some hd channels are displayed with black bars on the side
motts
Newbie

i just had fios installed yesterday and some of my high def channels are initially displayed with black bars on the side. i have to use the aspect button to stretch them to fill the screen. is there anyway to fix this so that all high def channels are displayed in 16:9.

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Re: some hd channels are displayed with black bars on the side
WRKPA
Enthusiast - Level 3

Black bars on the side means the show, or commercial is not in HD. It's an easy way to tell what is in HD. You might be able to change some options, but the picture might look better with the side bars.

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Re: some hd channels are displayed with black bars on the side
motts
Newbie

every show on nick hd has the black bars. i don't see why it would be classified an hd channel if it was still broadcasting in sd and i also have the video settings for hd set to stretch for sd shows and i still have the black bars. maybe it's my tv.

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Re: some hd channels are displayed with black bars on the side
WRKPA
Enthusiast - Level 3

Not sure if it's your TV, but I have my HD DVR. Under video, I have it set to 1080i 16:9 and SD override to off. Hope this helps.

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Re: some hd channels are displayed with black bars on the side
ekem015
Specialist - Level 1

Nick HD is "classified" as an HD channel because there are *some,* but not *all* programs on HD in it. If they only had an SD Nick channel, then there would be no way to broadcast those *some* programs in HD.

But almost EVERY HD channel (with the exception of like HDNet) is going to have a number of programs and certainly commercials that aren't in HD. That's because this is 2010, not 2020. You have to be patient, not every show is going to be in HD yet. There's nothing Verizon can do about that.

SD override won't do anything about black bars for SD shows on HD channels. SD override will only stretch SD channels, because they are broadcast to Verizon in 4:3, so those black bars are actually created by the TV. For HD channels, the black bars (or usually a network logo on either side) are created by the broadcaster, so Verizon and your TV are receiving the full 16:9 picture, with SD channel in the middle and black bars on either side. There's nothing that can be done about this, because that same channel might have an HD show after that, where the full 16:9 broadcast is needed; it's not like they can change the resolution of the channel every half hour to correspond to whether an HD or SD show is on. The only way you can get rid of black bars on SD shows on HD channels is to use the aspect ratio button on either your STB or TV to stretch the middle portion of the picture (and thus distort the native 4:3 program, which is why I don't like to do that personally).

Of course, the broadcasters themselves (i.e. Nickelodeon) could do that stretching of those 4:3 programs themselves to fill a 16:9 feed, but I don't think there are any channels that do that - maybe Fox with Seinfeld, and TBS with older movies that were created before the HD era (they are upconverted, but they were originally shot in widescreen so that helps). Again, it distorts a picture that was intended to be viewed in 4:3.

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