Our new this year Panasonic widescreen tv is connected to a Virgin media v+ box.
The settings haven't been altered since day one, when I configured it all carefully.
It always used to switch between widescreen and 4:3 with no issue. The 4:3 display had black bars at the sides, but not top and bottom.
I was happy with this.
Recently, it has, on SOME programmes started giving me black bars on all four sides when showing 4:3 pictures. That means I get a small square in the middle of the tv to watch. When it goes to commercials, it all works "properly" again, with no black bars anywhere then switch back to postage stamp display when the programme resumes. If I flip the channel others programmes are showing as they always have, with no top and bottom black bars.
The only way of fixing it on the odd programmes is to choose a zoom option on the tv handset, but that makes everything super grainy.
I'm guessing it's something to do with the actual programme being broadcast rather than my kit, but I can't figure why it's just started happening (about a week ago).
(This is just another obstacle to tv watching in our house - it all just seems to get more and more complex and I'm losing patience rapidly with the whole malarkey.)
Any black bar experts?
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I think the only way to avoid this is setting the V+ to the 'wide' setting on the display settings (assuming HDMI/Component lead is being used). Not ideal because IMO the virgin guide/programme info screens are then a bit fuzzy.
Not sure why you've only just had this problem though, I've had V+ for over 3 years now and its always been like this for me. Mind you to be honest the channels it does this on tend not to be ones I usually watch so its not much of an issue..
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make a note of the channels and specific programmes it happens on and complain to your supplier.
Aspect ratio switching and signalling is a bit of a minefield, as there are two basic delivery methods:
1 DTT, the signal is "arced" by the broadcaster - IE aspect ratio of the picture changed to fit a 16x9 screen.
2 DSAT, the 16x9 screen is full regardless of the aspect ratio of the original material, so you get very fat people with 4x3 original material unless your TV takes notice of the signalling provided.
And two methods of signalling, which I can't remember the details/line number/method of any more sufficiently well to go into print about.
Quite which of those Virgin use, or even if their suppliers no longer conform to a common method, is up for debate.
There is also some contention regarding some Panasonic boxes as to whether or not they follow the sigalling correctly on a DSAT source.
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Widescreen woes - PeteW
