Hi, Ive kinda been getting interested in over the air tv with the big switch coming. My father and almost all his friends are going round and round with these converter boxes. First off does anyone know why there are bars on the sides if the screen. They all have 4:3 tv sets so what ratio do you think the stations are broadcasting in? All thier boxes have a ratio feature to get rid of them but, it zooms in pretty large. If a true high def(down rez to 480i) program comes on they have to go back to the menu and re-set for normal screen because the "zoom" is to much then. It is a pain for everyone. Our local station showed Deep Impact a few weeks ago. It is a widescreen movie at 2.35:1 ratio. On his 32" set the picture was about 7" high. Needless to say the channel got changed quick. Why all the jumping around with the screen ratio? Black bars on top and botton and somtimes the sides too. We watched a comercial last week with bars on all four sides, is was a little tinf square in the center of the screen.

The stations are going to be broadcasting a mix of 4:3 and 16:9 content. I haven't messed with over-the-air lately, but it is possible some stations are pillarboxing 4:3 content prior to broadcast (meaning that they send everything out 16:9 and add bars on the sides - "pillarbox" - for 4:3 content). If this is the case and the converter box is correctly set up for a 4:3 TV, then you'll see those 4:3 programs in a frame of black (the studio-created pillarbox and the converter-created letterbox). If this is really what's happening, the only practical solution is a zoom feature on the converter that zooms in on that picture-framed 4:3 content enough to cut off all of the framing, at which point you'd need to toggle the zoom back and forth if you want to see the entire 16:9 frame when it's available. You mention this happening once with a commercial, but that may be because a lot of commercials are formatted as 4:3 with letterboxing (which looks rather stupid, frankly, when stuck onto an HD feed as 4:3). That leads us to the next possibility...

If you are getting TV shows with no bars above and below them but with bars to the sides in some cases (which I think is what's happening), my suspicion is that the converter box is configured for use with a 16:9 display. You will need to check on that and make sure it is set to a 4:3 display so that the converter box knows to letterbox 16:9 content and leave 4:3 content alone. I've only messed with one of these converter boxes (our secretary/office manager got one and brought it on for some help), but what I've seen hasn't impressed me much. If you can tell us what model your dad is using, we might be able to help.

Ideally, we should see two things: 4:3 content that fills the screen and 16:9 content that has black bars on the top and bottom, with a few odd commercials that have large black bars on the sides and small bars on the top and bottom (because the station is inserting a letterboxed 4:3 signal into a 16:9 HD broadcast). The reason for the jumping back and forth between these two standard conditions is simply because we have changed TV shapes and are in that transition phase. Because of the huge library of "catalog" content that exists in 4:3, we can expect to see pillarboxing linger forever.

Hi Gonk, Thanks for the informative reply. The box I have is a magnovox TB900 somthing. It has 3 ratio settings "full screen" which gives me black bars on the sides not the top or bottom. "Zoom" which gets rid of the bars but is to much when the picture is 16:9 and "letterbox" wich gives me bars top and bottom at all times. Ive been sticking with "zoom" to tell the truth. Its pretty easy to see the picture is wrong when a full HD widescreen picture comes up so I just have to switch alot or forget it.

A manual for that thing (I am guessing that it's the TB100xx9) is mighty elusive. I found a few hints, though.

"Full screen" mode and a standard 4:3 TV will result in 16:9 content being stretched (distorted). And when you get 16:9 content that includes pillarboxes, it will be stretched and have black bars on the sides. Unless you are using the box with a 16:9 TV, I'd recommend avoiding "full screen" mode entirely.

"Zoom" will give you the familiar viewing mode for 4:3 material (no bars on the sides or bottoms), but it will lop off the sides of 16:9 programming.

"Letterbox" gets you the original aspect ratio for widescreen content, but you may run into some instances where you get a full frame of black bars. If the box knows it has a 4:3 TV and the station is broadcasting 4:3 content without doing it pillarboxed as 16:9, those instances may be limited to commercials only (which is not much of a big deal). You'll get TV shows with black bars above and below in many cases, but we've been getting that on a lot of shows for years now.

In my area, Your Nation's Capital, the stations are broadcasting a mix. Network prime-time stuff is pretty much all 16:9, but local stuff, including news, is 4:3 for all but the CBS affiliate. Commercials seem to come in a variety.

One of the things you need to know if you are using a new converter with your home theater is that the converters do not generally provide more than stereo audio. The assumption, which is correct, is that the older sets cannot do more, and anyone interested in HT will get a new set capable of 5.1.

For my HT setup I have an LG 4200a box I bought on eBay a while back. I am still using a digital wide screen computer monitor for a screen.

Bob

Hi, I have the Magnovox #TB100MW9 converter box for our bedroom tv. By accident I found out it is putting out a low audio signal from the composite outputs even when its in standby. When playing our dvd player we can hear faint audio. When I disconnect the red and white cables from the box the audio goes o.k. Will this hurt anything if I leave it on? She only uses it on the weekends. My return window is long gone. Thanks.

Gonk probably can give you a better technical explanation for this, but I suspect you are getting some RF interference on the cables from the converter box. This often happens in 2 channel with an outboard phono stage. The cables are picking up a nearby, high power audio transmission, which might not even be from an over-the-air TV station.

In all likelihood the cables from your converter box to the HT system are not shielded. Get a ferrite ring and wrap the cable through it once or twice, or a ferrite thing that clamps around the cable and see if that stops the RF signal.

How is the converter box hooked up? Does it have the left/right analog audio going to one input on the TV and the DVD player left/right analog audio going to a different input? If so, you could always try connecting it to the TV via RF coaxial to see if that makes any difference.

The dvd player is a combo unit with a vcr. Connected like this.Antenna to converter box-composite out of converter to composite in on combo unit-composite out of combo to composite in on tv. TV only has composite in(1) the coax in connection is broke on the tv. When playing a dvd I can still hear faintly the audio of whatever channel the converter was left on. If I unplug the converter the low level audio goes away. I hooked a pair of headphones to the red and white outputs on the conveter box with it in standby mode and you can indeed hear the audio of the channel its on. I canonly assume something is wrong with the converter-proably because there all so cheap.

I suspect there may be a problem with the DVD/VCR unit, rather than the converter box itself. After all, the DVD/VCR should be able to have a live input without it bleeding through when a different input (such as a tape or disc) was active.

Have you tried connecting the converter box to the DVD/VCR via RF coaxial?

Hi Gonk, Your idea about using the coax connection lead me to the problem. On the Magnovox converter box there is an option to select which outputs to use for audio and video. It can be RF or composite out. I (wrongly) had selected RF out but was using composite connection. When I changed it in the set-up menu everything was o.k. As a matter of fact my volume is much better now also. I can't believe I missed that during set-up. Thanks alot
Randy

Glad to hear that you got it straightened out!