When not hunting for HDTV and 4K Ultra TV news, HD Guru is often busy addressing emails from our beloved readers, many of whom have issues, concerns and questions with their old, new or pending TV purchases.
Understanding our answers to some of these questions could be of service to others facing the same or similar dilemmas, we’ve decided to collect and publish some of them along with our answers for all to see.
Many times our answers are on the money, but other times there are additional solutions and answers to some issues, so we welcome all with any insights to submit their ideas in the comments section below.
Additionally, if you are facing any questions you would like help with, please leave them in a comment or send it to HD Guru link at the bottom of this story and we’ll see what we can do to get a response.
Unless specifically requested, we will keep all readers’ names anonymous.
Read some of our reader’s questions after the jump:
HD Guru’s email:
The Case of the Faulty HDMI Cable
“O great Guru,
Running HDMI cable from computer to receiver. I only need 8 feet of cable but bought a 15 foot cable, so there were several feet left over, and cable not in straight line. I’m not getting a picture. Could this be because some of cable is twisted up in pile? Any thoughts appreciated.”
Cablehopper
HD GURU’s Reply:
Cablehopper,
This issue could be happening for a number of reasons. I’ll try to trouble shoot some of the most common ones:
1) Try connecting the PC directly to the TV’s HDMI input without going through the receiver. If you have an older model receiver, you might not have the proper content protection system (HDCP 2.2) for near 4K Ultra HD signals, and this would block the picture while still letting sound through.
2) Did you get a bad cable? I find HDMI cables often vary in build quality and quality control and fail either on delivery or sometimes shortly thereafter. In my experience, longer ones seem to have the most problems. Test the cable by plugging it into another device (a PlayStation, Blu-ray player, cable box etc.) and see if it will work. If you still don’t get a picture, then the chances are you got a bad cable. See if you can have it replaced or buy another one. If you get a picture, there may be a handshake issue between your laptop and the AV receiver. (This happens more often than it should).
3) It’s never a good idea to let the cable get twisted. This can cause the connector to misalign or the internal cable to break. When getting HDMI cables, I always try to get the type with plastic insulation and not braiding. I’ve had more trouble with braided cables.
4) Make sure your connections to the receiver are properly lining up with the source input switch. If you are getting sound and no picture, try unplugging and replugging the HDMI cable a few times and wait a few seconds each time. Some receivers and TVs take a little while to make the HDMI handshake.
5) Try connecting the PC to a different HDMI input on the receiver. That contact might be faulty on the receiver’s HDMI board.
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Conclusion:
“u were right! How can this be? It was a bad cable!”
Cablehopper
Frustrated By Black Bars at the Top and Bottom of Movie Frames
HD Guru…I have a Panasonic 2015 55-inch TV and my local stations are 16:9, but when I stream a movie, the aspect ratio is set to “full” and I’d like to try the “just and zoom” to see if I can get the black bars top and bottom removed so the picture fills the screen. Sometimes a movie is full screen but mostly it is in what they call “letterbox” mode. No matter how I change the aspect ratio setting, when the movie starts the aspect ratio is “full.” I know that “full” is supposed to fill the screen but it doesn’t. Am I stuck with this issue?
Framed
HD GURU’s Reply
Framed,
This is a very old dilemma we’ve had since the first widescreen TV sets arrived almost two decades ago. The reason you are seeing black bars at the top and bottom of the screen when watching primarily movies is that directors select the aspect ratio of the film they prefer to use, artistically, to tell the story; and Hollywood honors that artistic intent on Blu-ray Discs by preserving the image in a way that can be viewed in its entirety, with the 1.85:1 aspect ratio often being used for comedies and character driven films and 2.39:1 most often used for big, dramatic blockbusters (think Cinemascope). Ultimately, it was deemed by Hollywood Studios (the copyright holders) that you should be viewing the image as it was artistically intended to be seen on the movie screen in the theater, which accepts very different aspect ratios than the 16:9 frame on your fixed flat-panel TV. Hence, your dilemma at home. If you are seeing the movie over cable or broadcast the broadcaster often uses anamorphic squeezing to have the movie fill the TV screen with minimal distortion. If not, you should be able to adjust the aspect ratio with the zoom/stretch controls under the aspect ratio section of the settings menu on the TV. And some TV models will extend this capability to signals from Blu-ray players.
In part, because of this artistic-intent directive, many Blu-ray players lack the ability to stretch the image in their settings controls. However, if you go into the settings on many TVs, there should be a selection for aspect ratio (or Picture Size), then look for a setting for “custom”. After that you should find additional controls to help stretch the image digitally. You can select the setting that stretches the image up and down to fill the frame. Just keep in mind that doing this will add distortion and crop out portions from the left and right sides of the frame. So there will be significant trade-off considerations.
Most people just get used to the bars and enjoy the image as the director wanted you to see it and with all of the best picture quality you paid for, albeit on a smaller screen than the professional theaters.
When you get into digital projectors there are additional things you can do (like add an expensive anamorphic lens) to fill the frame and preserve the picture quality. But that’s a different story and a much different market segment.
So your problem can be blamed on Hollywood, or the TV manufacturing industry that originally decided on a compromised 16:9 aspect ratio for widescreen displays instead of the 2.39:1 aspect ratio that most of the studios prefer.
By Greg Tarr
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Hello.
I have a question regarding HDR.
Is HDR 10 and Dolby Vision a software (firmware)
implementation? Or is it hardware in the television? Some 4k televisions only due HR 10 or Dolby Vision. Not both(exclude LG OLED).
Vizio says it will update to allow HR 10. Will other manufacturers be able to add Dolby Vision to theres.
Thanks
Hi Luke,
Excellent question. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t as simple as it should be. It all boils down to how the TV manufacturer designed the TV or Ultra HD Blu-ray player in question. Dolby Vision was actually designed to work with a wide range of new and legacy HDMI inputs, which is how it has been able to work with some Vizio 4K Ultra HDTVs, even though many of those models lack the HDMI 2.0a/HDCP 2.2 inputs required to carry the metadata for HDR-10.
HDR-10 metadata cannot be delivered to a 4K Ultra HDTV capable of displaying HDR from an external source — like an Ultra HD Blu-ray player or cable or satellite box — without connecting to the TV over HDMI 2.0a with HDCP 2.2 copy protection.
Apparently, Vizio has told some news outlets that a firmware update for HDR-10 (and HDMI 2.0a) will be available by the end of the summer. However, the company has not released a formal statement affirming that, so, we have no real way of ensuring that firmware update promise is real or will ever be delivered. Hopefully, it will, but it hasn’t yet and the end of summer is getting awfully close to the end of the model run.
Some hardware is required in the TV to support HDMI 2.0a, which is why some of LG’s 2015 OLED models were not able to be upgraded for HDR-10 last year, while other later-arriving model series were.
So, if Dolby Vision can be used with legacy inputs why don’t we see more Dolby Vision TVs and a Dolby Vision Ultra HD Blu-ray players?, you might ask. Because Dolby Vision is licensed to TV manufacturers and content producers for a fee, which some companies are reluctant to pay. Not all companies agree that the benefits of Dolby Vision compared to HDR-10 are worth the additional cost, which ultimately gets passed on to you. On the other hand, HDR-10 is an open format, and was selected as the mandatory HDR format by the Blu-ray Disc Association and the Ultra HD Alliance. Dolby Vision can also be used in players and TVs, but its support is voluntary, where HDR-10 must be carried in order for a device to be called an Ultra HD Blu-ray player or an Ultra HD Premium (UHD Alliance certified) TV set. Meanwhile, the industry lacks a chipset needed to decode Dolby Vision in an Ultra HD Blu-ray player. Mediatek has one in development for later this year, but nothing yet. To get Dolby Vision content it must be streamed, delivered over the air or over a USB storage device, like a Network Attached Storage device or thumb drive.
So in a nutshell, some TVs can be updated to support HDR-10 via firmware if the manufacturer made provisions for it, some can’t. Some TVs can be made to support Dolby Vision, but the bigger issues preventing it are political and monetary, rather than technological. That means, if the TV doesn’t support Dolby Vision out of the box, there’s a good chance it never will (at least, so far). — GT