Just bought a Sony digital/analogue recorder so I can record both Freeview and analogue ROI stations. While Freeview channels appear in widescreen filling the screen, analogue channels appear cropped. Have checked the picture settings in set up and it is definitely set to widescreen mode. Only way I can change things is keep changing settings using TV remote but this is a bit of a hassle every time I want to playback analogue recordings. Anyone any ideas how I can get analogue pictures to be widescreen using recorder functions?

As far as I am aware; standard analogue channels can't carry the necessary switching signal that your TV needs to make it switch to widescreen.

Unless someone knows different, I think this may be the reason for your 'problem'.

Thanks for that - did notice that Channel 4 was in widescreen on analogue last night. There isn't a problem with 1-5 as I can record the digital version but problem comes with ROI stations which are only viewable on analogue on this recorder although sound comes through on digital due to ROI using different MPEG than UK for DTT.

I believe Channel 4 some widescreen programmes are broadcast in PalPlus. This has a special signal that enables a suitably equipped TV to switch to widescreen. I found this on Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PALplus

They don't need to. With the exception of PAL Plus there are no widescreen analogue programmes broadcast.

Everything is 4:3. Any "widescreen" content is actually a 14:9 picture embedded in a standard 4:3 frame. Hence the narrow black bars top and bottom. A Widescreen TV can zoom into this area and expand it out to fill most of the screen. Though as it is 14:9 rather than 16:9 there will be bars at the sides.

On digital services however the broadcasters can use anamorphic widescreen This uses some special compression to squeeze a 16:9 picture into the 4:3 frame broadcast. A 16:9 telly then reverses the process to display it full screen.

A Freeview STB connected to a 4:3 TV however stretches the picture then either puts it into a 4:3 frame with black bars top and bottom, stretches it out then crops it to 14:9 and puts it a 4:3 frame with thiner black bars top and bottom or stretches it out and crops to 4:3. The latter two losing some picture detail at the edges.

And PAL Plus required a PAL Plus compatible receiver to make use of the hidden data. Most sets are not PAL Plus so just display the 14:9 picture embedded in a 4:3 frame.

Have just bought HDMI cable to link recorder to TV and now use HDMI output so have changed screen picture to full getting rid of black bars on analogue channels.

Just bought another Sony analogue/digital recorder for another TV which unfortunately is not HD ready and has no HDMI output so I'm returning to original problem of no widescreen on analogue channels. Anyone offer any further help?

As I posted many moons ago. There is NO widescreen on analogue. Analogue is 4:3 and nothing else. It is not the same as Digital where there is true widescreen and where the necessary switching signals are present to switch the TV to the appropriate display mode.

So if you want to watch an analogue broadcast in "widescreen" you have to use whatever zoom controls are provided on the remote to expand the image yourself. There is nothing to tell the TV to do this itself as there is with digital.

Many thanks for that.

Just another question re Sony analogue/digital recorder - can't find any way of manually tuning a digital multiplex on mine - it is an HXD890. Anyone any ideas how to do this?

It's definitely possible, you can only tell it to tune an entire multiplex though, not individual channels (the old GXD500 would show a list of channels so you could pick them individually)

As to how... IIRC you have to go to "signal strength" and then pick "add channels", which is slightly non-obvious.

Not entirely true. C4 analogue broadcast some films in their correct aspect ratio. When so broadcast my Sony TV switches to 'Zoom' mode during the film and back to 'Smart' during ad breaks. There's no way to tell in advance however whether C4 will broadcast the films in this manner.


Clem