DishNetwork - Widescreen 16x9 Newbie Question

[BruceRee]

I currently have an older Dish Satellite receiver, and I recently purchased a new widescreen tv. I noticed that even when I set the format to 16x9 within the Dish receiver that all of the signal still comes in 4x3. Is this the case with even the newer Dish Network receivers (meaning that all signals output from the various stations is still in 4x3 format), or do some stations "dual" broadcast in both 4x3 and 16x9 depending on what you've selected on your receiver?

[woodman]

I currently have an older Dish Satellite receiver, and I recently purchased a new widescreen tv. I noticed that even when I set the format to 16x9 within the Dish receiver that all of the signal still comes in 4x3. Is this the case with even the newer Dish Network receivers (meaning that all signals output from the various stations is still in 4x3 format), or do some stations "dual" broadcast in both 4x3 and 16x9 depending on what you've selected on your receiver?

My advice would be to contact Dish Network Technical Support and see if they can possibly rectify your "problem" for you over the phone. Something is definitely not working correctly with your receiver. What model is it? How old?

If it has a provision within its menu system to set it for 16:9 display, it should obey that command and produce the desired result. Since it doesn't, I can only conclude that something's gone "south" on you. Call Dish and see if they can't straighten you out.

Hope this helps you

[Slosh]

I have the older 508 PVR receiver in my livingroom and the 301 in my bedroom and noticed the same thing. Apparently standard definition Dish broadcasts are all 4:3, even on the channels that sometimes broadcast widescreen like HBO. I noticed some PPV movies can be ordered in letterbox format but I suspect they are 4:3 with black bars added to the signal and not true anamorphic 16:9 (I've never ordered one though).