Sky picture edges off screen

kenon

We have Sky multiroom here in the house with a mix of different Sky boxes (HD, Sky+, old white boxes).

On the televisions with the old white boxes, the picture is marginally off the edges. The format is set correctly to 16:9 and the different zoom options on the televisions don't make it any better.

Has anybody seen this before? Is it the Sky box? I don't particularly want to pay for an Sky engineer to come out for €100 and then start quoting for new, considering these boxes worked correctly for years.

swoofer

i wonder have you chnaged from rgb output to pal on sky box, post a picture of the settings?

pegasus1

on our main tv -panasonic..we have overscan...means you can see the full pic if switched off, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overscan

only on some stations you see some edge atifacts when showing whats on next stuff etc...

winston_1

kenon wrote: »

Is it the Sky box? I don't particularly want to pay for an Sky engineer to come out for €100 and then start quoting for new, considering these boxes worked correctly for years.

You won't because sky don't use engineers for this. You might pay for one of their installers though.

Looks like a case of box set to 4:3 and TV set to 16:9.

muffler

winston_1 wrote: »

You won't because sky don't use engineers for this. You might pay for one of their installers though.

Sky staff always refer to them as engineers so that's good enough for me.

Would your time not be better spent taking this matter up with Sky rather then pissing off people on a regular basis in this forum with your pedantic comments?

kenon

Settings on the Sky box have never changed. The picture used to be fine, but one day I started noticing the edges were off the screen.



Changing from PAL to RGB made no difference to the edges. I have tried changing the picture related settings on the TV to no avail.



I have sent pictures like these to Sky but they never looked at them. Just asked me if I wanted an engineer for €100. I thought that it might have been a system change made by Sky but then I would have expected more people to have been affected.

winston_1

muffler wrote: »

Sky staff always refer to them as engineers so that's good enough for me.

Would your time not be better spent taking this matter up with Sky rather then pissing off people on a regular basis in this forum with your pedantic comments?

Sky are wrong and so are you. In many countries it is illegal to call someone who does not have the relavent professional qualifications an engineer.

I advised the OP of his mistake and also suggested what was wrong with his setup. That is what forums are for. He has not said he is pissed off.

greasepalm

i would recheck setting on tv is it also setup for 16.9?dont have a skybox but one setting does make picture go off screen and its not on zoom panasonic also i have.

Mayo Yid

Need the tv remote, it's the zoom button. Nothing wrong, just over scanning

jay1988

winston_1 wrote: »

Sky are wrong and so are you. In many countries it is illegal to call someone who does not have the relavent professional qualifications an engineer.

I advised the OP of his mistake and also suggested what was wrong with his setup. That is what forums are for. He has not said he is pissed off.

Why does it bother you so much? Surely it's not that big of a deal for you to repeatedly post about it?

winston_1

jay1988 wrote: »

Why does it bother you so much? Surely it's not that big of a deal for you to repeatedly post about it?

It is wrong. One purpose of forums is to help posters correct their mistakes.

muffler

winston_1 wrote: »

It is wrong. One purpose of forums is to help posters correct their mistakes.

This is the satellite forum, not the grammar nazi forum

muffler

winston_1 wrote: »

It is wrong. One purpose of forums is to help posters correct their mistakes.

This is the satellite forum, not the English grammar forum. When you work out the difference perhaps your posts may become helpful although I wont hold my breath.

winston_1

muffler wrote: »

This is the satellite forum, not the grammar nazi forum

Sky are a satellite broadcaster. Sky are misusing a professional qualification. Nothing to do with grammar.

muffler

winston_1 wrote: »

Sky are a satellite broadcaster. Sky are misusing a professional qualification. Nothing to do with grammar.

As I said take it up with Sky please and stop spoiling threads.

winston_1

muffler wrote: »

As I said take it up with Sky please and stop spoiling threads.

How, pray, is explaining people mistakes spoiling threads?

Ludo

winston_1 wrote: »

Sky are wrong and so are you. In many countries it is illegal to call someone who does not have the relavent professional qualifications an engineer.

I advised the OP of his mistake and also suggested what was wrong with his setup. That is what forums are for. He has not said he is pissed off.

Actually, you are the one that is wrong. Engineer is NOT a protected term in the UK so they can call it whatever the hell they want. You wanting it to be protected and it actually being protected are 2 different things. Get over yourself.

durtybit

Had the same issue myself.. overscan on the TV settings (as already stated) . Have a play around on the settings on the TV not the skybox

kenon

The TV and the Sky box are both set to 16:9, as it has been for years. None of the other picture formats on the TVs correct the issue. It's only in the last few months did the edges disappeared. The only common denominator in the issue is the old white Sky boxes. I think I will have to bite the bullet and get a Sky engineer out to look at it.

swoofer

are these boxes very old? and what is the make? I take it you are using scart leads, did you switch them etc? I have a new samsung lcd tv and the picture is wider via scart than hdmi!! If sky charge 100 euro it would be cheaper to buy second hand. And are they sd boxes?

Also can you prove its not the tv's ie plug in the newest box. I have a few boxes that I could look at and see if its a new software glitch? what are the makes/models of the TV's ? ie do they have HDMI inputs?

kenon

They are the SD boxes.



I was thinking about buying second hand Sky+ boxes as we don't have a problem with that one.

One of the boxes plugs into a new Samsung flat screen. The other one plugs into an older flat screen telly (I can't remember the make). Both TV connect via scart. Both televisions have HDMI connections. I have plugged in a Sky+ box into one of the televisions and the picture was perfect. The problem follows the standard boxes.

winston_1

kenon wrote: »

The TV and the Sky box are both set to 16:9, as it has been for years. None of the other picture formats on the TVs correct the issue. It's only in the last few months did the edges disappeared. The only common denominator in the issue is the old white Sky boxes. I think I will have to bite the bullet and get a Sky engineer out to look at it.

Once again. Sky DO NOT use engineers. You will get an installer.

winston_1

Ludo wrote: »

Actually, you are the one that is wrong. Engineer is NOT a protected term in the UK so they can call it whatever the hell they want. You wanting it to be protected and it actually being protected are 2 different things. Get over yourself.

Read my post. I never said engineer is a protected term in the UK. I said it was illegal to call someone without the relavent professional qualifications an engineer in many countries. The people sky use for installations are not engineers. They have minimal ladder training and how to align a dish. Give them a complex problem to install and they are completely lost.

Kensington

kenon wrote: »

The TV and the Sky box are both set to 16:9, as it has been for years. None of the other picture formats on the TVs correct the issue. It's only in the last few months did the edges disappeared. The only common denominator in the issue is the old white Sky boxes. I think I will have to bite the bullet and get a Sky engineer out to look at it.

The reason as mentioned is "overscan".

Up until a few months ago Sky adhered to the overscan "safe" area of the picture, essentially lines of the image that weren't intended to be shown on your screen. Sky only transmitted their picture within this safe area, whether it be on their HD or SD channel.

(You probably saw in the past - and on some SD-only channels will still see - black borders or strange patterns at the extreme edges of the screen on HD TVs connected to a HD box over HDMI, primarily the top of the image. What you were seeing was this overscan area.)

With their recent push to HD, which does away with the whole concept of overscan (technically the move to digital broadcasting did too - but Sky transmitted an "analogue safe" image within the DVB picture) they're now transmitting native 1:1 pixel mapping and filling the entire screen with the video image. Particularly evident on Sky Sports News HQ because they're trying to fit so much visible information onto the screen.

This isn't a problem when you're running a HD box, to a HD TV, with HDMI, because it assumes you want a full 1:1 pixel rendition of the image arriving in. Therefore you see the full image right to the last pixel line at each edge of the screen.

When you're running on SCART or any other analogue based connection though, your TV is assuming it should (correctly) compensate for overscan and chops off the extreme edges of the picture, as otherwise you'll see the VBI dots at the top of the screen amongst other "junk". Problem now is because sky no longer transmit the image allowing for overscan, your TV is visibly chopping off each edge of the picture.

Note that your SD box is still sending the entire image to your TV over SCART, it's not the STB per se.
Some TVs will allow you display this entire image - overscan and all - over SCART but from the sounds of your case, your TV doesn't have this option available.

Your only choice will be to replace your TV with a model that allows the display of overscan on SCART, or replace your SD boxes with a HD box and feed the TV over HDMI instead. For any of the TVs that do not have any HDMI, then there is no way of overcoming this problem no matter what box you're using, bar convincing Sky to switch back to adhering to the overscan area (highly unlikely given they are pushing very hard to move everyone to HD).

kenon

Kensington wrote: »

The reason as mentioned is "overscan".

Up until a few months ago Sky adhered to the overscan "safe" area of the picture, essentially lines of the image that weren't intended to be shown on your screen. Sky only transmitted their picture within this safe area, whether it be on their HD or SD channel.

(You probably saw in the past - and on some SD-only channels will still see - black borders or strange patterns at the extreme edges of the screen on HD TVs connected to a HD box over HDMI, primarily the top of the image. What you were seeing was this overscan area.)

With their recent push to HD, which does away with the whole concept of overscan (technically the move to digital broadcasting did too - but Sky transmitted an "analogue safe" image within the DVB picture) they're now transmitting native 1:1 pixel mapping and filling the entire screen with the video image. Particularly evident on Sky Sports News HQ because they're trying to fit so much visible information onto the screen.

This isn't a problem when you're running a HD box, to a HD TV, with HDMI, because it assumes you want a full 1:1 pixel rendition of the image arriving in. Therefore you see the full image right to the last pixel line at each edge of the screen.

When you're running on SCART or any other analogue based connection though, your TV is assuming it should (correctly) compensate for overscan and chops off the extreme edges of the picture, as otherwise you'll see the VBI dots at the top of the screen amongst other "junk". Problem now is because sky no longer transmit the image allowing for overscan, your TV is visibly chopping off each edge of the picture.

Note that your SD box is still sending the entire image to your TV over SCART, it's not the STB per se.
Some TVs will allow you display this entire image - overscan and all - over SCART but from the sounds of your case, your TV doesn't have this option available.

Your only choice will be to replace your TV with a model that allows the display of overscan on SCART, or replace your SD boxes with a HD box and feed the TV over HDMI instead. For any of the TVs that do not have any HDMI, then there is no way of overcoming this problem no matter what box you're using, bar convincing Sky to switch back to adhering to the overscan area (highly unlikely given they are pushing very hard to move everyone to HD).

Great post, thank you.

swoofer

and look on adverts ie for amstrad hd + boxes, at least with a bit of perseverance we got the answer and learnt something new. You could sell those sd boxes as well.

kenon

swoofer wrote: »

and look on adverts ie for amstrad hd + boxes, at least with a bit of perseverance we got the answer and learnt something new. You could sell those sd boxes as well.

Hehe, I went straight onto Adverts after Kensington's post and I am picking up a HD box today after work.

I am much happier getting two second hand HD boxes than getting a Sky engineer out for €100 + whatever the new boxes would cost.

pegasus1

Kensington wrote: »

This isn't a problem when you're running a HD box, to a HD TV, with HDMI, because it assumes you want a full 1:1 pixel rendition of the image arriving in. Therefore you see the full image right to the last pixel line at each edge of the screen.

Even with a Hd Tv with overscan settings and a Hd box you will on some channels gets some VBI dots and other junk..when they display whats next to show and promotional stuff after ad breaks..

jay1988

winston_1 wrote: »

Read my post. I never said engineer is a protected term in the UK. I said it was illegal to call someone without the relavent professional qualifications an engineer in many countries. The people sky use for installations are not engineers. They have minimal ladder training and how to align a dish. Give them a complex problem to install and they are completely lost.

Are Ireland or the UK in that group of many countries? If not I really don't see the issue with it.

winston_1

kenon wrote: »

I am much happier getting two second hand HD boxes than getting a Sky engineer out for €100 + whatever the new boxes would cost.

How many times does it have to be said? Sky DO NOT use engineers for this.

winston_1

jay1988 wrote: »

Are Ireland or the UK in that group of many countries? If not I really don't see the issue with it.

No, but that does mean it is not wrong. Sky are misleading their customers and insulting those that have gained the relavent professional qualifications.

kenon

Update: Bought a second hand Sky HD box, got my old card paired to the box and now the picture fits perfectly. I now also have HD on that telly which I didn't have before. Getting a second hand HD box seems like a much better route than getting Sky to send out one of their engineers and then get new boxes.

swoofer

and asking the question on here!! glad you are sorted. I noticed it on my lcd with scart but never dawned on me it was a software glitch.

winston_1

[QUOTE=kenon;93002982
Getting a second hand HD box seems like a much better route than getting Sky to send out one of their engineers and then get new boxes.[/QUOTE]

You STILL don't get it. SKY DON'T USE ENGINEERS for this.

swoofer

who cares???

Berberis

winston_1 wrote: »

You STILL don't get it. SKY DON'T USE ENGINEERS for this.

This is gone beyond tedious.
Its just ruining the thread for everyone else.
Give it up will you