I need help with my aspect ratio

[Jack Chase]

I have a Panasonic TH-42PA20 plasma and TWC Explorer 8000HD "Home Entertainment Server".  When I power on I get the sidebars and not the full picture.  The manual for the cable box says to choose screen type to turn on the TV then press the INFO and GUIDE buttons simultaneously and follow the easy instructions on the TV screen.  The problem is no easy instructions come up.  When I do this and power on the cable box, sometimes I get the full screen and other times I don't.  If I follow this procedure several times I can usually get the full screen to display.  I have been through the TV and cable box manuals several times and have tried every setting I can think of to resolve this.  

Sometimes when I switch high def channels I get the sidebars on some channels and not on others.

What am I missing?

[picopir8]

I assume you have a 16:9 TV and are using component video.  Anyway, I have the same box and the info/guide procedure does not work for me either. But you should not need to do that unless you want to turn on the SD outputs.

So here is what you should do to get everything configured correctly.  First, click "settings" on your remote then hit the yellow triangle to bring up the exteneded settings menu.  Scroll down to where you can select the resolutions and only select those that your TV supports.  Close the menu.  Now turn to a non-hd channel. Click "video source" on the remote to your desired mode (ie stretch, zoom, or normal fit).  stretch and zoom will get rid of the side bars but will either distort the image or clip the image so it fits your TV.  Turn to an HD channel and hit "video source" again.  It should tell you that the video source matches your TV.   You will still get side bars on some HD stations if they are broadcasting a standard def program on a HD channel.  The general rule of thumb is if the sidebars are black, gradient, or some fancy pattern then there is nothing you can do because they are broadcast that way.  If the sidebars are solid grey, you can hit video source to get rid of them if you like, but you will be distorting the picture if you do so.

[Jack Chase]

Thank you for the information.

Three things I did not know about:

1. The video source button on the remote

2. Pushing the info/guide buttons put me in the SD mode

3. Some programming in HD mode comes through with the sidebars.  This is what caused the most confusion with me because no matter what I did I could not see the picture in the 16:9 format with some sources and I could see them with others.  

Again, thank you for your help.

Jack