Is it possible to get rid of the sidebox with TivoHd?

[eyelovemychevy]

I just bought the TivoHD and finished setting it up. I have a Sharp Aquos LCD with no HDTV. I get all the channels but some of them have a sidebox (black panels on each side of the picture), I was wondering if there was a way to get rid of it or even change it to letterbox (black panels on top and bottom). Please help!

[acvthree]

When some HD channel show SD shows, they put the side bars in at the station.

Is this what you are talking about?

Al

[eyelovemychevy]

Yes...so there's no way of getting rid of it?

[rodalpho]

The sidebox is actually called a "pillarbox". Several options here.

1) 4:3 SD content broadcast in HD as 4:3. No way to adjust this through TiVo. Your TV may have some way to stretch or zoom. Most people just accept this as it's the original pixel ratio.

2) 4:3 content broadcast in SD. You can use "stretch" to fill the pillars, but this will distort the picture, making everybody look fat. Alternatively you can use "zoom" to zoom in on the picture, but this will lose information at the top and bottom of the screen. Same deal, most people accept these pillars. Your TV may have a better "adaptive stretch" which stretches out the sides more than the center, which can look OK. Or it may not.

3) 16:9 content broadcast in SD as 16:9. This is also called a "windowbox", because you have black bars on all 4 sides. Just use "zoom" on the TiVo and it'll fill your screen.

4) 16:9 SD content broadcast in HD as 16:9. This is where you're screwed. The only way to fix this is your TV's controls. Luckily it's pretty rare these days.

5) 4:3 SD content broadcast in HD as stretched 16:9. No way to fix it, and it sucks. TBSHD does this.

[RonDawg]

The compromises that rodalpho speaks of are simply part of life when you are trying to adapt a program that is not formatted the same way as the TV. It's not just since the digital TV revolution either; Letterboxing has been common for many years, Pan and Scan even before that. All these compromises have their pluses and minuses.

Also, letterboxing and pan and scan are only for widescreen programs broadcast on 4:3 TV's; if you were to letterbox on your widescreen Aquos, you'd get bars on all 4 sides, and I don't think that's what you want.

Also, if you don't like the black bars, the TiVoHD will also allow you to choose gray ones. Your TV may also give you additional options such as different colors and/or different modes of stretching that won't look so bad.

EDIT: If the bars are being added by the broadcaster, there isn't much you can do about it.

[jrm01]

I just bought the TivoHD and finished setting it up. I have a Sharp Aquos LCD with no HDTV.

What do you mean "no HDTV". The Sharp is an HDTV. Are you saying that you do not have hd source? If so, then either the TV or the TiVo is capable of stretching the image (just change aspect ratio), but as mentioned it will make people look plump.

[eyelovemychevy]

I bought it like 4 years ago. It's a Sharp Aquos LCD (LC20B4U). It's not HD and has a NSTC tuner.

[mattack]

...Pan and Scan even before that. All these compromises have their pluses and minuses.

I agree with most of what you said, but pan & scan has no plusses!

(sorry, original aspect ratio 'bigot' I guess.)

[MickeS]

By the way, I still don't understand why TiVo disabled their zoom modes for High Definition.

[RonDawg]

pan & scan has no plusses!

In my travels to the UK, I noticed that they use Pan and Scan more widely than letterbox.

[GoHokies!]

By the way, I still don't understand why TiVo disabled their zoom modes for High Definition.Because you don't need them for something broadcast in 16:9.

[ilh]

Because you don't need them for something broadcast in 16:9.You do if you are unfortunately watching 16:9 content that has been letterboxed to 4:3 and then pillarboxed back to 16:9 for broadcast. You still see this kind of junk out there. Fortunately, my TV will do the zoom for me, but the TiVo will not .

[hmm52]

By the way, I still don't understand why TiVo disabled their zoom modes for High Definition.

Having had Sony DVRs for several years, I was surprised to find that the S3 didn't provide any options whatsoever for 4:3 material on HD channels. I've used it extensively for sports. The DHG DVRs' "expand" mode has better geometry and more acceptable distortion than that of the TV for HD signals, though both are Sony. The same when displayed on secondary Toshiba. If you're going to zoom, stretch or expand at all, I think it's done better by the device delivering the content. My experience anyway.

[GoHokies!]

You do if you are unfortunately watching 16:9 content that has been letterboxed to 4:3 and then pillarboxed back to 16:9 for broadcast. You still see this kind of junk out there. Fortunately, my TV will do the zoom for me, but the TiVo will not .I can't say that I've ever seen such a beast - I'm not sure if I would be upset or amused at whomever thought that was a good idea. :D

[Stephen Tu]

This appears to be a 4:3 set with 480i/480p component input?

Set Tivo to 480p output, and set your TV shape to "classic 4:3".
Then the aspect button on the Tivo should be able to "zoom", that will remove the side bars from 16:9 HD signals that were upconverted from 4:3 SD.

Change back to "panel" for true 16:9 content.

[aindik]

I can't say that I've ever seen such a beast - I'm not sure if I would be upset or amused at whomever thought that was a good idea. :D

There are lots of commercials framed like that, but commercials don't really count.

I think if you watch "Flight of the Concords" on HBO-HD you'll see this. The show was shot in an SD letterbox format for some reason (it's a brand new show - why it's not in HD I don't know). HBO chose to show it like that instead of zooming in on it.

[aindik]

This appears to be a 4:3 set with 480i/480p component input?

Set Tivo to 480p output, and set your TV shape to "classic 4:3".
Then the aspect button on the Tivo should be able to "zoom", that will remove the side bars from 16:9 HD signals that were upconverted from 4:3 SD.

Change back to "panel" for true 16:9 content.

The TiVo doesn't auto-letterbox 16:9 channels when it's told that the set is 4:3 and 480p?

[MickeS]

Because you don't need them for something broadcast in 16:9.

It just seems like an odd thing to go through the extra effort to do.

[bown]

I can't say that I've ever seen such a beast - I'm not sure if I would be upset or amused at whomever thought that was a good idea. :D

Dr. Who on ScifiHD is a good example of this. There is a black boarder around the entire image.

[aaronwt]

By the way, I still don't understand why TiVo disabled their zoom modes for High Definition.

If you have the TiVo set for a 4:3 set, then you can zoom the Hd channels but not the Sd channels.
If you have the TiVo set for 16:9 then you can zoom the SD channels but not the HD channels.

[qunewsguy]

Dr. Who on ScifiHD is a good example of this. There is a black boarder around the entire image.

Boo... I get SciFi HD in two weeks and was looking forward to Dr. Who full frame. Oh well... "zoom" it is....

[doconeill]

Boo... I get SciFi HD in two weeks and was looking forward to Dr. Who full frame. Oh well... "zoom" it is....

Dr. Who is filmed widescreen, but apparently not in HD yet. Thus the windowboxing.

[aindik]

Dr. Who is filmed widescreen, but apparently not in HD yet. Thus the windowboxing.

SciFi could zoom in on it if it wanted to. Fox shows a number of its reality shows in SD widescreen that fills the screen. "So You Think You Can Dance," "Hell's Kitchen," and "Don't Forget the Lyrics" are three. They look pretty good, actually. Locally here, Comcast SportsNet has been doing that with Phillies, Flyers, and 76ers road games that aren't in HD.

As long as they don't say the show is in HD on the air or in the guide data, I'd rather they zoom than leave it in a windowbox. Why waste signal bandwidth for all the black bars?

[aaronwt]

SciFi could zoom in on it if it wanted to. Fox shows a number of its reality shows in SD widescreen that fills the screen. "So You Think You Can Dance," "Hell's Kitchen," and "Don't Forget the Lyrics" are three. They look pretty good, actually. Locally here, Comcast SportsNet has been doing that with Phillies, Flyers, and 76ers road games that aren't in HD.

As long as they don't say the show is in HD on the air or in the guide data, I'd rather they zoom than leave it in a windowbox. Why waste signal bandwidth for all the black bars?

I'd rather do the zooming myself. I hate it when the channel does it since they seem to have no idea what they are doing.

Plus it looks much better when my equipment does the zooming than when the channel does it.

[aindik]

I'd rather do the zooming myself. I hate it when the channel does it since they seem to have no idea what they are doing.

Plus it looks much better when my equipment does the zooming than when the channel does it.

Really? When the channel does the zooming, they get to use all the bandwidth they have to send the zoomed picture, whereas when they send windowboxes 25% of the bandwidth is wasted sending black bars. (a 16:9 windowboxed picture takes up 1440X810 of a 1920X1080 frame). Isn't this why anamorphic widescreen DVDs exist? So as not to waste bandwidth sending (or, in the case of DVDs, storing) black bars?

[ilh]

I don't think you know how MPEG compression works. It will not wast many bits on the static black bars. MPEG puts the bits where there is the most contrast and rate of change, and that clearly is not the black bars.

[dianebrat]

Fox shows a number of its reality shows in SD widescreen that fills the screen. "So You Think You Can Dance," "Hell's Kitchen," and "Don't Forget the Lyrics" are three. They look pretty good, actually.

Cops is a great example, it's filmed in 16x9 SD, not HD, but Fox does all their network uplinks and transmissions in HD.

I'll also add that in my case, it's useful that my Pioneer 4280HD lets me set it to improper aspect ratios even if Tivo won't. It's especially handy for the History channel HD stuff that's in squish-o-vision, I force it back to 4:3 and circles are round again, and people aren't oblong anymore.

Diane

[RonDawg]

Cops is a great example, it's filmed in 16x9 SD

The newest episodes (filmed within the last year or two) are this way. The overwhelming majority of the episodes (the oldest of which are nearly two decades old) are still in the old 4:3 format.