XBR400 & HD mentoring needed

[dilgreene]

Hi,

I'm a newbie, so please forgive my stupidity/ignorance here. I've got a 5-year old XBR400, and the imminent presence of the new Tivo has me dreamning about HD, via Comcast. But, after searching a lot of discussions, I still can't tell whether the XBR400 can give "true" HD, what kinds of setting adjustments I need to make, whether I'm gonna be getting black bars all over the place, etc.... In other words, I'm flying blind on this, and don't want to dump my Directv until I know what I'm getting into. If anyone has any XBR400 experience/advice they can pass on, or can even point me towards some guidance, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,

David

[57U]

This appears to be an HDTV "Ready" set. It appears to accept 1080i inputs.

http://www.hdtvoice.com/voice/showthread.php?t=8430

Since it's a 4:3 HDTV, the 16:9 image for HD should show up with bars above and below the image.

I'm not sure if this TV has "vertical compression" (enhanced 16:9 or whatever it's called). If it does, then the STB should be set to 16:9 (even though you have a 4:3 TV) and you should invoke the vertical compression for incoming HD. If it doesn't have this feature, then the image will be stretched vertically and you'll need to set the STB to 4:3.

See also the HDTV FAQ on "Black Bars".