Is Sharp right...and Skys to blame

[silverpuma]

Hi Folks,

Just back from my friends house, he has a 42" Sharp Aquos LCD about 10 months old and sky+. But he has a problem

Approx 5-10 times during each hour of tv watching the Sharps picture will seem to try to resize. Its as if its going from say, 4:3 to 16:9 and then back again. He rang Sharp who say its not the TV's fault its skys problem

But I'm not so sure and I'd like some advice please.

He tells me that when he records a programme with sky+ and then plays it there is no resizing fault. I don't know, but I would have thought if it was a sky resizing fault this would be recorded also and you would see it as you replayed the recording.

At present he has his sky+ box connected to the sharp via scart and the sky picture settings are set at 16:9 and 4:3 for the secondary setting. I think the sharp tv is set for 16:9 also.

Any ideas why this resizing fault is happening and do you think it is Skys fault as Sharp says ........thanks!!

 

[smiffs]

My old Sanyo used to do the same.....

I was told that it is all to do with the signal which is 'optimised' or something for the best picture depending on what is being broadcast. Advert breaks were particularly frustrating.

Once I set the configuration to say 16:9 rather than 'auto', job was a good un and it stopped doing it.

 

[Starburst]

First off as smiffs says set the TV so it doesn't choose the ratio itself that will remove one potential cause. On the SKY+ if you are using a TVlink then remove it and make sure the RGB scart is in good nick and securely fitted to both the SKY+ and the TV, these steps remove any potential interference from the remote sensor and loose connections.

Then choose a programme that is being broadcast in anamorphic widescreen and has no advert breaks and with both the TV and SKY+ set for 16:9 with scart control on see how you go.

As for Sharp well I would have hoped they would explain why an external source was forcing the TV to do what it did rather then point the finger and wash their hands of it.

 

[silverpuma]

Thanks for the guys!!

One questions:

what does anamorphic widescreen mean in the sentence 'then choose a programme that is being broadcast in anamorphic widescreen'

 

[Broadz]

An anamorphic transmission is one where the signal being sent out is compressed widthways, so that on a 4:3 TV everybody would appear to be tall and thin, but when your widescreen TV stretches the picture out to fill its screen, the correct aspect ratio is shown (the opposite of fattyvision).

Non-anamorphic widescreen is letterbox mode - where the picture contains horizontal black bars top and bottom, so on a 4:3 TV screen the picture would appear wide, and on a 16:9 TV you would zoom the picture using one of the screen size options, so that the picture filled the screen widthways, and some (or all) of the black bars top and bottom would disappear.

Almost all digital TV broadcasts and DVDs that are widescreen are broadcast in anamorphic widescreen. Videotapes and some TV channels (TCM in particular) use letterbox mode to show widescreen movies - and trust the viewer to step into the TV picture using the zoom mode when watching on a widescreen TV.

 

[pcbbc]

Almost all digital TV broadcasts and DVDs that are widescreen are broadcast in anamorphic widescreen. Videotapes and some TV channels (TCM in particular) use letterbox mode to show widescreen movies - and trust the viewer to step into the TV picture using the zoom mode when watching on a widescreen TV.

Or some TV's include a "black sense" circuit which monitors the picture, detects the black letterbox boarder and does the zoom automatically.
This sounds like what is happening with the Sharp Aquos. Does the zoom happen 1 or 2 seconds after a picture with black borders top and bottom is displayed? For example switch the TCM when they are showing a widescreen movie. First you will see the letterboxing, then the zoom will kick in and the picture will fill the screen in the correct aspect ratio.