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Aspect Ratio Issue on Local SD Channels

Has anyone else discovered that local channels in SD on an old tube TV are suddenly tall and skinny this week? I'm in the Tampa market and have an old tube TV with an SD box in the bedroom and have been seeing this since Monday or Tuesday. I contacted tech support and they thought it was something with the wiring in my home and the frequencies of those particular channels (2 through 18 except WGN Channel 9). A tech came out and couldn't find any signal errors and said it has to be in the broadcast. The Verizon tech on the phone said it must be the broadcast since they can't find anything else wrong. It's interesting that it's only the local channels within that range. WGN 9 and all other national SD channels look normal. Even the local channels in the 400s look normal. Also, the local SD channels on my HDTV are in 16:9 without being stretched. All of the other SD channels have bars on the sides on the HDTV. So that also leads me to believe it's something with the broadcast. I know people probably complain about the SD channels previously being zoomed in a bit, but this skinny version is terrible. Appreciate any insight from this group since tech support can't answer.

Comments

kouya

Confirmed you are correct, I'm seeing the problem also and I'm in STampa. I don't beleive that each Broadcaster in our area suddenly decided to change their feeds individually. I tend to beleive the problem is Verizon's conversion/processing and distribution of local programing in this market. This has to be addressed by the Engineers and not some Tech center jockey reading from a troubleshooting chart.

Hopefully Verizon's forum monitors could at least make a comment to this problem

BrianC

Spent an hour on a chat with tech support and a supervisor who all said there's nothing wrong in the network. They even started to suggest that it's the broadcasters (meaning all of these local broadcasters changed the aspect ratio at the same time). Then they had me hook up an HDTV to the SD box. I see the same thing. So they are sending me a new SD box to see if that solves the problem. A Verizon tech already tested the box and there weren't any errors, but we'll see. Will post here when I get the new box.

Gtbusa2002

Same issue with my SD box. Local channels look out of aspect. Tall and skinny. I've had this SD box for several years now and all of a sudden, this week, the image is messed up.

BrianC

Well, the new STB didn't work. Spent over 30 mins on the phone with a supervisor at Verizon who reset the box a few times. Then he contacted network support who advised there's nothing wrong (again). They are now going to send someone to the house to test the lines and test my equipment (again). There was nothing wrong last time. They just plain can't find the problem or possibly don't think there actually is a problem. I've seen this before when I had Dish Network years ago and it took them a while to figure out it was something with their retransmission. I pointed the Verizon folks to this forum to no avail. They said it would help if others called in to report the issue. I sure wish a moderator would take a look at this thread. It's frustrating to have techs keep trying the same things over and over and wasting my time.

BrianC

Suddenly all the channels are back to normal this morning except channels 2 and 3 which I don't really care about. Canceled the service tech appt. No one explained what they did, if anything, but doesn't matter as long as it's mostly resolved.

BrianC

Now the problem is back on channels 4 and 5 along with 2 and 3. 6 and up are ok. I even see bars on some programs on 4. Are you guys still having problems?

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