widescreen

[kt_nz]

All,

My Sky sat box is connected to my Sony CRT WS TV via composite video. When Sky plays content in 4:3 then the TV shows black bars on each side, when Sky plays WS content then the TV recognises it as anamorphic content (assume the WSS signal is sent via line 23 (or 21??)) and stretches the image.

Will the Tivo support this WS auto switching or do I need to manually change the TV when WS content is displayed??

Thanks

[kt_nz]

Anyone??? Does anyone have the Tivo automatically changing the TV setting to cater for the anamorphic widescreen??? Is Tivo the wrong solution I'm looking for and so should go back to looing at a PC based PVR???

[catdog]

From my freeview box (I don't have sky sat), if the broadcast is in 16:9 then it fills the 16:9 TV when played from tivo. Similarly 4:3 displays with black bars on either side when played back so the aspect ratio is correct. I'm not entirely sure if it is using the WS signal, or if the STB is just inserting black bars into the video. I would assume that sky works ok or there would probably be a large number of posts asking how to fix it.

There is also mention of enabling the widescreen signal in the bottom of this page:
http://www.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/FAQ/WidescreenSTBVersusNormalTVscreens

[Skolink]

If you have a widescreen TV, why not just set the Sky box to widescreen output which the TiVo will record, and when played back will look fine on your widescreen TV. The TiVo menus will look squashed but that doesn't really matter.

If there's any non-WS content, then the sky box should just automatically add black bars at the sides (since it thinks you have a widescreen TV). If not then some Motorola firmware developer needs a clip over the back of the head.

[ian]

yep, that's what I do with my tivo's, it's the easy solution..

Ian

[kt_nz]

OK just finished a rebuild after Sky swapped my crappy Motorola DTH335 for a nice Pace box. I'm running the lastes 0ztivo build and have done the update form the bash prompt.
I have;
Pace Sky STB set for a 16:9 output connected to a Sony WS CRT TV via composite. The TV switches from "Normal" to "Full" when a WS program is displayed, and back to "Normal" when a normal program is displayed.
With Tivo, it would just display everything in normal with no switching to "Full" mode and so any WS program was horizontally squashed.

I added the 2 lines to the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author;
iicset 0x8c 0x26 0x7
iicset 0x8c 0x27 0x80
And now Tivo sets the TV to "Full" mode for everything; including normal 4:3 programs and so they are stretched.

What am I missing?????

[Skolink]

With Tivo, it would just display everything in normal with no switching to "Full" mode and so any WS program was horizontally squashed.

And now Tivo sets the TV to "Full" mode for everything; including normal 4:3 programs and so they are stretched.

That's what I would expect to happen.

If the image is filling the screen (no black bars) for both WS and normal content, how do you expect the TV to tell the difference? There is no extra signal to "tell" the TV that it is WS or normal (4:3) content. It just has to decide for itself based on if there are black bars at the top or side or none (in the signal I mean, regardless of whether they are being displayed).

If I had your setup, I would have it set so that black bars are added to the sides for 4:3 content, and set the TV to always be on WS mode.

[kt_nz]

Disagree...

I believe the sky box sends a WSS signal via line 23 of the TV picture which tells the TV that the image is a anamorphic image that needs to be stretched width wise. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widescreen_signaling) This signal is clearly being sent from the sky box...

With the STB set to output 16:9 and the TV set to handle WS input then the TV picture for TV 1 (broadcast WS content) fulls the full screen.
With no change to the TV, but change the STB to either 4:3 letterbox or 4:3 centrecut then the image is reduced (with black bars top/bottom and L/R for letterbox) or just blackbars L&R for centrecut.
If the STB is set to output 16:9 and the TV told to not do anything with WS signals then the image is compressed.

The TV handles the content correct straight from the Sky STB... it switches to "Full" mode when it gets sent WS content and returns to "Normal" mode for no WS content... this is what I would also expect to happen with images through the Tivo.

[Skolink]

My apologies, you are right. :o
I've read through the TiVo video input IC (SAA7114) and it supports (receiving) the WSS signal.
The video ouptut IC (SAA7120H) also supports the WSS signal.
I wonder if the TiVo retains the WSS info with each recording once it is encoded in to MPEG2.

[petestrash]

You could try:

Put the following lines in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author

iicset 0x8c 0x26 0x7
iicset 0x8c 0x27 0x80

Or to disable widescreen:

iicset 0x8c 0x26 0x0
iicset 0x8c 0x27 0x0

Peter.

[catdog]

You could try:

Put the following lines in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.author

iicset 0x8c 0x26 0x7
iicset 0x8c 0x27 0x80

Or to disable widescreen:

iicset 0x8c 0x26 0x0
iicset 0x8c 0x27 0x0

Peter.
That was tried in the earlier posts. I think the problem he is having is that command forces it one way or the other, instead of correctly switching to match the recorded program.

[petestrash]

Sorry, I only read today's post.

Yes it will only set ws on or off.

I don't believe the ws flag is recorded by the mpeg stream despite the encoder being capable of handling it.

Peter.

Peter.