What TVs actually do WSS switching? AKA lying bloody salespeople

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › What TVs actually do WSS switching? AKA lying bloody salespeople

richms

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#18666 18-Jan-2008 20:47

Mums tv blew up so it was shopping time today, We got the samsung 32" LCD because it will fit the gap it has to go in and the salesguy assured us it would auto swtich aspect.

Well, it doesnt samsungs 0800 number say its a setting on the sky, sky say all you have to do is set it to 16:9 widescreen and it will do it, which it did way back in the past when I had a widescreen 32" CRT...

So, its going back tomorrow. What TVs have people confirmed that will switch when the sky is changed between a 16:9 and a 4:3 channel? As in there is either an auto option that works or WSS will override the setting that its on.

Oh, and its a motorola box, it supports component out but we dont have the cable yet so are just using composite. Should WSS work over composite? Is this box capable of generating it? I could take my PC with tuner card over and look in dcsaler before I go totally ape at the sales people but Im pretty sure that the signals are present on the sky box.

Richard rich.ms

cyril7

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#105600 18-Jan-2008 21:29

Richard as from version 350 firmware Sky boxs have support line 23 WSS switching correctly, have not seen any boxs that have not sorted it correctly, sounds like you need to give Samsung a bit of a blast.

Cyril

richms

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#105601 18-Jan-2008 21:43

Im gonna take my htpc over tomorrow since dscaler appears to have a WSS screen that tells you what its seeing before we return it. No way of testing it in the shop because they didnt even have the remotes easily accessable when we wanted to have a look at them (thats what swung the samsung over the sony) Ideally I would like to know the model of someone who has one who has seen it switch automatically on a sky box so we can just point and say that one rather then relying on ignorance.

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hashbrown

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#105681 19-Jan-2008 14:17

First off I'm not an expert on the subject but I do have the same setup as you describe. Samsung 32" with Motorola decoder.

My experience is that switching seems to work fine 90% of the time for 1,2 and 3 but usually doesn't work for the other channels. My assumption was this was just sky being lazy. i.e. leaving widescreen on 24x7 event if the source material was 4:3.

Anyone else noticing this?

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#105683 19-Jan-2008 14:34

cyril7: Richard as from version 350 firmware Sky boxs have support line 23 WSS switching correctly, have not seen any boxs that have not sorted it correctly, sounds like you need to give Samsung a bit of a blast.

Cyril

In my experience, at least with the Pace boxes, the line 23 WSS flag often drops off. This requires a channel up/down to correct or several reboots/channel up/down.

I'm not sure wether line23 data will remain pernamently, it could be argued to let the Sky box do all the controlling (as it would by using the 16:9 flag in the DVB Stream. However, some people do like to have control over what box does what :)

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#105753 20-Jan-2008 09:17

hashbrown: My experience is that switching seems to work fine 90% of the time for 1,2 and 3 but usually doesn't work for the other channels.

Hashbrown, 1,2 and 3 will be "working" 100% of the time.. That is because there is no switching for them they are flaged as 16:9 all the time. They send the 4:3 stuff down the 16:9 feed in the right aspect ratio.

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manhinli

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#105763 20-Jan-2008 10:21

My Sky Pace decoder box acts a little strange.

When I reach a 4:3 channel, it's fine, but when I reach 16:9 channels, the Sky interface is stretched. Its basically like the Pace box is shoving only a 4:3 signal and my TV is doing the aspect switching.

Is this normal?

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Spyware

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#105770 20-Jan-2008 11:16

manhinli: normal behaviour. 16:9 and 4:3 ratio horizontal scan time is the same, i.e., to display 16:9 in correct AR it needs to be stretched by TV. Decoder display is simply overlayed on output.

hashbrown: TV1,2,3 are 16:9 all the time and they transmit 4:3 ratio pillarboxed in 16:9 frame (this is NOT widescreen signalling). Some Sky channels like National Geographic and CI also behave like this BUT Sky Movies and UKTV actually switch between 4:3 and 16:9, with the majority of Sky channels being 4:3 only. Given the Sky decoders do not pillarbox 4:3 channels (unlike some FTA decoders) then 4:3 channels will appear stretched if your TV is set to superzoom, widescreen, autoformat etc. and can't tell the difference.

Experiment: To test if widescreen signalling works on Samsung TV, switch Sky decoder to Maori TV (4:3), switch TV to 4:3, change decoder channel to a widescreen channel like TV3. Does the TV switch to widescreen automatically and override current 4:3 format.

On my Philips 32PF9531 TV autoformat is always superzoom and it appears completely clueless as to any format apart from HDMI input which is always 16:9.

richms: changing format manually is painless.

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andrewcnz

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#105772 20-Jan-2008 11:39

I have two Samsung LCD TVs and neither look at the wide screen flags sent by the sky STB’s. They don’t have an “auto” mode. One TV has a mysky connected to it. The mysky box outputs the correct aspect (TV left on 16:9). The other TV has the sky box through a pioneer DVD/HDD recorder and the pioneer reads the flag and outputs the correct aspect to the TV (TV in 16:9 mode). I believe Sony TVs can display the correct aspect by looking for the flag. Andrew

richms

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#105801 20-Jan-2008 15:04

changing format manually is painless.

No it is not painless, it is picking up another remote and pressing a small button at the lower right of it till its on the right option. It not like there are 2 easy to get to buttons that are widescreen and 4:3.

I shouldnt have to do it, I asked if it supported it and was given misinformation, not wanting to go thru the hassle of taking a tv home, unboxing it, cabling it up and finding the same thing again I am asking for confirmation of a TV that does what any widescreen tv should do.

Richard rich.ms