Recommend FTA box for 4:3 TV?

mickey_t · 06-02-2008 05:23PM #1

Hi I recently got a FTA system thats working great. The only thing is most of the channels broadcast a widescreen 16:9 image which gets squashed in to 4:3 format on my TV and everything is slightly out of proportion (i.e. tall & skinny!). The receiver is "Pilot" or some crappy brand that I can't find much for on the net. There is an option in the menu to change from 16:9 to 4:3 but this makes no difference at all.

I know that a standard sky box can output in both widescreen and 4:3formats but since you can't edit the list of channels and need to go through the menus to access UTV etc its not really an option.

So is there any FTA box that can output both 4:3 and 16:9 properly??

Also is this a common problem with FTA systems? - every system I see set up in a shop like Maplin have the same problem with the picture!

Thanks in advance.

dkane · 06-02-2008 05:33PM

The channels are broadcast in 16:9. No box is going to display the picture properly on a 4:3 tv. The picture will either be squashed, cropped or in a letterbox.
Choosing the 4:3 setting on a Sky box just crops the sides off the 16:9 picture.
All FTA boxes I have seen have had 4:3 cropped 4:3 letterbox and 16:9 as display options.

mickey_t · 06-02-2008 05:58PM

Yeah a cropped picture is what I meant. Do you remember the name of an FTA receiver that does this?

celticfc · 07-02-2008 12:04PM

I don't know of any that don't to be honest.

Take a look in the setup/settings & there should be an option for it there.

mickey_t · 07-02-2008 06:41PM

There is an option in the video menu to change format from 16:9 to 4:3 but it makes absolutely no difference if you change it...

Has anyone a non-skybox FTA system running on a 4:3 TV?

byte · 07-02-2008 09:26PM

Well, I'm mostly just familiar with Technomate boxes, and they all have the options of 16:9 or 4:3, with 4:3 having a sub-option of Letterbox or Pan & Scan mode.

Are you sure there's no option for Pan & Scan? This is the cropped mode.

christo82 · 08-02-2008 12:13PM

mickey_t wrote: »

There is an option in the video menu to change format from 16:9 to 4:3 but it makes absolutely no difference if you change it...

Has anyone a non-skybox FTA system running on a 4:3 TV?

Yeah, I have the Sivercrest box from the LIDL kit on my 4:3 normal TV. It has 4 options in the menu for aspect ratio-AUTO, 4:3Pan/Scan, 4:3Letterboxed and 16:9. All work. Often use Pan/Scan for Football matches as players are too small in Letterboxed. letterboxed for most everything else. 16:9 stretches the picture making things tall and skinny.

Recommend FTA box for 4:3 TV?

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