Aspect ratio on a QIP 7100 1

[viafax999]

Is there anyway to get the display of an hd signal on an standard TV into "crop" mode?
I've lived for quite happily for many years with directv HD which gave you the option of Crop, Squeeze, Pllar box or Letter box and was quite happy using crop which filled the whole screen OK and just cropped (chopped) off a little of each side of the picture - when watching subtitled content we just changed to letterbox for the show.

With this QIP 7100 1 there doesn't appear to be any way to get out of letterbox mode which is pretty annoying as you lose about 1/4 of the viewing area with the dark space top and bottom.

[viafax999]

Have found a QIP 7100 series user guide, odd that the installer never showed us such a thing..  According to page 30 troubleshooting I need to turn on the 4:3 override feature in user settings and set it to stretch as detailed under page 8 User settings.  To do this page 7 says

Step 2 Power off the QIP receiver and then immediately press the MENU on the front panel.  If your TV is on, the on-screen menu list the settings you can configure.

When i power the receiver off by using the power switch on the front of the reciver I get a floating display that says press menu or power to start the receiver.

When I then press the menu key the receiver powers back up without displaying the USER SETTING STATUS menu.  Looks like a firmware modification or override. 

Does anybody know of a way to get to this menu?

[Keyboards · Accepted solution]

Verizon changed the sequence.  After powering off you need to press SELECT and then MENU.

There should be a simpler way by going into the STB on screen menues (normal viewing mode) and setting the 4:3 override to stretch under video settings (a sub menu in the settings selection).  Hope that helps.

[viafax999]

Well thank you.

That sequence works fine.  It appears that to do what I wanted I actually have to set the TV type to 4:3 Pan Scan and leave the 4:3 Override at 480I..  I found no way to do this in the normal menus.  Only found the receiver user manual by accident when one of the stb's overheated and I found the manual underneath it blocking the vents, strange place for the installer to leave it.

Again many thanks