Please help me...again

[gryphin]

Ok, here is what happened. My Dad and I watched a Dvd for the first time after getting our new flat screen and our directtv+dvr. We had a little touble connecting the dvd player to the tv but then i tried doing it like i do my playstation and it worked. The picture was dark so I went into the picture menu and made it brighter.

Ok, so we watch, turn off the dvd, and I start to watch normal sat tv. I quickly notice that the screen is displaying too big. Like on Comedy Central, the little CC icon has only the top half visible. I have played with the tv picture and screen settings. I have read the owners manuals. I have reset the picture settings. I have reset the TV itself. I have reset the DirectTv dvr receiver. I cannot fix this problem. I don't know what created it. We must have hit something somewhere at some point to do this.

OH, and this is probably important. When I use Direct TV menus and stuff, they fit right like they should. Its only the signal or whatever that is coming into the TV that is streched verticaly.

It's a Sony Bravia XBR4 series.

Please, please help me if you can. Thanks.

-Nate

[gryphin]

i know this sounds like an easy problem to fix, but I have messed with the tv and sat. settings involving the screen or ratio or anything like that WITH the owners manuals. And I have reset both. Still isn't fixed.

And in my last one I stated it made things to big, like only being able to see the top half of the channel icon, but it is more than that; It can be to big, it can be using the whole screen on non-Hd channels but only part of the screen on Hd channels, it can use the screen right on Hd-c's but looked mashed up against the screen on non, and other stuff, fuzzyish, an flashing pinstripe at the top(and I know some of these are in manuals but the manual's solution isn't working. So yeah, I'm not adjusting the right settings or something, please let me know if there is somewhere i am missing.

[gryphin]

and now it my dvr won't play Hd shows I have recorded.

[Mike P.]

We're going to need some specific information to try and help so first things first. Which TV do you have? The KDL-52XBR4, KDL46XBR4 or KDL-40XBR4?
What Direct TV DVR are you using? (model number.)
How is it connected to the tv? Component, s-video, digital etc, etc?

You said "We had a little touble connecting the dvd player to the tv but then i tried doing it like i do my playstation and it worked." What does that mean? What trouble could you have had hooking up a dvd player to the TV? How did you hook it up? What kind of cable did you use? Which input on the TV did you use?

[gryphin]

Ok, thanks for responding.
Ok, try to keep in mind that I am going from never having cable/sat and always having a tube tv to satellite and an LCD. While I like to think of myself as somewhat techy I have very little experience with this.

OK, so specifics first:
TV, KDL-40XBR4
DTVDVR Model # HR21-700
Connected to TV digitaly I believe, HDMI is the input.

Ok, so now about how could I have trouble with the dvd connection problems...
With an old tube tv the connection is just that one black wire that screws in. I wasn't around when this Tv was setup either...another thing that makes this much more difficult. I was at work, and a guy I know who installs TV's and my brother did it. My brother is now in another state. Just a note after the installation in worked perfectly. No problems. Perfect picture. No freezing of DVR.

Anyway, when I looked at the DVD player it had a a cord connected to it but to nothing else. It is one of those standard cords with three plugs of different color, this case blue, green, red. So I connected that to the corresponding input ports on the tv. But when I turned on the dvd it was black and white and had no sound. So i got out the guide that shows basic connections to the Tv, and as I understood it I was missing another two-pronged cord, red and white i think.
I looked again at the dvd player an whoever plugged the cord in plugged it into(on the dvd player) to the yellow, white, red ports. So I decided to just try using the blue green red cable plugged into the yellow, white, red, ports and plug it into the tv's yellow, white, red ports on the side. (I do realize this was probably very stupid, I didn't realize how stupid until I just wrote it however.) But my dad was there and I was just trying to get it to work. And it did. From dvd player Y,W,R, port, to TV Y,W,R port with a B,G,R cable. I plugged it into the tv in the same place i had been plugging my ps2. The user-friendly ones on the side. Anyway, stupid or whatever, it worked and after the DVD was over, and I went back to regular sat. tv these problems started.

Also, I don't know if there is anyway for you to know this, but what input setting should the tv be on? With the DTV control you can press input and it cycles through like, 480 strech, 720 pillar box etc...?

I'm sorry, I know I'm ignant on this subject. Thanks for helping me if you decide to/can.

-Nate

[Sonnie]

One thing to remember is always match up the colors from the DTV receiver to your TV. Red to red, white to white, blue to blue, etc. That's why they are colored... for easy matching.

Most likely you only need one cable from your DTV receiver to your TV... the HDMI cable.



This should carry the audio and video all in one cable... disconnect all the others and make sure the TV input is set to the HDMI input.

I'm not that familiar with the HR21-700 receiver, but I'm thinking you should set it to 720 pillar box... which means when an HD program is showing it will fill up your widescreen TV, but when a regular non-HD channel it will have bars on each side.

There may be some settings in your TV menu and/or your DTV receiver menu that effect the size of the image displayed. Most likely you will set those to 16 x 9 or Auto.

[gryphin]

Sonnie wrote:

One thing to remember is always match up the colors from the DTV receiver to your TV. Red to red, white to white, blue to blue, etc. That's why they are colored... for easy matching.

Ok, yeah that part of the pretty basic concept I understand. However, as I already did use a B,G,R, cable from Y,W,R, on dvd to Y,W,R, on tv and used the video 2 input to watch the dvd and it worked should I not do that again? Do the cables hold properties with their colors? I mean I know it makes it easier and avoids trouble to use them color 2 color but as long as I didn't cross them, like one end in yellow and the other in white, isn't the B,G,R, one acting as and the same function of a Y,W,R one? I mean they are just wires right? I'm not asking that rhetorically, if I am wrong please, do tell.

[Mike P.]

The different color inputs and outputs on video equipment represent different video quality. The Red, Green, Blue (Component Video) will have a much better picture quality then Yellow(Composite Video) with the Red and White (Audio). These are "analog" connections. There are also "digital" connections for video and audio. There is HDMI and DVI for video and Optical and Coaxial for audio, to name a few. Here's a link showing the different connections.

http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/1105hook/

Let's start from scratch. Disconnect everthing from the TV, including the DVD player. On the back of the TV is a HDMI input. The HR21-700 DVR has a HDMI output. Connect the two units together with a HDMI cable like the one posted by Sonnie above. Once you get everthing working fine with the HR21-700 DVR and the TV we'll move on to the DVD player. On that note, what is the make and model of the DVD player, as some have both digital and analog connections. Knowing what you have will make it easier to recommend the setup.

[solarscreen]

Your tv has two sets of the r-g-b video connections. Connect one set of rgb cables from the dvd player to the tv (video 1 or 2) and another set of rgb cables to the tv (video 1 or 2). You will also need to connect a set of red and white cables to the audio out on the dvd player and the dvr to the red and white connections under the rgb connections on the tv. This will give you your audio. As was mentioned before, an HDMI cable will send your video and audio over in the same cable. Component cables ONLY handle the video part.