zoom and stretch don't work for HD signals?

[raygundan]

Do the Zoom and Stretch aspect ratio modes not work for HD sources? I've got some annoyingly-formatted shows that are apparently filmed in widescreen, letterboxed into 4:3 SD, and then pillarboxed into 16:9 HDTV. So you get a nice fat black border all the way around the picture and a tiny little version of the show in the middle of your TV.

This happens all the time when you're watching an SD station and they've got it letterboxed, and the Tivo pillarboxes it to display it-- and it's easy to just hit the "Aspect" button until you get to "Zoom" and the picture fills the screen nicely. But when I try the same thing on an HD program with a full border, nothing happens.

Do I have to enable this somewhere? It seems really odd that they would leave the Zoom/Stretch/Panel messages but have the Tivo do nothing to the picture.

[wierdo]

I have to use my TV set to zoom in the situation you describe.

[raygundan]

That's what I was afraid of. My current television doesn't have any zoom modes that work in HD, either, except the "slight zoom" for getting rid of overscan garbage.

[mikesay98]

That's what I was afraid of. My current television doesn't have any zoom modes that work in HD, either, except the "slight zoom" for getting rid of overscan garbage.

Same here, though I do find that the overscan at least cuts the side black bars by a bit. Hopefully, more networks will start showing their programming like FOX has been doing, by taking SD content and showing it in a non-stretched, 16:9 format!