A scart matrix switch will solve the problem. Most have two independent switchable paths so you can connect any two pairs of inputs seperately between any connected peripherals amd select to monitor either path.
Hmm? Significantly more expensive than a few SCART leads or not using Low Power standby.
Colin
More expensive certainly but infinetely more versatile. If you were only using composite connections there are much cheaper solutions. You could even make your own patch box for peanuts.
More expensive certainly but infinetely more versatile. If you were only using composite connections there are much cheaper solutions. You could even make your own patch box for peanuts.
I would want to use RGB for all viewing.
Is it likely that HDMI on all new TVs and other A/V devices will eventually have the full automatic switching capability that SCART offers?
Is it likely that HDMI on all new TVs and other A/V devices will eventually have the full automatic switching capability that SCART offers?
It's not the same anyway (not as good as SCART switching in my view), including it is down to the manufacturer - but most decent make TV's and BD players already enclude CEC (under various different names).
Is it likely that HDMI on all new TVs and other A/V devices will eventually have the full automatic switching capability that SCART offers?
Colin
HDMI has auto switching using a system called CEC.
HDMI is essentailly 1 way for video, Source to Display. You can't connect a source to recording device and record from it. Any recording device with hdmi in will only pass video/audio in to hdmi out.
HDMI has auto switching using a system called CEC.
HDMI is essentailly 1 way for video, Source to Display. You can't connect a source to recording device and record from it. Any recording device with hdmi in will only pass video/audio in to hdmi out.
Oh dear, that does seem very restrictive compared to SCART. So presumably it is not possible to archive HD on portable media (such as DVD).
What happens if you have more source devices than the available HDMI sockets on the display device, another expensive matrix device perhaps?
It seems my approx 2 year old Panasonic TV and or my DigitalStream HD Freeview PVR doesn't have CEC on the HDMI connections.
How does CEC deal with active multiple inputs to a display device? i.e. does the display switch to the last source device to be activated or does it remain locked to the first source to be activated?
Sorry about all the questions. Maybe I should be reading up on this elsewhere?
Not sure if it was answered, is it better to use a 2-way splitter on the wall or use the RF out on the Humax box and disable the power saving? (in a money-no-object PoV). The 2nd lead goes to a TV without any recording features.
Not sure if it was answered, is it better to use a 2-way splitter on the wall or use the RF out on the Humax box and disable the power saving? (in a money-no-object PoV). The 2nd lead goes to a TV without any recording features.
There are significant losses from a passive splitter, so I would advise the latter unless your signal is very strong (100%). Even if reception is usually good, there's always a chance a neighbour will start up an ill-suppressed lawnmower and wipe out your picture.
Not sure if it was answered, is it better to use a 2-way splitter on the wall or use the RF out on the Humax box and disable the power saving? (in a money-no-object PoV). The 2nd lead goes to a TV without any recording features.
Use a splitter, it will drop the signal strength which matters not a jot for digital provided the signal isn't very marginal it won't affect the quality which is the key to digital reception. If in the very unlikely event that you experience the picture breaking up you can always use the other option.
About 60-65% strength is normally considered ideal for digital, if you have too much the more sensitive tuners can get swamped so you end up having to attenuate anyway.
Too much signal can be just as bad as too little. A television tuner circuit has an inbuilt "AGC" (Automatic Gain Control) which will generally enable the receiver to operate satisfactorily with analogue signals from around one millivolt up to about ten millivolts (= 60 to 80 dBμV). The corresponding figure for digital signals is between 45 to 60 dBμV. If the signal is outside this range there is a risk of a grainy analogue picture or digital drop outs (if the signal is too weak) or cross-modulation interference if the signal is too powerful. If one lives in a particularly strong signal area, even an unamplified signal may still be too great for the tuner to cope with. In these circumstances it is necessary to use an attenuator to reduce the input level and a variable attenuator is obviously the most useful.
If your aerial worked fine (to one point) on the lower power transmissions before switchover, the higher power transmissions after DSO should enable you to split the signal 4 or even 6 times and still end up with the same signal level at each TVs input that you had before to the one TV. This is because the power is being increased at switchover by about 10dB.
Thus, the moral of the story is, if you`re unsure whether to fit a (passive) splitter or an amplifier/"booster" [i.e. an amplified splitter] I`d go with a splitter because you always have the option to add an amp in front of it if required.
Which is why they should be close to the aerial to avoid amplifying noise picked up on the downlead. Not pointless at all. The other use they have is to recover the losses arising from splitting the signal. Also not pointless.
Boosters also use power and so vitiate the power savings of ultra-low consumption standby settings.
A vision masthead amplifier uses 45mA at 5V (0.225W). If that lets you use a passive splitter to feed more than 1 unit and keep them in low power sby then it sounds a good idea to me
Even just 1 you are saving around 3W or so by using the amplifier if you need it.
Making unfounded generalisations isn't really a good idea.
Try feeding 10 or more tuners from a single aerial without amplification.
Not usually a problem if daisy chained through most A/V devices as they usually provide amplification to compensate for the signal supplying the tuners.I currently have 9 tuners chained and the input to the last one in the chain is marginally higher that if the same unit is connected at the beginning of the chain.
Not usually a problem if daisy chained through most A/V devices as they usually provide amplification to compensate for the signal supplying the tuners.I currently have 9 tuners chained and the input to the last one in the chain is marginally higher that if the same unit is connected at the beginning of the chain.
Colin
Well in that case you are using amplification. Without that it wouldn't work. The signal will get progressively weaker. As this thread is about using with kit with low power sby which turns off the loop amp how is this going to help ?
Low power sby saves roughly around 3.5W for each device.
If you had 9 daisy chained then the sby power required to maintain the loop would rise from about 6.75W to 24.75W.
A 4 way launch amplifier and 3 x 2 way and 1 x 3 way passive splitters would reduce this to just 0.225W.
Well in that case you are using amplification. Without that it wouldn't work. The signal will get progressively weaker. As this thread is about using with kit with low power sby which turns off the loop amp how is this going to help ?
Low power sby saves roughly around 3.5W for each device.
If you had 9 daisy chained then the sby power required to maintain the loop would rise from about 6.75W to 24.75W.
A 4 way launch amplifier and 3 x 2 way and 1 x 3 way passive splitters would reduce this to just 0.225W.
I was not making any claims regarding energy consumption, merely indicating there is an alternative to providing additional external amplification devices. i.e. don't use low power standby. There are other convenience penalties using low power standby in addition to lack of RF feed-through.
I was not making any claims regarding energy consumption, merely indicating there is an alternative to providing additional external amplification devices. i.e. don't use low power standby. There are other convenience penalties using low power standby in addition to lack of RF feed-through.
Colin
I used no claim nor mentioned external amplification for just that reason. Assuming you have chained 9 single tuner devices you are using 9 amplifiers, Shock horror, if some posters are to be believed you must have an enormous signal to noise problem
Quite how a single aerial can be used to provide services to a whole block of flats without all that noise from the distribution amplifiers is hard to explain :eek:
Quite how a single aerial can be used to provide services to a whole block of flats without all that noise from the distribution amplifiers is hard to explain :eek:
In what way? - it's pretty simple and straightforward.
Essentially you amplify the signal to a high level, and then use either splitters or tap off boxes to feed the various points in the flats.
Noise is generated in the amplifiers, it's not incoming at VHF and above. Noise levels of modern amplifiers is low, and assuming you have decent reception then you have no noise problems. If reception is poor, then a masthead amplifier is used to boost the signal, and the noise of the entire system is effectively the noise of that first amplifier.
I used no claim nor mentioned external amplification for just that reason. Assuming you have chained 9 single tuner devices you are using 9 amplifiers, Shock horror, if some posters are to be believed you must have an enormous signal to noise problem
I have 4 twin tuner PVRs and a single tuner DVD Recorder so only 5 RF amplifiers in total. I don't have any data to prove it but I'm not aware of any noise issues. I'm no expert but I would assume that white noise is not an issue for digital signals unless it saturates amplifiers or the decoders. The last PVR in the SCART daisy chain has an RF Modulator (Humax 9200) and I utilise this to feed an RF signal around the house carrying the A/V output from anywhere in the chain. This is another reason for me wanting to retain RF feed-through. I haven't noticed any noise issues on any of the TVs using this RF signal.
I have 4 twin tuner PVRs and a single tuner DVD Recorder so only 5 RF amplifiers in total. I don't have any data to prove it but I'm not aware of any noise issues. I'm no expert but I would assume that white noise is not an issue for digital signals unless it saturates amplifiers or the decoders. The last PVR in the SCART daisy chain has an RF Modulator (Humax 9200) and I utilise this to feed an RF signal around the house carrying the A/V output from anywhere in the chain. This is another reason for me wanting to retain RF feed-through. I haven't noticed any noise issues on any of the TVs using this RF signal.
Colin
It's kind of hard to chain rf in this way if the kits not all in one room/location. In addition to a load of other kit my aerial feeds 6 TV's all in different locations. It's a combination of chained kit and passive splitters. Without the single 4 way masthead amp in the loft used as a launch device it just wouldn't work. There's two modulators in my system that I use One sends DVD, A topfield 5800 and a HD FOX T2 using a seperate zone output from my AV amp, the other the output of a Foxsat-hdr both to a small screen kitchen tv. I don't need the modulator in the Toppy at all.
I think most of the posts here assume amplifiers are the el cheapo plug in gizmos that B&Q and the like sell.
Comments
Colin
More expensive certainly but infinetely more versatile. If you were only using composite connections there are much cheaper solutions. You could even make your own patch box for peanuts.
Is it likely that HDMI on all new TVs and other A/V devices will eventually have the full automatic switching capability that SCART offers?
Colin
It's not the same anyway (not as good as SCART switching in my view), including it is down to the manufacturer - but most decent make TV's and BD players already enclude CEC (under various different names).
HDMI has auto switching using a system called CEC.
HDMI is essentailly 1 way for video, Source to Display. You can't connect a source to recording device and record from it. Any recording device with hdmi in will only pass video/audio in to hdmi out.
What happens if you have more source devices than the available HDMI sockets on the display device, another expensive matrix device perhaps?
It seems my approx 2 year old Panasonic TV and or my DigitalStream HD Freeview PVR doesn't have CEC on the HDMI connections.
How does CEC deal with active multiple inputs to a display device? i.e. does the display switch to the last source device to be activated or does it remain locked to the first source to be activated?
Sorry about all the questions. Maybe I should be reading up on this elsewhere?
Colin
Use a splitter, it will drop the signal strength which matters not a jot for digital provided the signal isn't very marginal it won't affect the quality which is the key to digital reception. If in the very unlikely event that you experience the picture breaking up you can always use the other option.
About 60-65% strength is normally considered ideal for digital, if you have too much the more sensitive tuners can get swamped so you end up having to attenuate anyway.
Read this
http://www.aerialsandtv.com/ampsandsplitters.html
Note the following extract
Which is why they should be close to the aerial to avoid amplifying noise picked up on the downlead. Not pointless at all. The other use they have is to recover the losses arising from splitting the signal. Also not pointless.
http://www.aerialsandtv.com/ampsandsplitters.html
If you have enough signal for a passive split that's fine. Try feeding 10 or more tuners from a single aerial without amplification.
A vision masthead amplifier uses 45mA at 5V (0.225W). If that lets you use a passive splitter to feed more than 1 unit and keep them in low power sby then it sounds a good idea to me
Even just 1 you are saving around 3W or so by using the amplifier if you need it.
Making unfounded generalisations isn't really a good idea.
Colin
Well in that case you are using amplification. Without that it wouldn't work. The signal will get progressively weaker. As this thread is about using with kit with low power sby which turns off the loop amp how is this going to help ?
Low power sby saves roughly around 3.5W for each device.
If you had 9 daisy chained then the sby power required to maintain the loop would rise from about 6.75W to 24.75W.
A 4 way launch amplifier and 3 x 2 way and 1 x 3 way passive splitters would reduce this to just 0.225W.
Colin
I used no claim nor mentioned external amplification for just that reason. Assuming you have chained 9 single tuner devices you are using 9 amplifiers, Shock horror, if some posters are to be believed you must have an enormous signal to noise problem
Quite how a single aerial can be used to provide services to a whole block of flats without all that noise from the distribution amplifiers is hard to explain :eek:
In what way? - it's pretty simple and straightforward.
Essentially you amplify the signal to a high level, and then use either splitters or tap off boxes to feed the various points in the flats.
Noise is generated in the amplifiers, it's not incoming at VHF and above. Noise levels of modern amplifiers is low, and assuming you have decent reception then you have no noise problems. If reception is poor, then a masthead amplifier is used to boost the signal, and the noise of the entire system is effectively the noise of that first amplifier.
I know that, it was a tongue in cheek comment on post 37
Colin
It's kind of hard to chain rf in this way if the kits not all in one room/location. In addition to a load of other kit my aerial feeds 6 TV's all in different locations. It's a combination of chained kit and passive splitters. Without the single 4 way masthead amp in the loft used as a launch device it just wouldn't work. There's two modulators in my system that I use One sends DVD, A topfield 5800 and a HD FOX T2 using a seperate zone output from my AV amp, the other the output of a Foxsat-hdr both to a small screen kitchen tv. I don't need the modulator in the Toppy at all.
I think most of the posts here assume amplifiers are the el cheapo plug in gizmos that B&Q and the like sell.