Vizio LCD with Charter HD

[krauts]

Just a quick question. I hooked up our 37" Vizio LCD via HDMI to a Charter Motorola HD box. My question is that the HD channels fill the screen fine but the non HD have bars on the side. The TV has stretch, zoom and wide options. If I change it to stretch or zoom, it changes the HD channels as well. Any idea how to leave the HD channels alone and have it auto fill the side bars with the non HD channels? I'm wondering how other people deal with this. Thanks.

[ArgMeMatey]

Good question.  My Samsung does not offer the option of changing based on channel; it will auto-set what it (or the broadcaster?) thinks is best, but if you change it to Zoom or whatever it stays on that until you change it again, for all channels.  

My feature requests:
1.  Save appearance settings on a per-channel or input basis
2.  Save all settings (channel names, deleted channels) so they aren't lost every time I do a re-scan for new channels.  

There are more unavailable things I've ranted about that have been standards or nice options on NTSC TVs for years ... clock set options ... caption on mute ...  You would think these designers never watched TV.  I'll stop now.

[hormy_83]

I don't have charter or that box - but take a look through the box settings.  On my Scientific Atlanta I can set it to stretch the SD picture if you want to get rid of those black bars.  It will work for the SD CHANNELS, but if you watch something on an HD channel that is in SD it will still have the black bars.

[Talos4]

How do I deal with it?

I leave it and watch SD with the bars.

Personal preference, I can't stand a stretched picture.

[basshive]

The TV has stretch, zoom and wide options. If I change it to stretch or zoom, it changes the HD channels as well.

That is pretty weird. I did not even think it was possible to stretch an HD channel. Like watching a program on an HD channel and the format is still 4x3, typically you cannot do anything about that...

[No-Muzak-Al]

I also live in Sheboygan and recently set-up a Vizio 26" LCD for a friend using my Charter Motorola DVR/cable box with it's HDMI output connected directly to the Vizio.  I experienced the same issue as you with non-HD channels appearing with the typical black "side-bars" or shrunken box.  After much research and further testing, I discovered that this particular model Vizio LCD does not allow you to "stretch" non-HD SD channels on any of the digital channels.  The Vizio does allow you to "stretch" the picture to fill the screen, but only on analog channels received via the coaxial antenna input.  That is one major feature of this particular Vizio LCD that I don't like.  I personally own a Panasonic 50" Plasma that does allow "stretching" of the non-HD channels to eliminate the "black bar" issues, and I use that feature very often.

I too, am very interested if anyone has a solution to this problem related to Vizio LCDs...

[steve053]

Just a quick question. I hooked up our 37" Vizio LCD via HDMI to a Charter Motorola HD box. My question is that the HD channels fill the screen fine but the non HD have bars on the side. The TV has stretch, zoom and wide options. If I change it to stretch or zoom, it changes the HD channels as well. Any idea how to leave the HD channels alone and have it auto fill the side bars with the non HD channels? I'm wondering how other people deal with this. Thanks.

I don't have Charter, but have you checked the options in the Charter Motorola HD box?  

I have DirecTv and my DVR has a setting that will automatically fill a 16x9 screen with sd material - no messing around with my zoom settings on my tv.  The one thing it does not do is fill a 16x9 screen with 4x3 media that is broadcast in HD.

[WPXE ION]

The one thing it does not do is fill a 16x9 screen with 4x3 media that is broadcast in HD.

This might be the reason why the Visio will not let them "stretch" the signal. Since the station is up-converting 4X3 to 16X9 the TV sees it as 16X9 and therefore may not let you "stretch." Even with the bars on the side it is still 16X9.