A few months ago something happened which caused certain channels on Sky to stretch on my TV. It just happened overnight. Trouble is, I've no idea whether it's the Sky+ box that's doing it, or the TV. See pictures in "normal" mode at http://www.simsig.co.uk/Geoff/GoodTV.jpg and pictures in "stretched" mode at http://www.simsig.co.uk/Geoff/BadTV.jpg. When stretched, the top/right/bottom/left are chopped off. When "normal" it fits onto the screen correctly. For a short period before this it was just stretching horizontally, with a barrel kind of effect - normal size in the middle but the sides would be stretched, something like 0---1--2-3456-7--8---9 so banner text would be normal width in the middle but progressing towards double width letters (and chopped) on the sides.

Note that only certain channels do this. 101 (BBC1) works fine; 520 (Discovery) stretches. I think UKTV channels stretch; 301 just now was showing normally. I can't find any combination of picture settings in the Sky+ box and the TV picture settings that fix it. Tried the usual suspects like 4:3, 16:9, PAL, NTSC, RGB, etc. When changing channels, very briefly the picture comes up the same size as the channel before it, then it immediately stretches/shrinks. All SFX on the TV are off, and currently set to RGB - I've got a 3m scart cable to connect the two.

TV is a Toshiba Regza 37". Cunningly the actual model number is hidden behind the wall bracket, about 14 months old.

Sky+ is an SD Amstrad A2P0524, O/S version 1.31B03, 80Gb, about 19 months old.

Any idea whether it's the TV or the Sky+ box?

Cheers

Geoff M.

Check your TV settings, it sounds like it's set NOT to automatically switch aspect ratios, in which case the TV will stretch them instead.

Nope, TV settings to stretch are all off.

From the pictures and what you describe it sounds like the TV zoom option which trys to maintain image ratio in the center of the screen and lets the image stretch the further to the left/right it gets.

Take another set of pictures with the TV showing the input signal it is getting and another other onscreen info, that pretty much tells you what it is doing and from there you can try known anamorphic widescreen sources, 4:3 or 14:9 etc.