Widescreen / 4:3 problems on STB
 

Over the last few days a rather annoying problem has reared its ugly head.

Sometimes on some channels (so far ITV, Discovery Wings & several other channels I can't remember) My widescreen TV starts displaying the program as 4:3 with vertical black bars either side of the screen. The STB is set to 16:9.

If I go into the settings menu of the STB and change it from 16:9 to 4:3 and come out then go back in to the settings menu again and change it back to 16:9 the picure reverts back to wide screen once more.

I haven't changed any other settings on either the TV or the STB before this started occuring.

Any ideas why this has started happening and where the fix may lie?

TIA - Tim

Re: Widescreen / 4:3 problems on STB
 

Which STB and software version are you using?

And welcome to the site, by the way :)

Re: Widescreen / 4:3 problems on STB
 

Thanks for the welcome :)

Software is L3.2 and the box is a Pace Di 4001N

Re: Widescreen / 4:3 problems on STB
 

Discovery Wings don't actually broadcast anything in widescreen ever.

There has been a bug in L3.2 reported where certain types of STB occasionly start adding black borders down the sides of 4:3 programmes when the box is set to 16:9. I don't know why, and the only fix is to change the settings as you describe.

Of course, most people's TVs are set up to add those black bars anyway, so most won't even notice that the STB is doing it instead. I'm going to take a guess that you noticed it because you view 4:3 programmes in "stretch-o-vision" (which, imo, looks absolutly awful - but that's a different debate! ;) )

Sorry I couldn't be any more help.

Re: Widescreen / 4:3 problems on STB
 

The problem is that 16:9 programmes get displayed truncated in 4:3, not that 4:3 programmes get black bars.

My 1000 box has been doing it for years (ever since I got it). I just live with it since it only happens every couple of weeks or so.
I used to reboot the box till I discovered the "reset the settings to their current value" trick.

Re: Widescreen / 4:3 problems on STB
 

What i find annoying about the 4:3 on 16:9 is that there is often a lot of noise between the left black bar and the picture, so you see a black bar, a thin white line and then the picture. In darkly lit scenes it's really intrusive.

Re: Widescreen / 4:3 problems on STB
 

People are looking at this. You should only have to go into the guide and back out to fix it. You don't need to mess with the settings menu.
Do you know what hardware version the box is (Page Up, Page Down, Blue, and then more).