj]

Gotcha... I should read more carefully as I did not realize you were displaying HD on a 4:3 TV. Don't think much can be done in that scenario unfortunately.

[AgentMunroe]

Oddly enough, this doesn't bother me in the least - I get it on all analog cable stations and commercials during HD OTA programming, but it really doesn't bug me, and nobody in my family has said anything about it. I could fix it by turning on overscan on my TV (I have a Sony Bravia 40V2500 with the TiVo set to 1080i Fixed, and when running in this mode I get to use full pixel, 1:1 mapping), but I prefer the thought in my mind that I'm seeing every last pixel and can deal with a barely visible white line.

To each his own, though. :-)

[archinloaf]

I hate to dig up an old thread, but I was having this same exact problem of the white broken horizontal line on the top of some HD content. I had just gotten an HD tv (sony 46xbr4) and was noticing this distracting line on some, but not all HD content when using my Tivo S3.

Note I am using my S3 over HDMI.

I thought it was a Tivo issue since when I switched over to the coax input in the back of the tv, I did not have the line. Anyway, after digging through the menus, I saw an option for screen display area and it was set to +1. Since someone mentioned line 1 I changed it to Normal or -1 and the line went away.

I really don't think I had changed this option since I just got the TV and really haven't messed with any options yet. I just thought I would throw it out there. Maybe some other sets come with the screen display area setting incorrect by default.

[aus1ander]

Again, this is closed captioning encoded in line 1 of the feed. It is extremely common to see it on HDTVs with little or no inherent overscan on SD content. From what I'm told (and my own personal experience with this issue on my LCD), I rarely (if ever) have this issue on 16:9 HD shows. I only see it on upconverted SD. I've learned to ignore it.

[morac]

I hate to dig up an old thread, but I was having this same exact problem of the white broken horizontal line on the top of some HD content. I had just gotten an HD tv (sony 46xbr4) and was noticing this distracting line on some, but not all HD content when using my Tivo S3.
Going out on a tangent, how do you like the xbr4? I'm looking into getting one.