NTL Cropping TV picture

irlirishkev

Quick question.. why the hell am I missing parts of the sides of all programmes broadcast by NTL??

I've checked my TV, and I've checked the settings on the NTL digital receiver..
I'm not just talking about things not being in widescreen - even in widescreen, if there's writing on either side of the screen, the first or last few letters will be missing.

What gives? My mates with Sky don't have this problem..

coldfire1x

I dont have the problem at all and I am on UPC.

Whats your picture setting on UPC box and Tv?

irlirishkev

coldfire1x wrote: »

I dont have the problem at all and I am on UPC.

Whats your picture setting on UPC box and Tv?

On the tv (Full HD wide) it's set to auto wide, but no matter what setting it's on (4:3, 16:9 etc), it doesn't make a difference.

....Actually.. I've just checked the digital box again, and changed the setting to 'widescreen' - it was on fullscreen. And that's fixed it.

I'll hang my head in shame now

Thanks for the reply.

Ranicand

irlirishkev wrote: »

On the tv (Full HD wide) it's set to auto wide, but no matter what setting it's on (4:3, 16:9 etc), it doesn't make a difference.

....Actually.. I've just checked the digital box again, and changed the setting to 'widescreen' - it was on fullscreen. And that's fixed it.

I'll hang my head in shame now

Thanks for the reply.

You should hang your head in shame.:D

coldfire1x

irlirishkev wrote: »

On the tv (Full HD wide) it's set to auto wide, but no matter what setting it's on (4:3, 16:9 etc), it doesn't make a difference.

....Actually.. I've just checked the digital box again, and changed the setting to 'widescreen' - it was on fullscreen. And that's fixed it.

I'll hang my head in shame now

Thanks for the reply.

Atleast its fine now, enjoy

who_me

irlirishkev wrote: »

On the tv (Full HD wide) it's set to auto wide, but no matter what setting it's on (4:3, 16:9 etc), it doesn't make a difference.

....Actually.. I've just checked the digital box again, and changed the setting to 'widescreen' - it was on fullscreen. And that's fixed it.

I'll hang my head in shame now

Thanks for the reply.

Don't worry, I was complaining about the missing bits of the screen - and the lower picture quality - for months, before I realised there's a 'widescreen' option in the set top box as well. I was just happy to finally have found it!

faigs

I always find myself fixing this problem when visiting peoples houses! Really bugs me, and most pubs you go into also have the aspect ratio wrong a lot of the time.

irlirishkev

I can't believe how much I was actually missing off the sides..
You'd think the UPC engineer would have set it up correctly initially, but there you go..

DannyBuoy

That was bugging me aswell, but I never did anything about it. Just changed it now though! Thanks Kev

Reesy

Many thanks! That's saved me scratting around to fix the boxes that I'm about to invest in!

mambo

Anyone else find on UPC digital that some channels (e.g. TG4, 3e) are broadcast with the wrong aspect ratio settings, so if you watch on a 4:3 TV the picture is stretched vertically, making everyone on TV look even more skinny than they are in real life?

The main channels (RTE, BBC, etc.) are all fine, it only seems to happen with the "minor" channels, probably because no-one at UPC has taken the time to set them up properly?

JDxtra

mambo wrote: »

Anyone else find on UPC digital that some channels (e.g. TG4, 3e) are broadcast with the wrong aspect ratio settings, so if you watch on a 4:3 TV the picture is stretched vertically, making everyone on TV look even more skinny than they are in real life?

The main channels (RTE, BBC, etc.) are all fine, it only seems to happen with the "minor" channels, probably because no-one at UPC has taken the time to set them up properly?

3e is the exact same on Sky. They are technically incompetent. It's been like this for 18 months.

djimi

mambo wrote: »

Anyone else find on UPC digital that some channels (e.g. TG4, 3e) are broadcast with the wrong aspect ratio settings, so if you watch on a 4:3 TV the picture is stretched vertically, making everyone on TV look even more skinny than they are in real life?

The main channels (RTE, BBC, etc.) are all fine, it only seems to happen with the "minor" channels, probably because no-one at UPC has taken the time to set them up properly?

Is there no setting on the UPC box like the "4:3L" setting on a Sky box to put the black bars on widescreen so the picture displays properly on a 4:3 tv? How about if you set the UPC box to 16:9?

mambo

djimi wrote: »

Is there no setting on the UPC box like the "4:3L" setting on a Sky box to put the black bars on widescreen so the picture displays properly on a 4:3 tv? How about if you set the UPC box to 16:9?

I have it set to "Letterbox" mode which add the black bars to produce a 4:3 picture, and that works fine on my 4:3 tv for all channels, except TG4, 3e and one or two other channels, where no black bars are added.

Fortunately, I can manually set my TV to stretch or squash the picture vertically to get it right. :-)

zilog_jones

If your 4:3 TV has a 16:9 mode you should use that instead of "Letterbox" mode which reduces vertical resolution. If you're using a SCART cable (and the proper RGB input on your TV) it should switch automatically to 16:9 mode.

Yakuza

By and large on both my Pace boxes, the aspect ratio displays correctly. That is, until they're switched to 613 (Disney channel). Then the boxes lock themselves in 4:3 output and nothing short of a soft reset (help/restart) will undo it. I can reproduce this at will.

mambo

zilog_jones wrote: »

If your 4:3 TV has a 16:9 mode you should use that instead of "Letterbox" mode which reduces vertical resolution. If you're using a SCART cable (and the proper RGB input on your TV) it should switch automatically to 16:9 mode.

I tried that (setting the digibox to "Widescreen") but TG4 and 3e are still displaying incorrectly.

mambo

mambo wrote: »

I tried that (setting the digibox to "Widescreen") but TG4 and 3e are still displaying incorrectly.

Widescreen programming on 3e will never show up correctly regardless of the platform. The signal is permanently flagged as 4:3 and always has been.

zilog_jones

Yeah nothing will fix that particular issue - UPC are sending the wrong switching signals for those channels (I suspect the fault is with TV3 in the case of that channel and 3e as they're wrong on Sky too).

mambo

zilog_jones wrote: »

Yeah nothing will fix that particular issue - UPC are sending the wrong switching signals for those channels (I suspect the fault is with TV3 in the case of that channel and 3e as they're wrong on Sky too).

I've just mailed info@tv3.ie about this, referencing this thread - maybe if a few other people do the same, they might sort it out.

pricewise987

irlirishkev wrote: »

On the tv (Full HD wide) it's set to auto wide, but no matter what setting it's on (4:3, 16:9 etc), it doesn't make a difference.

....Actually.. I've just checked the digital box again, and changed the setting to 'widescreen' - it was on fullscreen. And that's fixed it.

I'll hang my head in shame now

Thanks for the reply.

How did you change the setting on the digital box to 'widescreen'....

skelefty

pricewise987 wrote: »

How did you change the setting on the digital box to 'widescreen'....

menu>settings>tv settings>tv format>widescreen

highdef

3e always broadcast a 16:9 flag, even if the program is not in 16:9. TG4 never broadcast a 16:9 flag even if the program is in 16:9.
I'm not 100% positive if that's the way it is but basically the problem is with the broadcaster, rather than with UPC.

zilog_jones

TV3 is stuck on 16:9, and Discovery is stuck on 4:3, probably some others too. I'm sure some of it's UPC's fault