# Using a New TV with an Old TiVo



## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

OK, you should know, I love new electronics with one exception. I love my old school square non-widescreen TVs. I use them with my S2 single tuner TiVos and all is well. I have basic cable through a tuning adapter into my TiVo and out to the TV. 

Unfortunately, my 36" TV stopped getting a picture today, which leads to my dilemma. If I buy a new HDTV (probably plasma based on preliminary research and price), what are the consequences here? I am not concerned with seeing things in HD and I am not upgrading my basic cable now. Will I have bars on the screen? Will things look distorted? Will my TiVo even work with a new TV?

My family thinks I am crazy because I have been very resistant to buying a widescreen TV because every one I have seen makes people look short and fat. The CBS eye looks like a football. Words run off the side of the screen instead of being contained in the viewable area. Are they not set right or is it me?

Can someone please help me figure this out?


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

On craigslist you can get tube Sony XBR's 32 and 36 inch very cheap, have beautiful pictures. They are very heavy though.


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

Yes, I know they are heavy. I'm still not sure how I'm getting the old TV out of here. LOL


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Hot4Bo said:


> OK, you should know, I love new electronics with one exception. I love my old school square non-widescreen TVs. I use them with my S2 single tuner TiVos and all is well. I have basic cable through a tuning adapter into my TiVo and out to the TV.
> 
> Unfortunately, my 36" TV stopped getting a picture today, which leads to my dilemma. If I buy a new HDTV (probably plasma based on preliminary research and price), what are the consequences here? I am not concerned with seeing things in HD and I am not upgrading my basic cable now. Will I have bars on the screen? Will things look distorted? Will my TiVo even work with a new TV?
> 
> ...


Honestly if you don't want to move to HD I would recommend buying a used SD TV. SD analog cable on a larger HD TV will look pretty bad. When I got my 50 inch plasma I still had 2 S2s one on a OTA converter box and one on a Dishnetwork SD STB. The pictures were fine on my old 26 tub TV, but honestly looked pretty bad on the plasma. Everything will work and you will have dark bars on both sides (unless you stretch the picture then it will be distorted).

Good Luck,


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

Hot4Bo said:


> Yes, I know they are heavy. I'm still not sure how I'm getting the old TV out of here. LOL


A lot of people even give perfectly working ones away because they can't move it. You could probably find someone in moving section to go with you to haul it for $50. Then have them put defective one on curb or if you have people that go thru your neighborhood that get metal and other things of value they would gladly come in house to get it (lot of $$ recyclables in there).


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

I hate those bars!! I really can't afford to upgrade my cable service and I certainly can't afford new TiVo boxes now. I've had one S2 with free lifetime since 2002 (I actually won this one from TiVo with free lifetime) and one S2 that I've been paying $6.95 for since 2005 (yes, I should have gotten lifetime but didn't.)

I guess I'm in major trouble here unless I buy used.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Hot4Bo said:


> I have been very resistant to buying a widescreen TV because every one I have seen makes people look short and fat.


Sounds like the TV's not adjusted right. With an SD signal you need to either put up with the bars or zoom the picture to fill the screen (cutting off the top & bottom) without the fat-man distortion.


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

I'm actually on hold with Comcast. I have their Digital Starter package but I don't know what that is. I'm trying to find out if that's HD or not.


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

OK, I don't think my cable package is the problem. If I understand them correctly, the tuning adapter doesn't tune HD. I'd need an actual box but I'm not getting one. (Yes, I know I'm stubborn. I just want things to work!!)

I think I'm more confused now. The tuning adapter won't do HD but it's now working to change the channels on my TiVo with the cute little cable I bought on eBay from a suggestion here. I can't get an actual cable box because it won't change the channels on the TiVo. 

I guess I'll have to just buy a TV and hope it works. Like I said, I don't really care about the HD at all. I just want a watchable picture.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Hot4Bo said:


> I just want a watchable picture.


If you record at anything less than "Best Quality," watching on an HDTV could be painful. But you should be able to connect the coax directly to an HDTV and get the locals in HD as part of your basic service. But that could just make it even more painful to watch SD TiVo recordings...


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

I do record on "Best Quality" anyway. Less than that was painful on my SDTV.


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

Hot4Bo said:


> OK, I don't think my cable package is the problem. If I understand them correctly, the tuning adapter doesn't tune HD. I'd need an actual box but I'm not getting one. (Yes, I know I'm stubborn. I just want things to work!!)
> 
> I think I'm more confused now. The tuning adapter won't do HD but it's now working to change the channels on my TiVo with the cute little cable I bought on eBay from a suggestion here. I can't get an actual cable box because it won't change the channels on the TiVo.
> 
> I guess I'll have to just buy a TV and hope it works. Like I said, I don't really care about the HD at all. I just want a watchable picture.


You must have a -digital transport adapter- not a tuning adapter (for sdv with a cable card) hooked up with one of those plug in cables. The DTA or cable box doesn't change channels on Tivo Tivo changes them on box. If you got the HD cable converter you would have to use IR blaster to change channels on it. But of course would still be SD from Tivo, so little point of it if you don't get any more channels than you get now.


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## cannonz (Oct 23, 2011)

I assume if you have a DTA you probably only have what was their analog line up, I'm sure if you upgraded service would need a converter but may as well be a SD one unless you want to sometimes watch on HD TV direct from it not thru your Tivo.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

If you are sure you don't want it, get the free TV, I'm sure you can find one. Many would be happy for you to cart it off, they are a pain and many have local communities that have recycling requirements to follow.

If you were to start going with a hdtv, you would start to appreciate the differences. This leads to new tivo purchases (which is not as complicated as you would think, but no reason to explain the differences now). That is what happened to me.

cannonz is right- you do not have a TA, you essentially have the comcast equivalent of the government-coupon boxes that were needed for over the air after the transition.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

jrtroo said:


> If you are sure you don't want it, get the free TV, I'm sure you can find one. Many would be happy for you to cart it off, they are a pain and many have local communities that have recycling requirements to follow.
> 
> If you were to start going with a hdtv, you would start to appreciate the differences. This leads to new tivo purchases (which is not as complicated as you would think, but no reason to explain the differences now). That is what happened to me.
> 
> cannonz is right- you do not have a TA, you essentially have the comcast equivalent of the government-coupon boxes that were needed for over the air after the transition.


What he apparently has is a DTA, which is the FCC mandated box for _*cable*_ digital conversion. Has nothing to do with the OTA digital transition.

To the OP: The Comcast Digital Starter package has a lot of HD channels but only includes one SD digital box or one CableCARD. Their HD boxes are extra (at least here they are) but if you had a TiVo HD or Premiere, the CableCARD wouldn't be any extra cost (unless it was one of the original TiVo 3's with HD, model TCD648250. They need 2 cards).

If you did put in a digital TiVo, Comcast would have to give you a "user owned equipment" discount. Here it is $2.50 a month.


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## Tony Chick (Jun 20, 2002)

The reason people look short and fat is because the TV (or Tivo) aspect ratio is set to stretch SD signals to fit the 16x9 screen. There should be a setting to keep 4x3 ratio and add black bars at the side.


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

OK, for anyone still playing along, I am now in the current century, I bought a 50" Panasonic plasma TV. It all works, no bars and I guess my aspect ratio is OK because people don't look short and fat. I'm sure it would look sharper in HD but that's not happening for now and it's doesn't bother me.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Just use the TV's remote control to change the aspect ratio to 4:3. It will add "bars", but will make the picture the correct aspect ratio.

I had HD capable Tivos before I had a HD TV.. My old 27" Trinitron died within the past year so I had to suddenly get a new TV. I ended up with a 42" plasma (open box, somewhere a bit under $400). I still end up watching a lot of 4:3 stuff (the aspect ratio you're seeing), or the letterboxed stuff from the SD (digital but "not HD") channels. I still watch the 4:3 and SD stuff largely because of disk space issues (HD takes up a LOT more space), and I use a non-HD hard drive/DVD recorder ALONG with my Tivos, every day.

(Though I admit that I have noticed that the times I have switched to the HD input on my TV, even watching the SD channels ends up looking better -- some of that may be because I don't have the energy savings set the same on all inputs, so it's brighter, which instinctively "looks better" at first.)


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

I think I'm fine on whatever aspect ratio I have. I couldn't possibly stand watching with the "bars." That would drive me insane.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

If you stretch the image to get rid of the bars, then everyone is fat, circles become ovals, and depending on how you set it, things can get cut off.

I don't understand why people have this urge to fill the screen, even when the content was created for a different type of device. Don't you want to watch the content the way it was intended, with nice tall thin people and circles? Does it bother you that there is empty space to the left and right of your current TV that has no image on it?


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## jpcamaro70 (Nov 23, 2011)

Hot4Bo said:


> I think I'm fine on whatever aspect ratio I have. I couldn't possibly stand watching with the "bars." That would drive me insane.


You are better than me.

When HDTV became the big thing, i was out there buying the first ones. Without knowing anything, I take it home and was instantly pissed off, It looked horrible, so until i finish researching I hooked up my old tv.

The BB rep never told me i Needed HD service. Good thing for directv, they came right away and hooked everyhing up for me.

If you can watch it, then that's great save your money. But I must warn you, you are missing out on a whole NEW world of television.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Hot4Bo said:


> I think I'm fine on whatever aspect ratio I have. I couldn't possibly stand watching with the "bars." That would drive me insane.


To each their own. Natural looking people are more important than bars to me.

Now you'll have the temptation for a new tivo too!


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## takeshi (Jul 22, 2010)

Hot4Bo said:


> Will I have bars on the screen? Will things look distorted?


Well, you have to pick your poison. You have to either matte or stretch to fit a 4:3 image on a widescreen TV. Granted, you can zoom as well but I'm guessing that you don't want to crop.



Arcady said:


> I don't understand why people have this urge to fill the screen, even when the content was created for a different type of device.





jrtroo said:


> To each their own.


I don't understand why people don't seem to get the latter quote above. In my case it's to prevent image retention on my plasma. YMMV, as with anything subjective. Don't assume that your preferences and situation are universal.



jpcamaro70 said:


> The BB rep never told me i Needed HD service.


...and never substitute store rep advice for proper research.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

I have an HDTV, although only a 32" 720P. To use with my TiVo Series 2, I have it connected with S-video to the TV, and from its source satellite box. It works very well. I can zoom letterboxed content to fill the TV, or full width if the TV station is mis-broacasting anamorphic content.

And I have a separate HD satellite receiver, to receve stations that my provider has available to me, in HD, plus watch other channels when the TiVo is recording.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Hot4Bo said:


> I think I'm fine on whatever aspect ratio I have. I couldn't possibly stand watching with the "bars." That would drive me insane.


But you said you couldn't stand watching people stretched out..

You get one or the other -- bars (correct aspect ratio) or people stretched out so it looks messed up. Heck, even if you recorded everything on HD channels, I presume once in a rare while there is 4:3 stuff shown there (commercials?) so you'll have bars once in a while.


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

OK, I just checked the setting. It says "Just," which I guess is Justified. It does fill the screen but people don't seem short and fat and things don't look distorted like I've seen on other widescreen TVs I've seen prior to this. Round things look round (with the exception of the CBS eye - still looks like a football LOL.)

As for the temptation to upgrade my TiVo, I know that it 's just too expensive for me right now so I'm OK with that.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

The "just" mode stretches the sides of the picture and leaves the middle alone. This mode makes me ill when I try to watch it. Some HDTV channels do this to SD content to fill the screen. I have to switch to the SD version to watch the show. This explains why the CBS logo is stretched, since it is on the edge of the screen.

The tall and skinny people will get fat when they walk off the edge of the screen, or you'll have a guy with one thin arm and one fat arm. Yuck.


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## javabird (Oct 13, 2006)

If you have a Panasomic plasma TV, you might want to avoid using bars on the side as Panasonic's manual says it might cause image retention. But IMHO you really don't need to use the bars-- just use Zoom or JUST (I like Zoom for SD shows as I think it looks better).


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jrtroo said:


> ... Natural looking people are more important than bars to me...


When I go to bars it's so that people look better than natural.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

takeshi said:


> Well, you have to pick your poison. You have to either matte or stretch to fit a 4:3 image on a widescreen TV. Granted, you can zoom as well but I'm guessing that you don't want to crop.


Those are the only possible physical options - crop, stretch, or bars, and being limited to them is not a limitation of any of the devices. It's purely a matter of geometry.



takeshi said:


> I don't understand why people don't seem to get the latter quote above. In my case it's to prevent image retention on my plasma. YMMV, as with anything subjective. Don't assume that your preferences and situation are universal.


True, but the OP seems to want both a filled screen with no modification to the original image, and that is just not possible. One can stretch, zoom & crop, or live with bars. Those are the only choices.


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## webstertduck (Jan 29, 2008)

pdhenry said:


> Sounds like the TV's not adjusted right. With an SD signal you need to either put up with the bars or zoom the picture to fill the screen (cutting off the top & bottom) without the fat-man distortion.


+1


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## Kablemodem (May 26, 2001)

If your picture has no bars and people do not seem to be short and fat, then you must have some sort of zoom activated. Black bars have never bothered me. My eyes/brain block them out after a few moments.

Now that you have an HD TV you can hook up a regular antenna and get OTA HD for free, although you won't be able to record it on your TiVo.


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## MychaelP (Jun 30, 2004)

pdhenry said:


> Sounds like the TV's not adjusted right. With an SD signal you need to either put up with the bars or zoom the picture to fill the screen (cutting off the top & bottom) without the fat-man distortion.


Not necessarily true.

I have a Series 2 Tivo and a ATSC converter box. The converter box has an option to set the picture so that the full 16x9 image is stretched inward. (I don't recall the actual term on the menu) Then on the new TV is shows inward stretched with the black bars, then simply set the tv picture to wide/normal and it fills the complete screen. On my 32" sitting 8-9 feet back the picture quality looks great. Not HD, but I am also able to use my old Tivo with lifetime with no new costs. There is no "stretched" look as it is the full 16x9 image with nothing lost... unless my tv has excessive overscan I'm not aware of.

So you can watch old Tivos on new TV's without the black bars... unless the program is an old program and still at 4:3 then it shows that way.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

MychaelP said:


> So you can watch old Tivos on new TV's without the black bars... unless the program is an old program and still at 4:3 then it shows that way.


And that's what he was talking about. The only thing you can watch on a 16x9 screen using the entire screen with zero distortion and zero loss of data is 16x9 content. Old TV shows, old movies, even a lot of newer widescreen movies are going to have vertical or horizontal bars.

Screen burn in of the bars is one of the reasons to avoid a plasma TV.


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## turbobuick86 (May 3, 2002)

Some TV's have progressive stretch. The center 60% is normal, but the stretch begins and gets worse toward the edges to fill 16x9 screen with 4x3 content.

The choices are black bars or distortion and you have to choose one.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

lpwcomp said:


> Screen burn in of the bars is one of the reasons to avoid a plasma TV.


Maybe if it is a 5 or 10 year old plasma. Most modern units allow you to set the bars to a neutral grey or have them track overall image brightness so that wear is even. So no, there is really no need to avoid plasma TV panels these days.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

data point - I have two plasmas (2/4 yo). No issues with the bars and burn in. I leave the bars black, I find the grey too distracting.

Progressive stretch, to me, is the worst option of them all. It is like living in a fishbowl, and gives me headaches.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

CuriousMark said:


> Maybe if it is a 5 or 10 year old plasma. Most modern units allow you to set the bars to a neutral grey or have them track overall image brightness so that wear is even. So no, there is really no need to avoid plasma TV panels these days.


Well, I have an LG plasma that I bought within the past year, and there IS burn-in, but I only notice it when the screen is entirely black -- usually only even when I turn it on.

It _slightly_ concerns me, but not enough to use grey bars (they bug me), and I watch a lot of 4:3 and/or letterboxed-in-4:3 (I use one of the TV's zoom modes sometimes, but often this ends up clipping off part of the picture, which I don't want to do.. There seem to be a vast minority of cases where zoom doesn't cut off a significant portion of the picture).


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Burn-in means the CNN logo is on the screen forever. As in, you watch CNN for 10 hours and from then on the CNN logo is forever on the screen. Like for the next year. Not for a few minutes or hours.


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## Speed Daemon (Jan 15, 2012)

CuriousMark said:


> Maybe if it is a 5 or 10 year old plasma. Most modern units allow you to set the bars to a neutral grey or have them track overall image brightness so that wear is even. So no, there is really no need to avoid plasma TV panels these days.


Well there's still that less-than-full-HD resolution thing...


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## bud8man (Feb 13, 2004)

I keep my 32" 4:3 around with my S2 Single Tuner Tivo hooked up via S-Video cable for the same reason.
Although more and more of our broadcast cable around here is already showing the bars on it.
Recently I got a Free 26" 16:9 HDTV. 
If the show on the old TV has the bars on it, then zooming in on the picture on the HDTV yields me a similar sized picture.
But the quality is not that great. On the HDTV everything looks worse than on the regular TV.
I split my cable, and have it go one shot into the HDTV, and another into the TiVo.
Basic cable around here yields quite a few HDTV channels, all which look great on the HDTV. Football I watch live anyway, so this is a great solution for that.

What you might want to consider is getting a pretty big flat screen, put your TiVo signal into it via S-Video cable, and then create a frame around the TV for the image you are going to get if you don't want to see the bars.

Zooming in and cropping to eliminate bars will yield not so great results. Not sure if things like 1080i or p would come into affect, or 60/120/240 hz to improve the picture from the TiVo.

The other thing would be to ensure you have the best signal getting to your TiVo. S-Video is my recommendation.


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

Arcady said:


> Burn-in means the CNN logo is on the screen forever. As in, you watch CNN for 10 hours and from then on the CNN logo is forever on the screen. Like for the next year. Not for a few minutes or hours.


The CNBC burn in I noticed disappeared after running the white bar across the screen function buried deep in one of the menus. I only noticed the burn in at an angle and it was very minor. After running the screen thingee, it was gone.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Arcady said:


> Burn-in means the CNN logo is on the screen forever. As in, you watch CNN for 10 hours and from then on the CNN logo is forever on the screen. Like for the next year. Not for a few minutes or hours.


My 4:3 and two horizontal stripe (I think from closed captions) do seem to be forever.

I *also* see very short term 'burn in' when leaving a video game up for a while (e.g. I often see the '2' from Uncharted 2 stuck there if I left it before starting the game).. that goes away.. I haven't seen the other burn in I'm seeing go away.. But I basically only ever notice it when I first turn the TV on or full fades to black..


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

mattack said:


> there IS burn-in, but I only notice it when the screen is entirely black -- usually only even when I turn it on.
> 
> It _slightly_ concerns me,


There should be a menu item like I have on my HDTV: ... anti image retention | scrolling bar

run the equivalent on your TV to remove the burn in.


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## turbobuick86 (May 3, 2002)

I'm waiting to hear the OP put a 2.35:1 DVD in the new HDTV and now has black bars across the top and bottom. lol


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

The OP (me) does not have her DVD player hooked up yet and if that will happen, she won't hook up her DVD player. I hate the bars!!!!!!! And really, there is not much I can do about any of this. I simply can't pay for a new TiVo now.


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## turbobuick86 (May 3, 2002)

The secret to black bars? Watch with all the lights off. If the room is dark enough, you won't know where the picture ends and the TV begins.

More and more movies are made with 2.35:1 ratio. It's really up the director to decide the best aspect ratio for the movie. You can still zoom your dvd player if you really have a blackbar phobia.

You will get a nicer picture with a dvd player vs the standard cable you're getting now. Does your TV have an internal tuner? You could use rabbit ears and get local HD for a great picture. This might require you to select input change on the TV to "antenna".


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

My TV has an Integrated ATSC Tuner. Is that what you mean? 

In the inputs, it says ANT/Cable In as one option. So I'm guessing I can't do both. It's either/or. Is that right? Assuming I got rabbit ears, would I have to unplug the cable to use them? Use an A/B switch? 

It also has IPTV. Not sure what that is though.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Hot4Bo said:


> My TV has an Integrated ATSC Tuner. Is that what you mean?
> 
> In the inputs, it says ANT/Cable In as one option. So I'm guessing I can't do both. It's either/or. Is that right? Assuming I got rabbit ears, would I have to unplug the cable to use them? Use an A/B switch?
> 
> It also has IPTV. Not sure what that is though.


ANT/Cable In almost certainly refers to that threaded thing on the back where the cable company cable attaches, assuming you aren't using a cable box of some sort.

If there is only one of those threaded things on the back, then that's where you connect either the cable company cable or a piece of co-axial cable with some sort of antenna on the other end.

If it were me, I'd experiment with a cable splitter used backwards to feed both the cable company cable and the antenna into that one threaded thing (hereafter known as your RF input or tuner input).

But I'd go into it knowing that the experiment might fail.

And, of course, if it were me, I'd already have the necessary parts on hand among my many junkboxs.


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## turbobuick86 (May 3, 2002)

Hot4Bo said:


> My TV has an Integrated ATSC Tuner. Is that what you mean?
> 
> In the inputs, it says ANT/Cable In as one option. So I'm guessing I can't do both. It's either/or. Is that right? Assuming I got rabbit ears, would I have to unplug the cable to use them? Use an A/B switch?
> 
> It also has IPTV. Not sure what that is though.


IP TV likely means you can network your TV directly to the internet. You could stream input directly to the TV.

Yes, the TV has an onboard HD tuner.

An A/B switch or diplexor would definitely work while a pigtail splitter/combiner might work.

You will have to use the TV remote and scan for channels after you hook up an antenna. Your reception of local channels is directly related to the proximity of local broadcasting transmitters.

The websites below will help you determine what stations are broadcasting to your home and what size antenna it will take to receive them. Both links accomplish about the same thing determined zip code and terrain.

http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

This seems way to complicated for my poor brain. I don't even see how my S2 TiVo would fit in that scenario. Maybe I should just leave it alone.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

Hot4Bo said:


> This seems way to complicated for my poor brain. I don't even see how my S2 TiVo would fit in that scenario. Maybe I should just leave it alone.


You simply connect the S2 to another input on the TV. If it has an S-video input that would be best, but the yellow baseband video is still better than an RF connection. When you want to watch the TiVo Series 2, simply switch the TV input to it and away you go. When you want to watch Over the air, put the TV back on its internal tuner. When you want to watch IPTV bring up the IPTV menu on the TV set and pick the service, such as netflix and off you go.


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