A QUESTION ABOUT TV FORMAT

I have a Panasonic flat screen TV and most of the programmes I see, I see via satellite. My question, if anyone knows, is why is the picture cut off at the edges? At times I can't see the whole of the titles. I have the format set at 16.9 and have tried 4.3 but I still can't see the edges.

Curiously, a friend downloaded a film for me from the Internet and it comes out correctly in it's correct format, wide screen with a black band at the top and bottom of the screen. When I recorded the same film from the TV, once again I couldn't see the edges. The picture occupied the whole screen with no black band at the top and bottom.

I have tried altering the format on my DVD recorder but still no joy.

Is there a solution?

sounds like something isn't picking up the widesceen data, from the sound of your test, the DVD recorder seems like a likely candidate.

what happens if you just attach the tv directly to the satellite decoder? does that work as expected?

there's also a possibility that some programs aren't broadcast in the correct aspect ratio to begin with - but this is unlikely if it's always a problem, that would be an intermittent issue.

how is everything connected together? scart? rca? rf?

Unfortunately I can't connect the satellite receivers directly to the TV. I tried that when I first bought the flat screen and the amount of interference I gat made the picture unwatchable. So,the best result that I have is satellite receiver to DVD recorder/DVD recorder to a splitter box (SCART sockets)/ splitter box to TV. As I said, I have changed the format on the TV and the DVD recorders (plural) but still have the same problem.

Thanks for the feedback.