Recieving hy defintion picture

2 things have to happen. first, your tv has to be set for the correct resolution, second, You need to be recieving high def from your cable/sat provider.Your tv does not make programming high def, it allows high def.

I have my Wii running thru my receiver with no problems, dont see why it wouldnt work for yours

This actually common I worked in electronics for 13 years. Did they tell you that it has to be hooked up to an High Definition source. A digital cable or Sattelite reciever does not mean its HD also using Coaxle cableor composite(yellow,red,white) will not produce a good picture. You need HDMI or Component(RED,Blue,Green for video and red white for audio) to get a high def pic. Also not all station are broadcast in high def. One other thing is even if you have a High Def reciever you need to go into the menu of the reciever where it says display and and make sure its set for 1080i or maybe 1080p(most dont have this option yet) If you are using a normal DVD player and use the yellow red and white once again picture will be poor. Need to use Component or hdmi and again with component you need to set DVD to either 480p and if its upconvert to 1080p

Try selecting any option for decoding priority from "auto" to "pcm."

Your TiVo is only recording basic cable (i.e., channels it can receive without a cable box). You will need a digital cable box from your cable company to record channels above 99. If your TiVo is a Series 2 you will not be able to actually record in HD either. You should be able to record the HD channels from the cable box, but they will not be HD quality. (This is my current setup and while the picture quality is much better than basic cable, it pales compared to bypassing the TiVo and watching HD directly off the cable box to the TV.)

The HD reciever shouldn't be the problem.

If you recieve an image with a 4:3 aspect ratio, the image will be displayed at that ratio on your HDTV unless you specify otherwise. To do so go to your TV's Setup screen

setup
Choose picture formats
select smooth wide as your default

***Some digital (ATSC format) stations may transmit 4:3 images in a way that will not allow expansion. You will be unable to adjust the picture format.

Hope this helps!!!

J

Is the picture getting smaller - then expands?

you cant make it high Def. The converter only allows and analog tv to recieve digital signals, But it wont make it a HDTV

if I understand your question properly.. its because your direct tv output doesnt broadcast in high def so its giving you the standard tv definition inputs which are RGB or Component.so you will lose picture quality cos its running at fewer lines or pixels. hope this helps

I could not get my TV to recognize an S-video signal from my reciever either. I ended up just bypassing the reciever and running the video straight from the cable box to the TV. It might be a better option anyways as some quality is lost if you run it through the reciever.