A black screen like box appears over the tv screen blocking part of the picture. What do I do ?? Also, how do I convert any instructions or words on the screen to the english language ??

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you need better ant to gather more signal

Any chance of a model number to enable accurate description?

PIP is on (Picture in Picture) either from your cable box or the TV. Check your remotes for "PIP". If you still have an issue, post a comment and I can help you more

Look in your manual and there is a section on blocking channels

This is probably TEXT1 or TEXT2 data, which is an extension of Closed Captioning. Try cycling through the CC settings using your remote to turn it off.
Kevin

If it's the box,just press the CCD button on the controller until you see CCD off .(Try this one first since it just started with the box)

If it's the TV,just go into the setup options and turn off the closed caption feature.

Note that the large black box goes away when pushing buttons on the tv (ex: the black box will disappear to show the volume setting when changing the volume on the tv but it will cover the picture and the menu display of the dtv box).

This is caused by the closed caption setting of the television set NOT the captioning of the converter box. To fix this you must open your television's menu, find the ccd/closed caption option, and turn it off. This is a frustrating problem as when most people are told to shut off the captioning they try to do so at the box.

Normal dtv box captioning will appear as a small text box at the bottom of the screen as you would expect - not as a giant black rectangle that covers most of the screen. If you do want to shut this off too you will find that you can't do it through the usual menu options (the menu will only allow changes to font, color etc.) - there should be a ccd button on the remote that when pushed will scroll through ccd-1, ccd-2,... off.

Turn off the text box function of the closed caption decoder on the tv.

I have a black box that blocks my picture, Sharp flat screen

Turn the text in the closed caption mode off.