Topic '[CATV] Channel 2-77 screen size problems.' in forum 'Charter Spectrum ' - dslreports.com

Re: [CATV] Channel 2-77 screen size problems.

Sat, 18 Jan 2014 17:24:44 EDT

Yuuan posted :

said by Charter User :

The screen size on my Charter Cable channels 2-77 rarely matches the size of my 46" flat screen TV. Mostly there is a black bar on the top and bottom of the screen. If I use zoom then I miss part of the picture. This can not be the way the feeds are coming in. The 16/9 aspect ration looks widened? Picture is very bad my sons Direct TV is 100% better and cheaper. This is a very poor cable company, they keep taking features and channels away and continue to raise the price. Direct TV and Dish are 1/3 the price and twice the picture.

You are correct. That's not how the feeds come in on most cases. Most of them are HD feeds but then they are split two ways. One way, is for the actual HD channels that you will probably need to pay for. The other one is transcoded down to Standard Definition (SD).

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what TV provider you have. If you're looking at SD video on an HD/widescreen...it's not going to look pretty.

Re: [CATV] Channel 2-77 screen size problems.

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 20:45:48 EDT

sittin_tech posted : They just did a guide update in my area which puts the HD feed on the SD channel numbers if you have HD equipment. It's a nice upgrade, but I'm not sure how widespread it is.

Re: [CATV] Channel 2-77 screen size problems.

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 16:51:50 EDT

anon posted : You are getting in the SD feeds. Some of them are still 4:3 instead of 16:9. Also you are seeing black all around because even when the picture is 16:9 it's still 853 pixels by 480. So yes on a 1366 by 768 or 1920 by 1080 TV you are going to have black areas unless you stretch the pic but then it looks REALLY crappy. If you have a HD TV you should be watching on the HD channels anyway. I'm not sure why someone would want to watch the SD versions on a HDTV. Honestly I wish Charter and all pay TV providers would ditch the SD versions. A waste of bandwidth.

Re: [CATV] Channel 2-77 screen size problems.

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 16:18:35 EDT

mixdup posted : channels 2-77 are definitely standard definition. make sure you are watching the HD channel on charter to make sure you are getting the "full" picture.

Re: [CATV] Channel 2-77 screen size problems.

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 16:01:49 EDT

mdavej posted : If you have a Motorola cable box, with the power off, press Menu on your remote and set the aspect ratio options. Then in your TV, pick the normal settings. If you have no such options, then you don't have an HD cable box.

Your son must have an old TV if DirecTV SD looks better than Charter. DirecTV SD is the worst I've ever seen. It's like an old VHS tape. If you are watching 2-77, that means you don't have HD like your son. DirecTV HD and Charter HD should look the same. So you need to compare your 700-900 channels to his 200-600 channels.

But if you are really paying 3x the price for Charter, you should switch. Just realize that when the new customer promo runs out, the price is going to be the same as cable. Plus Dish and DirecTV have 30-50 fewer HD channels than Charter and no local sub-channels unless you get an OTA tuner and antenna.

Re: [CATV] Channel 2-77 screen size problems.

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:54:04 EDT

DarkenMoon posted : Pretty sure you are seeing a Standard Definition feed. The DirectTV TV looks better because it is getting HD feeds.

[CATV] Channel 2-77 screen size problems.

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:46:32 EDT

anon posted : The screen size on my Charter Cable channels 2-77 rarely matches the size of my 46" flat screen TV. Mostly there is a black bar on the top and bottom of the screen. If I use zoom then I miss part of the picture. This can not be the way the feeds are coming in. The 16/9 aspect ration looks widened? Picture is very bad my sons Direct TV is 100% better and cheaper. This is a very poor cable company, they keep taking features and channels away and continue to raise the price. Direct TV and Dish are 1/3 the price and twice the picture.