I am wondering if the Quintro, is the 5 way version of the Quattro there is a schematic diagram on the site.
I use mine with a VCR, DVD, Sky, and PC composite outputs, all feeding into a recently purchased Sanyo PLV-Z2, again i am using the composite, but intend to use s video.

Hi there, I dont pretend to know too much about this concept. But I am very interested in the Holden unit. I have a muliple of input sources required to output to either a TV or Projector.

One of the inputs will be my sky digital box, based on whats been mentioned about pin 8 not being passed through causing the TV to not receive the 16:9/4:3 switch.

(opening myself up to advice here) Could I hardwire from the sky cable to the TV cable 'pin 8' and get this working?

I appreciate there may be the condition where would probably have to power off sky to prevent it switching whilst viewing other sources.

Any feedback on this would be appreciated.. cheers
Paul

Hi Paul

I looked into doing this exact same thing myself. You could make a pair of SCART cables with a wire directly connected between pin 8 on the sky box and pin 8 on the tv. Your tv would, most likely, be forced into whatever aspect-ratio the sky box was recieving whenever the sky box was on, regardless of which input you selected on the Holdan.

Whilst it would work, I personally couldn't live with it like that. I am still waiting for Holdan to revise their design and get this problem sorted out. This small annoyance aside, the HSR1000 is an excellent product. If you don't have a sky digibox and/or a widescreen tv then buy one now. Otherwise wait.

Hope this helps

Ian

Hi
Do you have this problem with a "Freeview" box or on BBC channels, as I thought they transmitted the "Active format descriptor" system (is it on line 23?) so the TV should recognise the format?
I put one in for a friend of mine and I thought that it was behaving OK. You have to put the Tv to "auto" on it's A/R setting.
I'm not certain that Sky is managing to do this on all their channels though.
By the way I've got a Sony DX40 IDTV, does this update OK with new software or is it too old?

You are quite right that if a chanel is transmitting the line 23 signal (part of the old WSS signal standard) then the tv will switch widescreen modes automatically, even when routed through the HSR. Sky digiboxes do not use line 23 and rely solely on pin 8 scart switching.

Ian

I have used a Quintro+ switch box (Trilogy 1) and found it had trouble switching automatically to an input when it was widescreen. When the select button on the front panel was pressed it would jump straight to that input. The remote control is not very sensitive and must be pointed directly at the box.

I obtained a Holdan HSR-1000 and of course found that the pin 8 scart widescreen switching did not work. I have connected a Sony DVD player that did work because it has line 23 switching, a Pace twin freeview recorder also worked but a Pace Sky digibox did not.

After searching the Internet I found a box that will convert the pin 8 scart signal into a line 23 signal. This also allows the automatic switching of a widescreen tv in another room fed by routing the signal through a video and uhf cable. The signal can also be recorded onto video tape and will switch to widescreen on playback.

Information on the box can be found at www.amcro.co.uk/wss208.htm. They will have to be contacted by email at sales@amcro.co.uk and advance payment sent by cheque, it has a price of about £120 and took several weeks to be delivered but it works well. Heat can be a problem so it must not be placed on top of another piece of equipment that is hot. The signal is inserted onto the composite video, RGB is passed straight through. The pin 8 scart signal is removed so automatic input switching will not work, I have not found this to be a problem as I prefer to select manually.

Bit of an overkill having another box just to detect and record the WS signal!

From the above web page....

"However, if a programme is recorded on to a standard VCR, there is no way that the TV can know the correct display format when the tape is played back, and the TV display then needs to be switched manually to prevent the picture being the wrong shape."

NONSENSE! Most modern VCRs WILL record the ws signal and the WS TV WILL detect it it and switch accordingly.

The web site says that a video cannot record and playback the pin 8 widescreen switching signal. The solution is to use the box to insert the line 23 signal that can be recorded and played back.

The prime reason I purchased this box was to overcome the HSR1000 not passing through the pin 8 switching and to allow the widescreen switching it to be sent by uhf to another room. Being able to record the signal onto video was a bonus.

Well I've been able to record the ws signal on my past 3 VCRs.
I thought it was pretty common these days.

Hi

Cheers for the feedback mwpl. A useful sounding box of tricks. I'm not going to be paying £120 for the privilege though.
I have heard an unconfirmed and unsubstantiated rumour (but from a techie at Holdan) that they are currently testing a modification for the HSR1000 that will sort out the Pin 8 problem. If it works and it is cheap enough they are possibly looking at a release sometime after summer.
Kevo, mwpl is correct in saying that the pin 8 signal cannot be recorded. The pin 8 signal is generated by the hardware that you are watching. What can be recorded and played back is the line 23 signal which is coded into the actual video stream. Sky digiboxes do not produce the line 23 wss signal and rely solely on pin 8.

Ian

Kevo, what is the video source that you are recording from? An easy way to check if it is line 23 that is switching to widescreen is to feed the video into a VCR using the scart socket and then watch the UHF signal on a TV (or cut pin 8 on the scart).

The line 23 inserter also removes any other data before inserting line 23. This blocks analogue teletext and also copy protection from a DVD player. The line 23 signal cannot be recorded onto a DVD because when is is played back the player will insert its own line 23 and will switch to 4:3.

A modification to the Holdan will enable the TV directly connected to it to be switched to widescreen but would not allow a recording to playback wide or watched in another room using UHF.

After reading various threads, I've just bought one of these Holden switch boxes...

I haven't even bothered to take it out of the box yet, as after reading the instructions, it only has one RGB output - and that is the one dedicated to the TV.

The VCR output apparently doesn't carry RGB, and the only other output is phono.

All the other connections are input only, which seems really daft.

Obviously if you have a DVD recorder, how are you supposed to connect it so you can watch and record RGB?

Very disappointed!

It's not daft.

That's the way most scart switchers are....3 or 4 RGB inputs and one RGB output which is enough for most users.

You connect your RGB STB into the AV in on your DVD Recorder and then out from hee into teh Holdan, simple as that. You don't have your STB and DVD Recorder on seperate inputs. That's the way I have mine set up and it works a treat (albeit a different make, B-Tech)

mmm.. i see what you mean. The only problem I have then is that I have to then connect the second STB to the recorder, which is starting to defeat the point of having a switch box.

The only other device I've seen that could process RGB and still have more than one output is the B-Tech Quintro box. This would remove the need for extra cables, but from what I have read on here, there could be issues with audio distortion, build quality, and the box getting hot as its always on... but these problems appear to crop up randomly depending on the box you receive.

I have the Quintro and it has only one RGB input.
It has a few composite outputs but that's about it. I don't think it's as flexible as teh Holdan though and possibly not as good quality.
Yes there is slight audio distorion.
I have a second stb which is connected to the Quintro but I use the s-video out on the stb to the DVDRecorder s-video in as the RGB in is being used by my main cable stb.

Ah right, I see!

I think I'm going to invent a switch box that does everything everybody wants... it would appear I would make a fortune! (RGB, W/S, high quality...)

I thought the Quintro had RGB out on the VCR socket which would have been better... I obviously read that wrong somewhere.

I guess I'm back to lots of scarts again... but I suppose that's a good thing - what would I have done with all those decent leads I had bought!

I see what your'e trying to do but can't you compromise like I did and take a seperate output from yoyr 2nd stb direct to a composite/s-video input on your dvd recorder and thus bypass the switchbox altogether.

This is what I had to do and is where the benefits of having a seperate s-video out on a freeview stb (pioneer 1000) come into it's own as I can still watch freeview on the RGB scart (direct to TV).

S-video record quality is more than sufficient for casual recording.
Any important/poss archive stuff I record in RGB from my cable stb.

Yep, I think that is what I'm going to have to do.

I have a Grundig Sky box with S-video so could output to the recorder directly, though I will probably end up using composite as I'm not 100% whether the recorder and have two different video types on the scarts at the same time.

My TV (Toshiba) only has one RGB scart which I'll use for the switchbox, and I normally use the freeview box to record more important items as it has a better picture quality than the Sky box in RGB anyway.

I'll have a play tonight!

Well, had a go at setting it all up tonight...

Nothing wrong with getting it all connected, there does however seem to be a problem with the Holden switchbox itself.

The main problem is that the RGB output of the box gives a blue cast to everything. No matter what the source, or which cables are used, the result is very much blue.

The composite output works fine, no colour cast at all.

The other problem with the box is a loud buzz that it emits... so vigorous that you can feel the whole unit shaking.

I'm not sure if I've just got a duff box, but either way it's going back!

Hi all,

I've recently bought a Quintro and just having a play with setting it up I have come across the aspect ratio switching problem. I have a Loewe TV which will accept 3 scarts but I'm redesigning my lounge where the AV equipment will be 5 mtrs away from the TV and this seemed to be the ideal solution for now and flexibility for the future.

So, I hook up my xBox first and find that the picture moves up and down slightly every second. When I go into a game this starts the aspect ratio switching repeatedly as well. Very Annoying. I've tried all the sockets and different cables and get the same thing from different sources. Does anyone know why this happens and if there is now anything to do about it or any word from Holdan about improving their system?

From what I've read no various forums, the improvements to the Holden box are 'work in progress', if that.

I'm reserving my judgement, on the Holden box in general until a replacement comes for the duff one I received recently.

I made a small circuit for my quattro. It uses the led's on the front to see which source has been selected, checks the status of pin8 on the source and passes the same voltage to pin 8 of the output. Job done. I dont see why the makers of the switch boxes cannot include such a straightforward mod into their products.

FWIW post October 2003 Quintro+ supports RGB on the TV and Video outputs.
http://www.keene.co.uk/cgi-bin/bigcodesearch.pl?BT945

I'm yet to buy one, but if WS switching isn't a problem this is what I need.

Have tried two Quintro + boxes, both had problems. 1st box would continually switch the aspect ratio - every second, and caused the edges of the image to shimmer, whilst the second rgb output did not work correctly with images displaying a blueish tone. 2nd box had the same problem with aspect ratio constantly changing and the image shimmering on the main rgb output, however the second rgb output was fine, rock solid image, excellent colour. However as I needed to use all inputs and both outputs it had to go back. Loewe Mimo TV, Thomson DHD4000 PVR, X Box, PS2, JVC SVHS

The following may be of use if your Quintro has problems with A/R switching or unwanted switching:
http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...d.php?t=212796