[opendtv] Re: New Philips HDD/DVD recorder

John Shutt wrote:

> I don't think that is as big an issue since the NTIA coupons
> are intended for STBs to be used with NTSC 4:3 displays.
>
> The amount of letterboxed 4:3 material far outweighs
> pillarboxed 16:9 material. It is only the latter that would
> have the "postage stamp" effect on a 4:3 display.

Hmmm. From what I can determine, as an end user with one 16:9 and one 4:3 set 
connected to Accurian and Digital Stream STBs, when told that the monitor has a 
16:9 aspect ratio, it's the STB that creates the pillarboxed effect. At least, 
that seems to be by far the most frequent reason for pillarboxing. On the 16:9 
set, all non-distorted SDTV programming comes in that way. So it's very common.

What these STBs allow, that the Philips PVR does not do, is to set each channel 
and have that setting stored in memory. The STBs give these options:

1. Normal, unstretched video.
2. Stretch out the video horizontally, to fill the 16:9 screen.
3. Zoom in, to expand a letterboxed+pillarboxed image to fill 16:9.

Mode 2, stretching out the picture, is usually required to undistort a 
widescreen image. Most of the subchannels that transmit HD seem to need that 
set all the time, even if they transmit SD. On the other hand, the SD-only 
subchannels do not have that set, or you get the short and fat effect.

Mode 3 is not always allowed. But it is perfect for shows that are transmitted 
as SD letterboxed to 4:3 sets, and come in as letterboxed+pillarboxed on my 
16:9 set. PBS uses this a lot. The problem seems to be that zooming is not 
allowed if the station is requiring the mode 2 to be set. You can't zoom in on 
a horizontally-stretched image. So you're out of luck if a station transmits 
letterboxed on a subchannel that it requires to be stretched.

Just having these three settings in the receiver, remembered for each station, 
is actually enough. I'd be totally satisfied if all receivers allowed this.

Here are some other observations.

Evidently, Philips is so unimpressed with PSIP time that they don't even use it 
in the PVR. You can either use the analog PBS time service, or you can set the 
clock manually (I chose the latter option). In fact, the Philips won't even 
display time of day from PSIP, as far as I've been able to determine.

So, having set my STB back to full auto time (since I don't need the STB timer 
for my time-shift recordings anymore), I have now been able to try all of my DT 
stations to see how well they're doing. I have one of those clocks next to the 
TV that's tuned to Boulder Colorado on 60 MHz. To the nearest minute, here are 
the results, where only the good guys are identified. By the way, this is much 
improved from last time I checked.

Ch 2:    accurate  (WMAR ABC Baltimore)
Ch 4:   +2 min
Ch 5:   +1 min
Ch 7:   +4 min
Ch 9:   accurate  (WUSA CBS DC)
Ch 11: +3 min
Ch 13: +3 min
Ch 14: +2 min
Ch 20: +2 min
Ch 22: accurate (WMPT PBS Annapolis)
Ch 26: accurate (WETA PBS DC)
Ch 30: no reception with Accurian today, no time shown on Philips
Ch 45: -3 min
Ch 50: +17 hours 20 min
Ch 54: +2 min

It's no doubt for this reason that timed recording can't depend on PSIP. Still, 
last time, many stations were more than 5 minutes off, so I consider this a 
step ahead. Not too say acceptable, of course. This time thing just isn't that 
hard to get right, sorry, guys. Imagine how many ships would run aground if 
they navigated this way?

And, I really do enjoy the HDD in the Philips.

Bert

_________________________________________________________________
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