Picture just hooked up a digital HD cable box. On the HD channels there are two black bands across top and bottom of picture. How can I get full screen?

1. Your TV has a digital tuner built-in, you do not need a set-top box to receive local digital channels.

2. Try to disconnect the box, hook up the antenna directly to the TV antenna input & program the tuner, you may getting better picture.

This is a function of your set-top box (STB), and has nothing to do with the TV. I know several FiOS users with the same trouble, and it's annoying but there isn't anything you can do to "fix" it. What is really strange is that the screen size can change even on the same channel, depending on the particular program being broadcast. It has to do with the aspect ratio of the programming from the provider.

Well a couple of questions if I may.
1) How do you have the TV connected to the Cable box?
A) Composite cable 'usually a yellow colored RCA to another Yellow RCA connector' and then plugged into your TV's Video input. This will only give you 3x4 video aspect as its only limited to 480 lines of resolution. This would explain why you only get a 3x4 aspect.
B) Component cables, Usually three cables 'RCA connector's 'Red, Green and Blue' colored ends.
This will give you output resolutions of 720i up to 1080P which is your High Definition outputs and will fill your screen from top to bottom and side to side if your cable box can actually receive High Def. It should since all local Television stations had to go to Digital HD last June 09.
Happy Thanks Giving,
Blessings always,
A/V Media Tech Guy

I have a Vizio. If I use the HDMI input I can only get normal and zoom w/ picture buttom on the remote but get full picture on all cable supplied HD channels but not on none HD channels. However, if I switch cable input, I have the TV set up with both inputs from the converter box, I am able to have the options of normal,panoramic,wide and zoom on all non HD channels. I don;t like the black bars top and bottom of the HD channels with this imput mode so I switch back to HDMI. Maybe your TV is simmilar.

to get best picture and sound you need to use HDMI connection. This is normally if you have a HD cable box. If you don't have a HD box, use the coax connection directly from the cable line. On your TV, hit the menu button, use the arrow up/down to select manual channel search, select cable and hit enter. this will scan all the digital and analog channels.

try adjusting the aspect ratio. on widescreen movies or shows you will still get the black bands on the top and bottom. if you play with the aspect ratio you can sometimes get rid of it

i was going crazy then i finally found a clue on google: hit the setting button on your digital cable remote, go into 'display', change aspect ratio to 16:9, screen size to 'stretch', and output to 1080 or 720 depending on what you have. Were HD channels full screen? If they were they were NOT set properly as above anyway and non-hd channels were black on both side with some having black all the way around on some channels, correct? Hope it helps! I have time warner digital cable and an 52 LG 70 with HDMI...no settings on your tv will fix this if you are in a similar situation b/c its the settting in the digital cable box that need to be re-adjusted.

Greetings caesar975,

Unfortunately if you chose to view the non HD channels in wide screen format, you are going to have the top and bottom of the screen cut off. Eventually this will not be a problem when everything goes to digital. However presently non HD channels are presented in 3:2 ratio where as HD is 16:9, So your choice really is to view them with the lines on either side for now.

I do not have an answer for the white flickering lines.

To get the BEST picture out of your 1080p unit I highly recommend using HDMI cables to hook it up.

I hope some of this helps.

Sincerely,

Dorothy
Go Ahead. Use Us.

Do you know what the aspect and resolutiuon settings of the cable box are? What brand of cable box is it?

Saying that the problem is with your TV doesn't make any sense since your TV is fed from the cable box.  Your TV doesn't know one channel from the next.  If it had a problem it would effect all channels.  You may not have enough signal to the INPUT of your cable box due to a problem on the pole or at your house or both.  Insufficient signal can cause some digital channels to not get decoded properly by the cable box.  The lower channels will show noise symptoms such as what you describe but they won't crap out altogether like the digital ones.  Have a cable tech come out and measure the signals.

Do you have splitters in line with the cable anywhere?  If there's any way to beef up the amount of signal getting to the cable box try it.