Sky Digital and HTPC

PowerHouseDan

I am getting a new HTPC finally, and want to hook my sky box up to it, Whats the best way Via, Composite or Svideo?

ethernet

S-video offers better picture quality over composite.

PowerHouseDan

How would i go about connecting it, can i get a scart to s-video, one thing i notice about composite its about 2 seconds behind if i press a button.

Myxomatosis

Your TV's (EDIT: your not talking about a TV at all, the following may still have some relevence) SCART connections may not support S-Video, in which case a S-Video to SCART will only output in black + white. You can simply open up the converter and soldier together 2 certain pins to basically make the connection back into a composite one, but this may or may not end up being worse quality that just using composite cables and composite connections.

EDIT2: Actually, how would you plug the SCART into the HTPC. The graphics card on your HTPC will more than likely have a Video In port which will also come with a converter / dongle which allows you plug in S-Video, Composite or RGB

PowerHouseDan

I had it running composite before and it was running perfect, i have updated the tv to a 32hd tv and the main thing i noticed about composite there was a 2 sec delay from the digibox to the htpc.Is that normal?

Rsaeire

I use a Sapphire Theatrix 550 Pro to record TV content from my Sky box over S-Video. The quality is great and is a much easier solution than using Sky+ as the stored video is not restricted to the Sky+ box.

The software I use to watch and record TV is Beyond TV. You only need to pay for it once and there's even a 30 day trial so you can test it out.