TW 8300HD - Variable volume over coax & Remove gray bars?

[JWA]

Hi All,

I just picked up an SA 8300HD DVR from Time Warner to use with my new HD projector. This is my first HD setup. Everything looks good, but I have two questions that I haven't seen answered.

I'm running coax audio - is it possible to set it to use variable volume on all channels over coax? If not, how about optical? It's just a lot easier to be able to use the one remote for everything.

Is there any way to access the setting for the gray bars and change them to black? I know that the other OS's can do it on these SA boxes, but I haven't seen any way to access it with the Passport OS.

Any other tricks that I should know about?

Thanks guys, this is a cool local forum.

  --Josh

[picopir8]

You cant program the box to control the audio, but you can program the remote to control your receiver.

[TPK]

Instead of having the cable box squeeze the 4:3 with sidebars, why not let it leave the 4:3 pictures as-is (i.e. put it in 'stretch' mode) and then tell your television to squeeze/sidbar it if you prefer to watch your 4:3 content that way...  Most 16:9 televisions let you adjust the picture size for 4:3 content....

.... Im guessing the dull grey bars are an attempt to prevent relative burn-in on sets where burn-in may be an issue....  If someone watches a lot of 4:3 content on a 16:9 TV where burn-in may be an issue, then my guess is that (with completely dark sidebars) the center of the screen would get 'burned in' relative to the sidebars (I guess you could call what would happend to the sides of the screen 'reverse burn-in'? /shrug)...  Anyhow, by providing the grey bars with what would be an average amount of brightness, the sides of the screen can 'burn-in' at the same rate as the rest of the screen, and over time you wouldn't notice burn in because the sides are no more 'burned-in' than the rest of the picture...

Of course, if you are using an overhead front projector onto a screen, then burn-in isn't really an issue....

.... This is just a guess of mine, please tell me if you think I am nuts....

As for digital audio volume control, I believe you are far better off controlling the volume at the reciever rather than having the cable box attempt to adjust the amplitude...   So your best bet would be to just set up the remote to control your reciever volume, like the prior post suggested...

Hi All,

I just picked up an SA 8300HD DVR from Time Warner to use with my new HD projector. This is my first HD setup. Everything looks good, but I have two questions that I haven't seen answered.

I'm running coax audio - is it possible to set it to use variable volume on all channels over coax? If not, how about optical? It's just a lot easier to be able to use the one remote for everything.

Is there any way to access the setting for the gray bars and change them to black? I know that the other OS's can do it on these SA boxes, but I haven't seen any way to access it with the Passport OS.

Any other tricks that I should know about?

Thanks guys, this is a cool local forum.

  --Josh

[picopir8]

I think the sidebars are added because you are telling the box to always upconvert to HD.  Hit setup, then yellow triangle.  Select 480p as a supported resolution and then you should not see grey sidebars.  The 4:3 content will be sent directly to your tv.  Then you can let your TV decide what to do with the picture (add sidebars, stretch, etc.).