Is this normal or a defect?

[Steve]

Dumb Newb question I'm sure, but this is my first 'real' HDTV (was using a Dell 2405 until now) and it does something I've not seen before:

When the programming is not filling the screen, there is some 'artifacting' occurring along the top. I can make it go away by changing the view mode from 1:1/Standard to Fill, zooming in a bit so it's offscreen.

Is this normal, or worthy of a return/exchange to the store? It's only 3 weeks old and I believe has been doing this since Day 1.

 

[FP]

Normal although it does look more blocky on your screenshot.

It is "hidden" data that is used for things like closed captioning. Normally the overscan of the TV hides it but more modern TVs that support pixel-for-pixel output will show it.

 

[sivart]

You should only see this when the broadcaster takes the SD feed and converts it to digital. You shouldn't see this on any HD programming or any all-digital SD programming.

These are known as VBI lines. They carry the information that analog TV's can read (I.e. program name, closed caption, etc)http://www.itvdictionary.com/teletext.html

 

[Steve]

Thank you both! 😎