said by bushleaguer :

In my area the local cable company (Patriot Media) sold to Comcast and they recently took over.

I've noticed that when I had Patriot that the HD channels came in on the full screen of our 2 widescreen HD TVs. After a brief dealing with DirecTV (no line of sight after the leaves on the trees came in), we went back to cable, which is now Comcast and I noticed that most of the HD channels are either letterboxed or smaller squares than the screen. Is this what is meant when people say that Comcast's HD channels are more "compressed?"
Or does this have to do with the lack of an HDMI output on the back of Comcast's receiver?

said by celeritypc :

You don't have the box set properly. Turn the box and TV on then turn just the box off. Immediately hit the menu button. You will see the settings menu appear. Change your tv type to 16:9 and set the output to 1080I (or 720p if your tv does not support 1080i). Press menu again, then power.

said by bushleaguer :

Thanks for the info.

I went to the menu with the box off and it was set as you indicated it should be.

Oh well.

said by celeritypc :

Well, the next question is if there is no HDMI, are you hooking up with component cables or are you using composite or rf? If you are not using component, then you will not get an HD picture.

said by cypherstream :

HD Needs to be hooked up with either HDMI / DVI or Component video cables.

Component cables are 5 wires like this:

said by bicker :

There is no sure-fire way to explain to someone who isn't technically inclined the difference between component connections and composite connections by the count of the cables, because such folks will often not be able to tell the difference between audio and video connections. I suspect that cyperstream's (very sound) thinking was that if you've got five cables, then you can be sure that you've got a component connection, whereas if you talk about three cables, someone who isn't an expert may think that you mean the red (left audio), blue (right audio), and yellow (composite video).

said by cypherstream :

bicker is right.

For the most part, if someone is having issues with their HD hookup, 9 times out of 10 they need the 5 wire hookup anyway. You don't want them posting here "Why don't I have any sound?" do you? I don't think they use an A/V receiver or route digital audio to one if they think 3 cables of Red, Yellow, and White are for HD.

The 5 wire cable package I posted looks exactly like the only type of cable Comcast provides with their HD boxes in our area. And if you want HDMI, your on your own for that one (at least when I was installed).

said by cypherstream :

bicker is right.

For the most part, if someone is having issues with their HD hookup, 9 times out of 10 they need the 5 wire hookup anyway. You don't want them posting here "Why don't I have any sound?" do you? I don't think they use an A/V receiver or route digital audio to one if they think 3 cables of Red, Yellow, and White are for HD.

The 5 wire cable package I posted looks exactly like the only type of cable Comcast provides with their HD boxes in our area. And if you want HDMI, your on your own for that one (at least when I was installed).

said by cypherstream :

HD Needs to be hooked up with either HDMI / DVI or Component video cables.

Component cables are 5 wires like this:

said by bushleaguer :

Unfortunately the installer didn't have any cables, and I only had the HDMI cable. Funny that Comcast bought out our existing, small-fry cable company (Patriot Media) and they had HDMI-capable boxes on hand.

said by celeritypc :

If I'm not mistaken, Pat Media used Motorola boxes as well and when Comcast took over, they are probably using the same inventory Pat Media had. It could be that they ran out of the newer boxes.