From: Calvin in AkronQ: I just subscribed to high definition cable and the HD channels look great. But I notice a very thin line of static at the top of the screen on the SD (standard definition) channels, what is that?
A: That "static" has been there for a long time. It's a data stream of information your TV reads for closed captioning and time codes transmitting by a broadcast TV station.
In the analog TV days, this information was usually hidden by your TV set which didn't quite display every line, so you likely never noticed it.
When SD programs are viewed on a HD set, you see the entire SD picture - and the line with the information.
Check in your new HDTV's control setup for an overscan feature (sometimes called "zoom"). You can use this to crop your picture a bit and eliminate this "static" if it bothers you. Keep in mind, if you start watching a lot of HD programming afterwards, you may want to switch this back. Otherwise, you might lose some of your HD picture.
You can email your questions to me: fmacek@wkyc.com
