Smaller screen on some digital TV channels?

Question

From both the digital TV converter (the one from bestbuy) and the Toshiba DVD recorder with digital tuner, some channels, like CW or ABC, have smaller screen size for some reason (switch between smaller screen and wide screen from time to time). Mine is a traditional CRT TV.

When I use the converter, I can press the zoom button on the converter remote control to make it to fix the TV screen size. But for the recorder, I can only zoom what I recorded. This small size screen goes wherever I play the DVD, in a DVD player or computer.

Anyone knows why the screen is smaller in digital channels, and any way to make it normal?

Answer 1

What's happening is that the converter box and the DVD are "letter boxing" the video.  This means that the picture is shrunk so that the edges of the wide picture will fit on the square screen of an analog TV.  When the station plays back non HD material, it is also reduced by the same amount so it looks like a "postage stamp" with a black border all the way around it.

Unfortunately, this is what happens when a wide screen HD signal is put on a square analog screen.  Your options would be to zoom the picture in so that the "postage stamp" fits the screen.  Then the edges of the HD pictures would be lost.  This is called "center cut".  Or, you could just by a HD set and be done with it, but that's a much more expensive option.

I hope this helps.  Please return and select a Best Answer from all of those submitted.

EDIT: The two bars on the sides are from putting a square picture on a rectangular HD screen.  The top and bottom bars are from the converter letterbox shrinking the rectangular screen to fit on your analog TV square screen.  There should be a zoom setting on the converter box.  Try that.