I have just bought an LCD TV and found that the picture was getting interference. I phoned up the manufacturer and they said that it was to do with the scart leads and that they need replacing. I dont no much about scart leads but i done a bit of research and found this one http://www.play.com/Electronics/Elec.../Product.html#
can someone tell me if its any good , and if its not can you reccomend me one.
please note that its only for a freeview box

Thanks

I have several of these flat profile cables and was impressed with both the build quality and the performance (the cable is also available in longer lengths). I haven't used the Philex cable you linked to but I have seen one and I thought it seemed a bit lightweight for a quality SCART cable, to be honest.

I have gone the road with scart leads cable for some years now and yes many offer a large range of prices and quality. All i would advice you is if you can get away with spending that extra bit then only one company come to mind that offers great cables and have won many awards time and time again.

QED cables.

Yes, they do cost, but if you do not need a 1 meter length then i would buy the 0.5 meter, which will save you some money and provide you with quality second to none.

I can recommend a few others that are all within the best range, but QED having done there home work, so have I, trust me you will not look back.

eBay offer great prices, but pop into a shops that understands cables, nor Currys or PC-World or Comet, but some one like Music Matters or Seven Oaks.

If you still need help email me and i will be able to help more.

I brought a QED flat 0.5 m lead a few months ago for £22 off ebay the performance is no better than that of other leads i have paid £10 to £15 for in the past and its as stiff as a board to bend.

The problem with most people is they are unaware of how things work. In order to get the best out of your hardware you need to match it work with the correct gear.

Cheap gear requires any cable.
Mid-range gear require mid-range cable
Flagship gear requires top of the range cable.

The problem is most buy cheap gear and a good cable like QED and then turn around a say
"is was no better"

If you contact any of the top makes, like Denon, Arcam, meridian, linn and many others, who make the hardware, they will full agree with what i have said.

You do not buy a cheap car and place top of the range wheels and wonder why is does not improve by much, but looks cool.

You do not buy a cool expensive car and remove all the cables and add cheap cables and expect the performance to be the same.

Trust me:
You require a cable that will limit interference and keep its quality the same or better, then QED who have Won Many Awards! and continue to Win Many Awards know what they are doing, unlike the chap who wrote the above quote.
Last edited by bootycall : 04-10-2006 at 11:11

I was just going by my own exsperiances. Why spend about £40 on a QED scart when a £10 to £15 one does the job just as well and can bend easier to lol.

It depends on where you shop, I use QED leads & paid around £25.

Im with Bootycall on this one, my equipment is expensive so I use good quality leads. For maximum effect

TBH I haven't tried Scarts around the £10- £15 but have a couple of cheapies which are crap & it shows.
Last edited by Kojack : 04-10-2006 at 19:25

Perfect quote

"Scarts around the £10- £15 are crap & it shows"

You get what you pay for

QED is my recommendation that will work well

and prevent interference issues.

QED used correctly should help

Improve your picture quality too.

Remember some items on eBay are fake

Buy from a well known online shop or well known

AV shop. Good luck
Last edited by bootycall : 04-10-2006 at 22:42

There was a thread (which I contributed to) about 2 weeks ago. Might give you more ideas, if you find it via the search option.

Unfortunately there is little scientific evidence to back up your claims.
There are also plenty of serious audiophiles out there with the most expensive equipment who do not use expensive cables or believe in the myths and pseudo science put out by cable manufacturers.

As far a Scart cable is concerned then decent sheilding is the main thing. You can get excellent scarts like this for under £20, and anything more expensive isn't going to show any improvement.

That isn't what he said. You have edited that quote to suit your own needs.

He said,
which is entirely different to your quote.

Lol I noticed that

The way to avoid the cable debate is to go digital, then it becomes largely irrelevant what cables you use except at very long cable lengths.

I am now exclusively using HDMI for my av, and find that the "free" cables that came with my equipment are perfect.

Couldn't agree more loz.

The best standard definition picture quality I have seen is via HDMI, better than SCART at any price.

Cut pin 19 and most cheapo scarts suddenly perform reasonably well....

get a £12 scart and they should perform quite well...

from there on the law of diminishing returns comes into play......................


let the battle (squabble) begin!

There was a thread in the TVDrive forum where someone claimed his mate had spent £200 (or thereabouts) on an HDMI cable and couldn't believe how much better the picture quality was than the cable given free by Telewest!

QED cables are great............thats the answer, no wait, they are too expensive.......................but you only get what you pay for.......................but why pay over the top if you dont need it?........................but it will last 10x longer..................what to do!

I dont have any QED scarts, but I do have some of their speaker cable, and its fantastic stuff, but for those sorts of prices, it should be. Good job the room isnt to big is all I can say!

Dave

KING123,

Most of the debate has moved from a cable to help you prevent interference to HDMI


Like i said, QED will suit your needs to help prevent your original problem addressed. QED will prevent your interference problems. Good luck
Last edited by bootycall : 05-10-2006 at 22:23

I replaced my cheapo scart leads with these http://www.clearly-av.co.uk/26481T.html and noticed a significant difference in the performance of my average kit. These are only just outside of the £10-15 mark but I would say they are definitely worth it. I also borrowed a mates QED cable that cost £70 and I could see or hear any difference in the performance. Does that mean that my kit isn't as good qualit as the cable?

I think any argument for or against falls down when you compare them on price alone. I guess the Thor scart leads have won so many awards not because they are the best but becuase they are good for what they cost.

BTW I noticed that B&Q actualy sell exactly the same lead for £40. Lol!

The overall performance is what has made QED Great!

Chord is another well made scart that will fullfill your requirements.

As to HDMI all i will add is:

It is often supposed by most on this web site on this subject that "digital is better." Digital signal transfer, it is assumed, is error-free, while analog signals are always subject to some amount of degradation and information loss.

There is an element of truth to this argument, but it tends to fly in the face of real-world considerations. First, there is no reason why any perceptible degradation of an analog component video signal should occur even over rather substantial distances; the maximum runs in home theatre installations do not present a challenge for analog cabling built to professional standards. Second, it is a flawed assumption to suppose that digital signal handling is always error-free.

DVI and HDMI signals aren't subject to error correction; once information is lost, it's lost for good.

That is not a consideration with well-made cable over short distances, but can easily become a factor at distance.

I had a good chuckle to myself over some of these posts. I have worked in the CCTV industry for some 20 years now and have had to deal with broadcast quality colour cameras being displayed on 21" Monitors sitting 2 foot away from my eyes. At that distance with quality signal sources going through short cable runs, you really can see differences when there are faults with any part of that setup including faulty or inferior cables.
This debate hasn't changed much in all those years even though the choice of connections available to people has now blossomed and as a result confused the average punter.
It's a similar debate to going out and spending £2000 on a top knotch Hi-Fi and then connecting the speakers with £5 worth of B&Q bellwire. It will work but will it work as well as the QED Monster cable and would you as an individual be able to hear the difference?
Contrary to what a previous post says about there being any scientific proof... there is plenty of technical evidence to support purchasing quality leads, but do you need to?
I spent approx. £25 for two QED cables from Amazon. Although I was fairly happy with the less expensive ones previously connected, I definitely saw a difference. Was it worth the £25 ? Yes because I reckon they are about as good as they need to be for the grade of equipment connected at either end. If I had spent £1500 on a 50" Plasma rather than £300 on a crabby conventional CRT Goodmans 32", than I might have considered spending even more on leads to ensure peace of mind that I'm seeing every last drop of signal available to me.
As for the proof, I could bore you with what you would see on an oscilloscope displaying the video bandwidth passing through a cheap cable and then comparing an identical source through a well shielded cable such as the QED. But would you see the difference in the picture quality? Only you as an individual can answer that. I rather think I would, but there again, probably because of my job, I spot faults on TV sets that people are really happy with. Over the years I've learned that most people follow like sheep and just go with what a mate at work recommended and what the damned things cost & therefore how much their wives wont mind going out of their bank account! (sorry, I know that's a sexist thing to say, but that's exactly how my wife would view this problem).
I tend to agree with "Bootycall" that QED will sort out most of the problems here. Have a look on Amazon and Ebay, they're not really that expensive if you've spent a couple of hundred on other equipment.
As for whether or not you will see any marked improvement.....who knows? Please let us know when you find out.
As for those of you talking about HD and HDMI - I'm jealous. Wish I could stretch to even a cheap HD screen having seen the difference. Even a poor screen can look good in HD compared to 525 lines! Think yourselves lucky.

Thanks fo your support.

The consumer electronics industry has done a spectacular job spreading mass confusion about video. Time was when there was just TV. Now we've got SDTV, EDTV, HDTV, 480i, 480p, 525i, 720i, 1080i, progressive scan, component video, composite video, blah blah blah. Enough to make you feel like you need an engineering degree to buy a projector or TV.

Knowing which is the best connection to use with the TV screen you have, Is The Key to a good picture.

There's also plenty of evidence that it makes no difference.
In fact I would like to see some technical evidence (not from a cable manufacturer) that there is a difference, because most of the research out there indicates there is not.


Yet as others have shown here, spending money on expensive cables showed no difference. So only in your opinion is it better


But the discussion in this thread has largely not been is a QED cable better than a cheapo/freebie cable, but more one of is the extra expense of a QED cable worth more than a decent quality, well shielded cable that costs half the price or less.

I have no doubt the QED cable is better than the cheapo one, but having tried them I can see no difference between a QED and other expensive cables and a well made one like a Thor for much less.


And as an interesting note about QED cables and HDMI, read this post.

You should get married

Do you work for a cable retailer by any chance?


Agreed. But over short distances of up to 4-5 mtrs even the cheapest of HDMI cables will work perfectly. Buying anything more expensive is a waste of money. And as this post shows, buying a QED HDMI cables seems an absolute waste of time too.