Scart Leads Advice

del_boy85

Hi,

I've just recently changed my dvd recoder and am having a slight problem as regards picture quality coming through my dvd recorder. I have the recorder, the tv and my SKY+ box all hooked up with scart leads. When I am just watching tv the picture quality is perfect. But when the signal comes through my dvd recorder (i.e. when I'm recording something) it is ever so slightly not as clear as it should be. It just looks to be the tiniset bit out of focus. I didn't have this problem with my previous dvd recorder.

Anyways, my question is... do those more expensive scart leads make any difference as regards picture quality? Or would I be wasting my money? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

masteroftherealm

This would be better suited to HTPC Forum or the Home Entertainment forum

8T8

To hazard a guess your "new" DVD recorders scart input isn't scart RGB compatible and is just regular old scart hence the more blurry picture.

Your old DVD recorder did support scart RGB on it's input which is why the picture quality was better.

In the event that the manual on the new DVD recorder says it supports scart RGB check to see if it says output only or check the settings/menu of the unit to see if it can be enabled. Of course it may be it does support scart RGB but simply isn't as good as your previous model.

[And definitely wrong sub forum for this ]

del_boy85

8T8 wrote:

To hazard a guess your "new" DVD recorders scart input isn't scart RGB compatible and is just regular old scart hence the more blurry picture.

Your old DVD recorder did support scart RGB on it's input which is why the picture quality was better.

In the event that the manual on the new DVD recorder says it supports scart RGB check to see if it says output only or check the settings/menu of the unit to see if it can be enabled. Of course it may be it does support scart RGB but simply isn't as good as your previous model.

[And definitely wrong sub forum for this ]

Firstly, apologies for posting in the wrong forum. Mods please feel free to move this.

According to my manual RGB is supported on both Input and Output. What is RGB by the way?? Do more expensive scrat leads make any difference to picture quality? At the moment I'm just using relatively cheap ones.

zilog_jones

Yeah, check to see if your new recorder is outputting RGB - should be a setting on the menu somewhere or maybe a switch on the back. I've noticed that a lot of DVD players don't have it turned on by default - it's quite annoying.

If your SCART lead has all the pins, it'll support RGB. Higher quality cables improving picture quality is debatable - as long as your cable is shielded and not corroded it'll be somewhat good.

RGB just means the video signals are sent with the red, green and blue components separately. Typically, video is sent via composite PAL or NTSC, which combines all the video into a single signal - it's easier to transmit but there are sacrifices in the reduction of colour resolution and interference having more effect.

8T8

Edit:zilog_jones answered while I was typing long winded answer : )

Very roughly the scart cable can carry two signals - normal scart is basically equivalent to the composite signal (the yellow, red & white cables) and this doesn't offer a very sharp picture & is considered near bottom of the barrel in terms of image quality.

Scart RGB (Red, Green, Blue) of which a full technical explanation can be found here basically offers superior image quality with a sharper and more stable image.

"High Quality" video cables are nothing more than snake oil sold to the unsuspecting, unless there is a physical defect in your current cable there is nothing wrong with it (and that too is very unlikely since I assume it worked fine with your previous recorder like you say).


As to what to do about the image quality; if there are no settings to be found in the devices menu to enable RGB well you cant do a whole lot other than try another cable, if you want just buy a standard one nothing fancy. See how it goes from there if nothing changes then you know it's nothing to do with the cable.

Not all DVD recorders are equal you know some make use of higher quality parts then others and you simply got the short end of the straw with the new one.

Finally just in case... the TV's scart inputs must also support scart RGB as well for the chain to be complete so I thought I'd better mention that in the event your TV has more than one scart socket and you plugged it into one of the scart sockets which doesn't support RGB.

Also what make is the DVD recorder ?