Riddled TV Repair Forum

M3Shark · Joined: 05 Oct 2008 Posts: 1 Location: San Diego, CA

I own a Sony KV-36XBR400 that seems to have a problem switching between resolutions and PIP. For Instance, when you try to switch from 480i to 1080i the screen shrinks and distorts. i really don't know how to explain what the screen looks like in any more detail so i am going to attach a picture. Anyway it also does the exact same thing when you hit PIP. However, it has no problems going from 480i to 480p. Anyway, i was hoping to find out what might be wrong with it and if/how i could repair it.

It has been doing this for some time now, but we never really cared since we never use PIP. and just used 480P for"HiDef" cable. However, we just picked up a PS3 so we sould now like to try to get this problem fixed so that we can use higher res again.

Thank you.

here is a picture of what the TV looks like after it malfunctions:

Google

Jesse Mack · Joined: 22 May 2008 Posts: 600 Location: The Last Frontier

Is the HD cable box hooked up to the tuner input (not the HD input for this set). If you view the image from the tuner on channel three, you will receive a good picture, but not HD. When you switch to the correct input for a HD signal, video 5, the image may have a black border all the way around. The problem is this with Video 5. If the HD cable box continually outputs a 1080i format signal to video 5, and the TV properly responds to this signal by reducing the vertical width to a 16:9 format, thus causing the letterbox effect with black borders on the top and the bottom. If the cable company is taking this one step further when they convert a 4:3 standard analog signal to 1080i, (1080i only runs in a 16:9 format), the 4:3 standard image cannot fully fill the 16:9 1080i format, so the left and right sides are left blank.
Solution:
Please be aware of the two different formats of video. If the signal is a standard definition 4:3 image, you can view this through the tuner on channel 3. With a true HD program, switch to video 5 (the HD input). A black border will occur on the top and the bottom with true HD video fed to Video 5, but with a true HD program, it will fill the screen fully left and right.

Clear as Mud (SMILE)

Hope this helps

Jesse