[Anne-Sophie]

I updated all my equipment a year ago with a new LCD tv, a PVR and a DVD recorder for archiving. I'm not very educated in technical matters, so I took advice from one of these forums as to how to set it all up (I'm good at following instructions to the letter!) and it all works perfectly.

I even bought slightly better Scart cables, without going over the top, pricewise, and all in all was feeling jolly pleased with myself.

Yesterday a friend needed to experiment a better quality Scart lead so I lent him the one I had going from my DVDR to the tv, thinking I would not need the DVDR for a few days.
Imagine my surprise to discover that everything works just as before!!!!

So what is Scart, and what's the point?

Anne-Sophie.

[niall campbell]

it is an european wide socket

it will or should give you a better picture than the aerial cable

your signal will be going up the aerial cable

make sure the dvd player is set to RGB and put in av1 on your telly.

http://www.homecinemachoice.com/arti...0102_scart.php

your lcd telly hopefully has a hdmi socket as hdmi is taking over from scart and you will be ok just know but bear in mind for future scart machines will become scarcer but thats years away

[Nigel Goodwin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anne-Sophie

I updated all my equipment a year ago with a new LCD tv, a PVR and a DVD recorder for archiving. I'm not very educated in technical matters, so I took advice from one of these forums as to how to set it all up (I'm good at following instructions to the letter!) and it all works perfectly.

I even bought slightly better Scart cables, without going over the top, pricewise, and all in all was feeling jolly pleased with myself.

Yesterday a friend needed to experiment a better quality Scart lead so I lent him the one I had going from my DVDR to the tv, thinking I would not need the DVDR for a few days.
Imagine my surprise to discover that everything works just as before!!!!

You may have been using it wrong (watching via RF and not SCART), or it may have automaticlaly switching via the SCART leads - personally I suspect you were using it wrong!.

Quote:

So what is Scart, and what's the point?

It gives you stereo sound, RF connections (apart from off-air NICAM) are only mono, it gives you a much better quality picture (if you're using RGB), and may give you a slightly better picture if you're using it via composite.

Most DVD recorders also only work via SCART, they don't have modulators.

[chrisjr]

SCART is a audio and video interconnection system.

The fact that your set-up works as before with one lead missing means that either you had too many leads in the first place or you haven't connected it up correctly.

There are several ways you could connect your system up. For instance...

PVR "TV" SACRT --> TV AV1 SCART
PVR "VCR" SCART --> DVD AV1 SCART

This simple set-up would allow you to watch either the PVR or the DVD via the TV's AV1 SCART even though there is no direct link from DVD to TV.

Essentially what happens is that pin 8 of the SCART is used as an "I am on" signal from one device to another. When you turn on the PVR it sends the signal to the TV which makes the TV switch to the SCART input the PVR is on.

When you turn on the DVD and press PLAY it sends the signal to the PVR which sees it and interconnects its two SCARTs. Which means that the video and audio from the DVD is passed on to the TV through the PVR. Press stop or turn off the DVD and its switch signal disappears so the PVR switches the feed back to the PVR output.

The other option is that the DVD recorder and possibly the PVR can "modulate" their output onto the aerial feed. What this means is they effectively produce an analogue TV signal that your TV can tune into just like BBC1/2/ITV/C4/five.

Easy way to check is to unplug the aerial from the back of the TV when watching a DVD. If the picture stays then you are watching via SCART. if it dissapears then you are watching via the aerial, which is the lowest quality option available so might need to sort that out if such things matter to you.

[broadz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anne-Sophie

Imagine my surprise to discover that everything works just as before!!!!

So what is Scart, and what's the point?

Anne-Sophie.

It's not working exactly the same as before - it's not sending a signal from the DVDR up the scart connection into the TV - if that's how it was set up before, and that's what you've really disconnected. What you may have disconnected is a scart connecting your TV out to your DVD in (to allow you to record a Freeview signal from your TV).

When you watch a DVD, which AV input do you switch to (or does your TV autoswitch to) to allow you to watch the DVD? Because, in your post you said it was that which you had removed. You've either got your DVD connected to your TV by more than one method (HDMI or component as well as scart), or the lead you think you've removed isn't what you think it is. Or, you haven't tested absolutely every piece of kit to see whether it all still works.

I have my DVDR connected to my TV using both scart and component - component is for watching (Progressive scan picture via component is better than scart) and scart is for transferring idTV signal from TV to DVDR, so that I can record it.