Any way to strect 4:3 content riding a 16:9 signal?

[snathanb]

We have several stations in Dallas that always broadcast 16:9, even when the source material is 4:3, and they add their own black bars.

I want to stretch that stuff out full screen, so I don't get burn in on my projection TV.

If I set my TIVO for 4:3 TV type, it lets me cycle the aspect ration between full, zoom, and whatever it's called (I'm at work, and I can't remember...) which works just great.

If I set my TV to 16:9 (which it is), the aspect button cycles through the settings, but doesn't do anything.

I would leave it on 4:3 all the time, but then things don't look right during real 16:9 broadcasts.

The 4:3, 16:9 smart mode doesn't work because the station is actually transmitting letterboxed 16:9 signal.

On top of everything else, my TV doesn't do any stretching on component inputs...

Other than having to go into the menus and change the aspect ratio setting, is there any other way to get the TIVO to stretch the content?

[Eskimo Pie]

Not really an answer to your question, but if you've calibrated your TV to the correct brightness and contrast settings, there should be very little risk of burn in... I think burn in used to be a much bigger problem than it is these days... what is your TV and how old is it?

[Dan203]

I have this problem with my Moxi as well. My TV doesn't offer any stretch functions for HD content, so when one of the HD stations accidentially broadcasts a program in letterbox format I'm stuck with a tiny picture in the middle of the screen. Luckily it doesn't happen often.

Dan

[snathanb]

Originally Posted by Eskimo Pie

Not really an answer to your question, but if you've calibrated your TV to the correct brightness and contrast settings, there should be very little risk of burn in... I think burn in used to be a much bigger problem than it is these days... what is your TV and how old is it?

It's a Toshiba 65" HD Rear-Projection (tube, not LCD). It is about 3 years old, the first thing I did was dial down the contrast and brightness to appropriate levels, and things are good so far (after 3 years).

But.... better safe than sorry.

[Darthnice]

You can do it, but not quickly.

You will need to go to the video output resolution setting and set your output to 480i or 480p fixed. Then you will be able to zoom/stretch the image to get rid of the pillars. When you want to view real 16x9 content, you will have to go back and change your video output resolution back to 'native' (or whatever you usually use).

I have a 4x3 HDTV, and this is what I have to do to get a full screen image for content with pillars.

The worst case is when an HD channel is transmitting a standard def program with pillars they have added, but the standard def program has been letterboxed. That means I see two sets of letterboxing and one set of pillars. Crazy.

[gwsat]

Boy that's bad! Even the primitive SA 8300HD allows the use of stretch and two zoom modes on HD transmissions. Why is it so easy to do with the 8300HD but is so hard with the S3?