WWTBAM Bored

Got a new HD Flatscreen TV for Christmas.

Yay.

It's great except for one thing. It is cutting off the bottoms and tops of all programs, whether they are on HD channels or regular channels.

I've looked at the manual, and that is not covered by the troubleshooting.

I've experimented with different screen views.

I even reset it to factory settings.

The weird thing is that I think that I remember it not doing that when we first hooked it up, but now that everything is hooked up "right" (the DVR, the DVD, the HDMI cable), I can't see the tops and bottoms of pictures, unless I go to "guide" mode where I see the guide and what the picture is supposed to look like is in the upper right quarter.

This is bugging the heck out of me because I can't read the ESPN crawls on the bottom of the screen, and I am a addict of that.

This can't be right. If you can help me, you would be my hero. I just spent 2 hours trying to figure this out, clicking on different settings, and all I've gotten out of that is frustration.

First attempt: make sure you are not in Zoom mode.

Back after more research. We just got a new HD flatscreen TV also!

It is something about aspect ratio, which can come in several settings: zoom, standard, full, justified. You don't want to be stuck in zoom, it sounds like. Look for aspect ratio in your manual.

Good luck.

Well you're not a blonde, so I don't think you're in zoom on your HDTV. However, is your HDTV hooked up directly to your cable box? If the latter, your cable box might be in zoom mode.

Bob Juch wrote:Well you're not a blonde, so I don't think you're in zoom on your HDTV. However, is your HDTV hooked up directly to your cable box? If the latter, your cable box might be in zoom mode.

Hmmmm. That might be it. All the various modes on the TV cut off the tops and bottoms of the screen.

Bixby17 wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:Well you're not a blonde, so I don't think you're in zoom on your HDTV. However, is your HDTV hooked up directly to your cable box? If the latter, your cable box might be in zoom mode.

Hmmmm. That might be it. All the various modes on the TV cut off the tops and bottoms of the screen.

That's what happened to me, I had to call the cable provider to figure it out.

Check the settings on your cable and/or satellite boxes are on the 16:9 setting instead of the standard TV setting.

Hooray.

BobJ's surmise was correct. There is a small button on the cable remote that says "HDZoom." I pushed it a couple of times and got it back to the non-zoomed mode.

So basically someone had pushed that button. So I wasn't misremembering things--it was working okay at some point, and then someone pushed that button.

Does it matter if you do your zoom using the TV function to zoom or on your cable box whether you get a better picture? Or is it just the same?

Bixby17 wrote:Hooray.

BobJ's surmise was correct. There is a small button on the cable remote that says "HDZoom." I pushed it a couple of times and got it back to the non-zoomed mode.

So basically someone had pushed that button. So I wasn't misremembering things--it was working okay at some point, and then someone pushed that button.

Does it matter if you do your zoom using the TV function to zoom or on your cable box whether you get a better picture? Or is it just the same?

Glad I could help. My own cable box doesn't do that.

I guess you'll have to determine by comparison which works better.