Is my HDTV set up correctly?

[Chaka of the Pakuni]

So here's the deal.....I moved two weeks ago and at that time I bought a new TV. One of these;

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-UN40EH600 ... B0073WAK8K

I'm not a 'TV person', and my previous TV was a 25 year old 19" JVC CRT style TV, so I know nothing about HD televisions. When the cable guy came out to set up the cable, he also set up the TV. I remember the TV being on channel 2 (CBS) and the picture had the black bars on both sides. I asked the cable guy if the TV will do this when it's not showing an HD broadcast and he says yes (which is what I want it to do, I don't want the picture stretched or distorted when not in HD). I also ask him if the TV is set up at 1080 res and he says yes.

When he was there and the TV was on channel 2, once in a while the broadcast would switch to HD and the black bars would go away. He pointed this out to me and told me how it was now an HD broadcast and how the picture on the TV would adjust accordingly. All is well.

After he left, somehow the TV got switched to a resolution of 1280 x 768 and looked like crap. I finally got into the cable box settings and got the res set back to 1920 x 1080. I also set the 4:3 aspect ratio over-ride to off. If it wasn't turned off the picture would stretch.

My concern now is that ever since I set the TV back to 1920 x 1080, I've never seen one of the network channels (ABC, CBS, NBC) show anything in HD (or should I say 1080? What I mean is, the picture always has the black bars on the side). Is this normal? For example, the Olympics. Always black bars on the side. Are they not broadcast in HD?

I can look through the channel guide to find HD specific cable channels (most of which seem to be in spanish. yay.) and they seem to be showing at the 1080 res (no black bars or distortion), but is it normal for the network channels like ABC to always have the black bars on the sides?

Also, once in a while on some channels, the picture will switch to a small rectangle within the screen (black border all the way around). Like it should be bigger and take up the whole screen but doesn't.

So, is all this normal, or do I have a setting screwed up somewhere?

[metacide]

Seems like the TV isn't picking the correct aspect ratio.