Hello all...

I've just purchased a new Hitachi 42in HD ready plasma and am currently trying to figure the best way to hook up my equipment. I havent got Sky HD yet, or indeed Sky+ - its just a normal Sony digibox.

So, my set up is a Sony Sky Box, a Samsung DVD recorder and a Goodmans home cinema system.

A while back I bought a Monster SCART to S-Video cable which I want to use to link SKy up to my new TV. Is that possible ? My TV has S-Video input on AV4(s), but it doesnt seem to work when I plug the scart end into the Sky box. Does SKY output in this format ?

Also, if I want to be able to record from SKY to DVD, I guess I need to link the two via SCART and then link the DVD to the TV in the other SCART socket ?

My final question is the home cinema system, if I want the audio from both the DVD recorder and teh SKY to go through this, whats the best way to do this ?

Thanks in advance

I assume your DVDR has RGB I/O, if so then connect as follows for best quality.

Sky TV scart to DVDR input scart (prob AV2), DVDR output scart (prob AV1) to TV RGB scart.

The home cinema should use component if both it and the TV have this, if not it should go to a TV RGB scart. If you need to use RGB scart and your TV doesn't have two then a scart switch is needed.

Without details of your home cinema I can't comment about the audio.

Thanks for the reply.

What I'm trying to figure out at the moment is whether the s-video in connection on my TV is working as it should be. I have a Sony Sky box which I don't think outputs s-video. However the lead I have is a scart to s-video / 2 audio so I have tried plugging the scart end in to the TV scart in the sky box, and the s-video end in the s-video input on the TV. The Sky video output is set to RGB (I have a choice between PAL and RGB) and the TV has an AV4(S) setting, but connected this way, all I get is a blue screen and the message 'no signal'.

Any ideas ?

You don't get anything because the Sky box is in the wrong mode! You have to set it to S-Video - if it has it - because of the way SCART connections work.

SCART has essentially four video output pins, one for Composite video mode (what your box calls PAL) and three for RGB. There is no separate S-Video connection available. To get S-Video the unit switches the Composite pin to the black & white componet of S-Video and one of the RGB pins to the colour component.

It looks like switching the Sky box to RGB may turn off the Composite output so the TV is only seeing a video signal on the colour component of it's S-Video input. So it probably (quite correctly) thinks it's not getting a proper S-Video feed and so does not try displaying anything.