Helpful Hints

Having Trouble? Try these helpful hints.

No Signal (Star & Entertainment Plans)

 

Snowy, Blue or Black Screen (Star & Entertainment Plans)

 

Cannot change channels using the number key pad (Star Plans)

 

Time does not display on the set-top box (Star Plans)

 

Remote will not run the set-top box (Star & Entertainment Plans)

 

Red light on the set-top box or will show an envelope (Star Plans)

 

Standard Definition Television vs. High-Definition Television

 

HDMI vs. Component Cable

 

Why do I have black bars on my HDTV screen?

 

Windowboxing

 

Letterboxing

 

How do I get rid of the bars?

 

Wide, Zoom and Cinema modes.

 

 

No Signal (Star & Entertainment Plans)

  • Verify the VCR/DVD players are off.
  • Verify TV is on channel 3.
  • Verify set-top box is powered on.

 
Snowy, Blue or Black Screen (Star & Entertainment Plans)

  • Is there power to your TV?
  • Check to be sure the set-top box is powered on.
  • Verify TV is on channel 3 or correct input.
  • Check the cable connections - should be tight.
  • Check to see if other TV’s are out.
  • Unplug the set-top box for 5 minutes. Plug the set-top box back in and turn the power back on.

 
Cannot change channels using the number key pad (Star Plans)

  • Hit the Menu button twice.
  • Scroll down the second page and select Setup
  • Click OK
  • Highlight Guide Setup
  • Click OK
  • Highlight No Auto Tune (3rd option down on the right)
  • Click the left arrow - it will change to Auto tune
  • Click OK

 
Time does not display on the set-top box (Star Plans)

  • Hit the Menu button twice.
  • Scroll down the second page and select Setup
  • Click OK
  • Highlight set-top box Set-up
  • Click OK
  • Highlight current channel
  • Click the left arrow - it will change to current time
  • Click OK

 
Remote will not run the set-top box (Star & Entertainment Plans)

  • Press the CBL mode button
  • Replace the batteries with two new AA batteries.
  • Contact ACS Repair at 866-937-4227 to help you program your remote.

 
Red light on the set-top box or will show an envelope (Star Plans)

  • Hit Menu twice
  • Highlight Messages (2nd column)
  • Click OK
  • Click OK on the message
  • To delete - highlight the red X at the bottom on the screen
  • Click OK

 

Standard Definition Television (SDTV) vs. High Definition Television (HDTV)

High Definition will provide a clearer picture than Standard Definition. HDTV also has the benefit of a wide screen feature. Wide screen will allow you to have a full view of the scenes on the television program that you are watching without cutting out any background features or side views.

    • Aspect ratio - Standard television has a 4:3 aspect ratio -- it is four units wide by three units high. HDTV has a 16:9 aspect ratio, more like a movie screen.
    • Resolution - The lowest standard resolution (SDTV) will be about the same as analog TV and will go up to 704 x 480 pixels. The highest HDTV resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels. HDTV can display about ten times as many pixels as an analog TV set.
    • Frame rate - A set's frame rate describes how many times it creates a complete picture on the screen every second. DTV frame rates usually end in "i" or "p" to denote whether they are interlaced or progressive. DTV frame rates range from 24p (24 frames per second, progressive) to 60p (60 frames per second, progressive).

High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) vs. Component Cable

Component Basics

Type of Signal: Analog Connection

Number of Cables: Five

Three for separate color channels and two for left and right audio channels.

Resolution: Capable of displaying video content up to 1080i, which is 1920-by-1080 pixels on your screen. Supports 720p resolutions and 1080i

 

HDMI Basics

Type of Signal: Digital
Displays signals on a flat-panel TV with less conversion, which, in theory, creates a slightly better signal.

Number of Cables: 1
Has both digital video and surround sound audio in only 1 cable

Resolution: Supports 1080p resolutions which is something component cannot do. So if you’re planning on viewing 1080p content, HDMI will be the best option for you. For 720p and 1080i resolutions, you should try both and see which looks the best to you.

So, which is better, HDMI or component?
The answer… it depends. It depends upon your source and display devices, and there's no good way to say in advance whether the digital or the analog connection will provide a better picture. You may even find that your DVD player looks better through its HDMI output, while your satellite or cable box looks better through its component output, on the same display. In this case, there's no real substitute for simply plugging it in and giving it a try both ways.

 

Why do I have black bars on my HDTV screen?

The original television tubes were round and it would have been very difficult to be able to show a wide screen format on them. Square would have been the best as far as the tube goes, but there have been studies that when we humans watch a square for any length of time we get very tired, so the 4:3 format was adopted by the movies prior to the 1950s and the TV manufacturers decided to use the same aspect ratio. So now along comes HDTV and in addition to greatly improving the picture, they decided to make it 16:9 widescreen as well to emulate the movie experience. Obviously, if you take a 4:3 SD picture and try to show it on a 16:9 widescreen, it will not fit. Enter pillar boxes, or vertical bars on the left and right of the screen.
 

Some broadcasters, like ESPN and our local FOX station, have added video generators to put their logo in place of the black bars.

 

Windowboxing (Vertical bars on the left and right of the screen)

The picture below shows what happens when a 4:3 image is enlarged and put on a HD screen. This is how most broadcast stations handle their standard definition (SD) programming being broadcast on their high definition (HD) channel.

        

 

 

 

 

16:9 ratio with a resolution of 1280x720

Now there are a couple of things to notice. Although you may not see much of a difference on a smaller TV as you view the picture at a larger size you would find there is quite a bit more detail in the HD picture. Also there are black pillar boxes on the left and right of the 4:3 picture to fill out the width of the 16:9 frame. This is necessary to prevent distortion of the original 4:3 picture.

 

Letterboxing (Horizontal bars on the top and bottom of the screen)

Many shows and commercials are being shot in 16:9 widescreen for broadcast in high definition. More and more these 16:9 shows and commercials are being shown in letterbox on the analog SD channel to preserve the image the director wanted in the original widescreen filming. Saturday Night Live is one such show in that this season the SD broadcast is letterboxed. Here is an example of what this will look like on a 4:3 SDTV. The term "letterbox" was coined because the wide frame resembles a letter envelope.

When one of these widescreen shows or commercials (mostly commercials) is shown letterboxed and then merged into the widescreen frame of the HD channel, you end up with black bars all around the picture.

 

 

How Do I Get Rid Of The Bars?

Some people may prefer to not see the bars on their TV. To accommodate this need the TV manufacturers have incorporated various modes to manipulate the picture to fill the screen. The electronics to manipulate the video was developed before the HDTV even existed for the early SD widescreen TVs that were for viewing widescreen DVDs, so they will only manipulate SD video. Only a very few HDTVs have any ability to manipulate HD video.

Your TV will have different aspect ratio settings you can choose from.

 

Wide  Mode

The following picture is what will be shown on a HDTV that is set to full screen displaying a 4:3 picture without the pillar boxes. This mode is best suited for widescreen video that was recorded on a VCR from a 16:9 source or viewing an older DVD player through s-video or composite inputs.
 

Notice the result is to cause the objects in the picture to look bigger. There are other stretch modes that will cause less distortion of the picture, but will cause some of the top and the bottom of the picture to be lost. Many HDTV sets have a couple of zoom modes where the top and bottom of the picture is cropped. Zoom modes will stretch the picture equally for the width and height or some zoom modes will stretch the width more than the height, still making fat objects, just not quite as fat. Still another popular stretch mode is to leave the center portion of the picture unstretched and begin to stretch more and more outward toward the edges. Since the focus of many programs is in the center of the screen, this mode will work very well for many programs.

 

Zoom Mode

Here is an example of a zoomed picture where both the width and the height are stretched equally.

Notice how the top and the bottom are cropped due to the equal stretching. Sometimes this will work, but on news channels the crawl shown at the bottom of the picture is usually gone as is the score line at the top of many sports programs when operated in this mode. Some of the other stretch mode may work better.

 

Cinema Mode (favored mode for stores that are showing standard definition)

In this mode the picture is stretched vertically a small amount and the horizontal stretch is more near the edges than it is in the center of the screen. Tuning into the news channels where they have the crawl at the bottom of the screen will demonstrate this effect very well as the letters of a word will start bigger on the right of the screen, gradually shrink to normal size in the middle of the screen and then get bigger again as they disappear off the left of the screen. Different manufacturers have different names for this mode, but most all brands have some version of this mode as it is the favored mode for the stores to show SD material, because until you watch for a while it is hard to detect the stretch unless there is a crawl on the screen.