If I set my sat box for widescreen output, then I cant use it on my old tvs, if I set it to letterbox or pan and scan, its unusable on the new TV's, since I cant get any HD output when like that.

Is there a box (preferably with HD component in) that will allow selectable letterboxing or pan and scan of the content onto a normal composite output.

I have seen converters like 130394510072 on ebay, but the answer to that other guys question gives me little faith that they really know what they are talking about, and I have a feeling that all it will do is make a widescreen pal/ntsc output, so really no better than taking the composite out from the satillite box in anycase.

Would be great if the box could detect when its on one of the few remaining 4:3 channels and not change the aspect at all, but I am hoping that sky tv NZ will get their crap together and start pillar-boxing those channels since watching things in fatto-vision is quite annoying.

This might fit the bill.

http://www.for-a.com/products/ufh70dcmd/ufh70dcmd.html

Unfortunatly that looks to be SDI input only, and I only have component or HDMI out that does the HD, or the SD downconvert of the sat box which is component or composite only (I think there may be svideo on the scart available, but I have never checked, it was on the old non HD boxes)

Also it looks to be a piece of pro gear, so I have the feeling that it will be way more than getting a second sky box subscription would cost

This HD down-scaler seems like what you need:
http://www.converters.tv/products/hdtv_to_pal/659.html

The manual states it can convert NTSC HD Component to SD Composite/S-Video, and also has Overscan/Underscan selection, but doesn't specify what type (zoom or cropped).

Yeah, that box also is available on ebay.

The change of the overscan is a nice to have now that the idea of title safe area has gone away, and the full frame gets used. Some of my TVs have massive overscan issues which I am yet to resolve, but really that isnt telling me that they will take a 16:9 input and output something that will work on a old 4:3 display. If someone has one of those and that is what they mean by overscan then great, but I have a feeling that it will only give a 16:9 output when given a 16:9 input. Have come across a couple of promising sounding items but at $500 or so, its not going to happen, even at $100 its pushing it for viability. I may as well just wind the v height down and leave the box on 16:9 out and put up with short fat person syndrome on the few remaining 4:3 channels and DVDs since my player for some reason ignores me when I set it to widescreen tv and play a dvd with 4:3 content on it.

Richms-

I have never seen a satellite or over-the-air tuner box (nor any HD disc player) that can simultaneously output HD content in its normal 16:9 aspect ratio and also a standard-def version that has been zoomed/cropped into a 4:3 version. Even boxes that can give you screen-filling HD 16:9 and simultaneous letterboxed SD 4:3 are not common, but some do exist (at least for services available in the USA).

I agree with you that the box you linked to on Ebay would also not do any type of internal zooming/cropping. The over/underscan settings are likely only a general, relatively minor change in the overall picture size.

You will most likely just need to use two different boxes, one for your HD display and another (whether OTA or satellite) for your SD displays.

Yeah, I am thinking that I may be able to use a VGA to composite converter since they have height and width adjustments, and feed that from a transcoder from the component output. Both are rather cheap items when compared to some of the other options available and I would probably find a use for them anyway.

I am just annoyed that none of my DVD players will correctly present 4:3 content on the widescreen tv leaving me to have to mess with the aspect setting on the TV, which I cant do when it is getting 1080p because it has been upconverted by the DVD player or reciever.

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Yeah, the player will deliver a full frame 4:3 image when given an 4:3 dvd, what it should do when playing that with the tv set to widescreen in its setup menu is to add the black curtains to the side so that a widescreen tv shows it in the middle.

Leaving the upscale done in the reciever is what I do since otherwise when changing channels etc with different resolutions there is about a 5-6 second delay while the resolution changes on the display. Cropping 16:9 down is ok on content that is made for it, most US tv shows seem to push all the action into the middle to be 4:3 safe still, but the rest of the world seems to use the full frame.

Really I would like to be able to select it on whatever does the conversion since when an old 4:3 show comes on tv I would definatly want to cut the center out, otherwise you get the pillarboxing added by the broadcaster, and the letterboxing added by the box and end up with 3" of black around whatever you are watching.