Black rectangle on bottom half of screen

go into menu and turn closed caption off, it is probably set to text. in audio setup

It is your Closed Captioning malfunctioning. You can try and access the menu and turn the CC off but more times than not it is a malfunction that is unfixable.
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The box you're seeing is the "closed caption' box. You need to use the remote and disable CC mode on it, and the box will go away :)

Hello! I have a 32" Vizio LCD...within 30 minutes of the tv being turned on, black lines start running through the bottom half of the screen and eventually blacking out the bottom half of the tv screen. It also doesn't have anything to do with the ratio as I have tried that. HELP!

captioning on turn off with remote.

Go into your setup menu and turn off closed captioning. The box is there for some channels even though no text is being sent. If you need to keep the closed captioning, try selecting a different mode for it.

My mother-in-law had this problem on a Quasar for two years before she finally mentioned it. The rectangle is a text box for closed captioning or for a demonstation list of features, but without the text. I restored the factory presets and poof... problem solved.

Look in the manual and find how to restore the factory settings - it will probably be some weird combination of buttons that you would never guess. On her set, which has a built-in VCR, it was simultaneously pressing "play" and "FF" (on the set, not the remote) for five seconds until the set powered down. Yours will probably be something different but equally odd. That should get rid of the black rectangle. Then you go through the initial setup and you're back in business.

Salutations bachiche13,

It sounds like your "Text" feature of your closed captioning may be activated. It sounds like what you would want to do is go in to your television menu and select CC or Closed Captioning to mute or off.

Hope this helps.
Jon
Go Ahead. Use Us.

Your DirecTV signal is probably too low. That would produce the small black rectangles (pixilation). Also, try replacing the cable you are using to get the signal from the DirecTV receiver.

If the black rectangle is in the middle'please check to see that the closed caption is not activated.If not please provide the location of the rectangle.