Widescreen Sky Digital

After having sky installed I altered the settings on my JVC 28' widescreen TV to see wich fitted the 16:9 output from the box, 'Panoramic' as with analogue cut the top and bottom off the screen - removing the lower half of the search and scan bar, I've now set it to the 'Full' setting which according to the manual ' uniformly streaches the image to the full size of the screen ' The picture of e.g. News 24 had the N24 dog right at the top of the screen and the clock and aston just off the bottom, some VT reports have a black bar at the right hand side and the whole picture seems to be too far to the left!! Is this my Amstrad digibox (that makes the phone buzz) or my TV??

Gareth

P.S. The tv allows rotating of the picture but not positioning!!

Have u altered the settings on your sky box to tell it you have a widescreen TV?

The picture settings are set to 16:9

Are you connecting with a scart cable with all of it's pins in? You seem to have set it up correctly - try putting it on 'Auto', but that should just do the same as 'full' if it detects a 16:9 signal, which on N24, it should....

Cheers,

Reports on BBC News24 are zoomed in to 15x9, so during non-widescreen shot material - you will see thin black bars at left & right... unless you are watching an RGB feed out of your box - in which case on many tv's you'll see a wider bar to the right of the screen as the RGB feed shifts the picture slightly left.

Usual settings for widescreen from a Sky STB:
Picture Format: 16x9
Scart Control: On
Video Output: RGB *

*RGB: Some TV's (Panasonic certainly) will not let you do full widescreen switching if u=you use RGB mode.

Your TV should then react to widescreen switches via your box.. although your Sky STB will only tell it that the source material is either 4x3 or anamorphic (ie tall & thin ready for pulling out into widescreen).

For your Sky box to correctly control your TVs aspect ratio you must use the TV SCART output of your Sky Box and a fully wired SCART socket (well pin 8 must be wired).

You also need to select Picture Format to be 16:9 and Scart Control to be ON. (If you can use RGB it is also a good idea - the picture quality is much improved)

This should mean that your telly flips to WIDE/FULL mode when a broadcaster is showing widescreen 16:9 material, and back to your chosen 4:3 viewing choice when they show 4:3.

This is how my Sony works - I chose to watch 4:3 material in 4:3 mode (though could chose 14:9 or Zoom or Smart) and it remembers this setting when I go back to a 4:3 channel after watching a 16:9 source.

It may be that you need to select SCART control on a menu in your JVC tellly as well, or that you need to select an AUTO mode (This AUTO mode could mean something different though - on some tellies it looks for the letterbox bars on 4:3 sources with letterboxed images and tries to zoom intelligently. As the Sky box will output a full-height 16:9 source you don't want it to do this - dunno if AUTO means this mode on a JVC or not)

(Remember you need to SAVE the settings on your Sky box after you change them...)

News 24 is a good test for widescreen - it is permanently broadcasting a 16:9 signal, and the clock and News 24 dog should be a long way in from the left of the screen. If they are right in the corners then your box is still sending a 4:3 centre cut-out, and if they are off the screen, then your telly is zooming in thinking it is being sent a 4:3 source...

OT but I'm not opening a new thread just to point out something and ask a question and it's kinda related to how BBC News 24 is presented:

I noticed that on BBC World output on News 24, the aston at the bottom does not line up with the clock. Why is this? Even with clips shown on BBC News 24 earlier the same astons are bigger on World. This only happens at 9.40 and overnight on TWT (not sure if it's the same between 1 and 5).

Yeah, i'm sure there is a technical reason for this as one of the techno guys will explain, but at least it helps us distinguish between a BBC World programme on News 24 and a normal News 24 programme.

There is a technical reason - but unfortunately brains explode if an attempt to explain is made...

It is all to do with vision timing, and the fact that both News 24 and World are timed as networks, and when one is fed to the other it arrives a few lines late... This could be solved by feeding it through a frame synchroniser.... but it isn't.

The same effect can be seen if you watch the captions on UK Today during Breakfast on News 24. The captions and the clock do not line up, as the captions/studio have been fed to Breakfast's studio and back before the News 24 clock is added...