Strange problem with new HDTV install (1 Viewer)

[John DeLuca]

Ok, I just got into the world of HDTV today. I received my New Panasonic PT-47wx49 and hooked up an RCA DTC-100 DirecTV receiver. I called DirecTV and I'm all setup with the HDTV channels they offer and they look great. Now here's the issue. If I'm watching HDNet and I change to a regular DirecTV 4:3 channel, I'd say 1 time out of 10 the picture gets all distorted and everything looks off. It's like the whole picture shifts drastically to the right and everything gets dark and you cannot see anything. I did notice that when I switch channels and see it lock on 4:3 in the guide, everything will be fine. It looks as if it can't lock into the signal. Has anyone had this issue before? This was an open box receiver so can it be defective? Or do I possible have something set wrong? I set it for 16:9 crop because If I set it to letterbox, I get grey bars on the top and bottom. If anyone has seen this before can you offer any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[John DeLuca]

Well, I've been playing with this for a while and found a bit more info. First of all, I didn't set the DTC-100 for 16:9. Duh, my fault. So when I change it to 16:9, it gives me 3 choices. Normal, full and fill. If I use full and fill, I still get this issue every now and then. If I use normal, it's fine but I get grey bars on the sides which I don't want. Maybe this is more info to help.

 

[John DeLuca]

After hours of searching, it looks like this is common to the equipment I'm using. I tried calling tech support but they weren't aware of this. I found a thread dealing with this on Hometheaterspot and it looks like several others are having the same problem. It seems to be common with the Panny 47" tv, the DTC-100, and the RCA transcoder being used. The only solution loooks like a button needs to be programmed to switch between Standard and High Definition and the signal usually corrects itself. I hope this can help any others that run into this issue.
Here is the thread from Hometheaterspot.
http://www.hometheaterspot.com/ubb/u...&f=54&t=000157