Railbaron

I am a new owner of a Toshiba DST-3000 and am using it to receive two OTA digital signals and HDTV broadcasts on DirecTV (HDNet and HD HBO). I have a couple of questions:

1. I can receive two OTA digital signals here in Chattanooga. One is a 480i CBS signal and the other is a 480i NBC signal. My HDTV monitor is a Toshiba 40H80. Since the NBC signal went on the air a few days ago, I can only view it in one aspect ratio. It is slightly wider than 4x3 but less than full widescreen. When I change the picture size using both the TV remote and the receiver remote, the image size does not change. The CBS OTA image can be changed using the DST-3000 remote but not the TV remote. When I watch the HBO HD channel, I think the same thing happens. ANybody have any ideas?

2. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I don't think my TV remote can change the image size for any digital signal but it works fine for cable and other analog signals. Am I doing something wrong?

3. I had a lot of trouble getting the VCR set up correctly to record satellite off of the DST-3000 receiver. I sure wish this thing had both a HD output and an analog output. Also, the DST-3000 does not seem to control the VCR using the IR emitter. I am trying to use a 1 year old Phillips model 960 VCR. The instruction for the DST-3000 says if the emitter doesn't work, try other codes. How do I do that since I don't know how to make the DST-3000 emit other frequencies. Would I have to try every VCR manufacturer and model number by trial and error?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

zarlor

1) & 2) You are doing nothing wrong. What is happening is that your locals (and HBO) are not sending that 480i as a straight 480i digital signal, they are sending it upconverted to 1080i, hence your ratio button will not work, since you TV already thinks it is at the highest resolution and that ratio button normally only work on an actual 480i (or sometimes 480p) source. So your set does not see a rectangle in the middle of the screen, it sees a full widescreen picture that happens to contain picture image for those black bars on the side. Just wait until they broadcast a letterboxed show like that. Then you hall black bars on the sides and the top and bottom, effectively giving you a smaller window about the same aspect ratio of your screen that you'll be screaming at to let you at least zoom it in.

3) Not sure about that reciever as I have never used it. But I will say that to the best of my knowledge no HD reciever on teh market will output a signal both digitally and through analog. So you might want to make sure that when you are recording something on the VCR that your reciever has it's HD output turned off at that time. As for the codes and such, hopefully someone with some experience with that receiver can help out.

__________________
Lenny Zimmermann
zarlor@acm.org

DISCLAIMER: I am not and have never been some kind of video expert. Take absolutely everything I post (along with anything else you read on the internet) with a HUGE grain of salt! If you really want the most complete and truthful answer, go to engineering school and find out how this stuff REALLY works.

Railbaron

You are right about the different aspect ratios. While I can change the aspect ratios of the CBS signal using the DTS-3000, I can't change the aspect ratio of the NBC OTA digital signal. So that means the NBC signal is upconverted to 1080 while the CBS signal is seen by my receiver as 480i I think. I just saw a commercial for ER and it showed as a letterboxed image with black bars all around (groan).

The quality of both pictures seem about the same but I need to study this more. I guess that is because both signals are still 480 lines but converted and transmitted differently if I understand correctly.

Mark