What is the best way to watch hidef on my 36XBR with cablevision as the source????? (1 Viewer)

[Josh Wolfman]

Does anyone else have this combo, Sony 36XBR800 and cablevision hidef cable box? What do I need to do to properly set up this combo? Right now the picture is good but the hidef channels (700's) are coming in 4:3 and are set to 480p- I do not see an option for better than that. What do i have to do? Thx in advance

 

[Mike-C]

I also have high def through Cablevision and there is a way to change the aspect ratio on the box.

Unfortunately I'm not at home right now and I haven't gone into this menu since I got my box six monthsago so I'm going to try to do this from memory.

There is a button on the remote, I think its labeled settings, its on the top left next to the left arrow button. When you go into setting you can change the aspect ratio from wide to full or stretch by scrolling down until you see that option. There was also an option to change from 480 to 1080i. Just to let you know that the stretch option on built into the cable box is inferior to the ones built into most 16:9 tvs. It makes people look "wide and fat". Also some of the HD channels don't broadcast HD 16:9 signals all the time so you may see some 4:3 programing on the HD channels.

 

[Brent Hutto]

Our Time-Warner box has settings for output at 480i, 1080i and others. When I'm watching widescreen HDTV stuff that's being broadcast in 1080i I just set the cable box (Explorer 8000HD) to 1080i and my TV automatically does the squeeze and displays it perfectly.

When I'm watching SDTV through the cable box I set the cable box to 480i and the TV uses its regular DRC modes to display it properly without the squeeze.

It's all automatic once you figure out how to select 1080i on the cable box.