[kopite 64]

A friend of mine has just bought a new Samsung tv. The guy from the shop talked him into paying £25 for a new scart lead. Claiming his current one would not work properly and he would return like most people do complaining of poor picture quality and wrongly blaming the tv.
Was the salesman correct in this assumption? The cynic in me thinks not.
Thoughts anyone?

[Nigel Goodwin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kopite 64

A friend of mine has just bought a new Samsung tv. The guy from the shop talked him into paying £25 for a new scart lead. Claiming his current one would not work properly and he would return like most people do complaining of poor picture quality and wrongly blaming the tv.
Was the salesman correct in this assumption? The cynic in me thinks not.

He scammed your friend and made a huge profit on the lead, which will make no difference.

[kopite 64]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

He scammed your friend and made a huge profit on the lead, which will make no difference.

This was my initial reaction.

[frailfury]

Yeah I have a cheapo scart cable i run from sky+ to my hdtv. I read loads about high quality scarts on DS, so I managed to find a £30 one for a tenner on ebay. Made no difference whatsoever!

Unless of course you can buy a particular lead that does display sky better?

[emptybox]

The problem with very cheap scart leads is that they can disintegrate quickly if you have to disconnect and reconnect them.

Also they may well have inadequate shielding on the cable, and if you've got 2 sources running, it can cause interference to the picture.
I saw this recently when the nephews were playing a DVD, but hadn't put the Freeview box onto standby. There were lines on the picture, and I thought it must be a poor quality DVD, until I turned off the Freeview box, and the interference disappeared.

But i would have thought £10 would get you a perfectly reasonable one.

[RobAnt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kopite 64

A friend of mine has just bought a new Samsung tv. The guy from the shop talked him into paying £25 for a new scart lead. Claiming his current one would not work properly and he would return like most people do complaining of poor picture quality and wrongly blaming the tv.
Was the salesman correct in this assumption? The cynic in me thinks not.
Thoughts anyone?

I'm with you. He should take it back for a refund, unless he has a use for an extra cable.

But the guy is right about people claiming their TV has poor picture quality. It very often does, but it's usually more down to settings on the source device (STB, Video Camera, ETC) or the TV itself rather than the cables.

[Willith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by emptybox

The problem with very cheap scart leads is that they can disintegrate quickly if you have to disconnect and reconnect them.

Also they may well have inadequate shielding on the cable, and if you've got 2 sources running, it can cause interference to the picture.
I saw this recently when the nephews were playing a DVD, but hadn't put the Freeview box onto standby. There were lines on the picture, and I thought it must be a poor quality DVD, until I turned off the Freeview box, and the interference disappeared.

But i would have thought £10 would get you a perfectly reasonable one.

I have noticed the issue you state, however i think it may be more to do with cheap equipment. Was the DVD player and freeview box daisy chained? or were they connected to either socket of the TV? (i have had a Proline TV display a faint image of a second input)

The quality will always look dire because you are taking heavily compressed mpeg-2, converting it to mediocre analogue RGB and upscaling back onto a digital panel. The only analogue inputs that deliver good quality is component.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willith

The only analogue inputs that deliver good quality is component.

RGB is actually slightly higher quality than Component, as Component is a slightly encoded version of RGB.

It's a complete fallacy that Component is better.

[frailfury]

So for example Nigel, I have just bought a Playstation 2 component lead, instead of attatching it to my TV via RGB Scart. Are you saying I am now not getting a good picture as I was via scart?

[Nigel Goodwin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by frailfury

So for example Nigel, I have just bought a Playstation 2 component lead, instead of attatching it to my TV via RGB Scart. Are you saying I am now not getting a good picture as I was via scart?

Are you running it in HD? (does a PS2 do HD?) - the differences between RGB and Component are only tiny, I doubt you would notice them. Not very much actually has direct RGB outputs, DVD's (been essentially of American origin) are stored as Component anyway.

The only advantages of Component are that it's been upgraded to do HD (again, American origins) and it can do progressive (yet again, American origins).

The monitor you're using probably well outperforms any HDTV, and most likely runs off RGB - as the vast majority do.

[Chris Frost]

As far as *baseband video is concerned Nigel is correct - RGB is superior to Component.

When you start to go progressive (576p) or HD (1080i, 720p, 1080p) then Component has the advantage. This isn't because the signal is better than RGB - it isn't - but rather it is engineered to run at a lower bandwidth. This makes it easier (and cheaper) to design source and display electronics to handle higher resolutions which require higher bandwidth capabilities.

As far as domestic TV goes most people won't see a difference between RGB and Component at baseband.

When it comes to running progressive or HD resolutions then in the analogue domain you can't run RGB* - so Component is your only choice so it's pointless debating the difference.



*baseband video: The sort of signal you would get from a non-progressive DVD player. RGB or Component at 576i (interlaced)

RGB* - unless you have a scaler and a wideband RGB input on the display such as a VGA connection.
*

[Fatwaz]

you don't need to spend loads on a scart lead as long as it's fully wired and screened it will be fine.cost around a tenner.any more and you are being ripped off same as 50 quid plus hdmi leads now that is a royal rip off and these mags telling people to buy these solid gold connectors,platinum cabled leads costing 100 quid to get the best picture possible should be done under the trades decription act!!

[frailfury]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Are you running it in HD? (does a PS2 do HD?) - the differences between RGB and Component are only tiny, I doubt you would notice them. Not very much actually has direct RGB outputs, DVD's (been essentially of American origin) are stored as Component anyway.

The only advantages of Component are that it's been upgraded to do HD (again, American origins) and it can do progressive (yet again, American origins).

The monitor you're using probably well outperforms any HDTV, and most likely runs off RGB - as the vast majority do.

It doesn't run in HD, but the picture should look as good as it does on a SDTV, however for me it looks worse, and thats connected via component or rgb scart.

[niall campbell]

Quote:

Originally Posted by frailfury

It doesn't run in HD, but the picture should look as good as it does on a SDTV, however for me it looks worse, and thats connected via component or rgb scart.

I thought you had a PS 3 ??

what do the PS 2 games look like on the PS 3 ??

PS 2 is now an older generation games console and where I agree to a certain extent it should look like SD reception, it may not

what colour are the leads on th PS 2 connections?

http://uk.playstation.com/help-suppo...k-Start-Guide/

if its the RED/ YELLOW/ WHITE supplied with the box and the scart connector then you are watching through COMPOSITE

you would be better watching through a RGB cable

http://uk.playstation.com/ps2/hardwa...Euro-AV-Cable/

or component cable which will work on PS 3

http://uk.playstation.com/ps2/hardwa...nent-AV-Cable/

[Nigel Goodwin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Frost

When it comes to running progressive or HD resolutions then in the analogue domain you can't run RGB* - so Component is your only choice so it's pointless debating the difference.

Only on a TV, and only because it was never implemented as such - whereas Component was updated to include it, because of it's American origin.

The majority of computer monitors run HD and Progressive perfectly well via RGB.

For that matter, connect to your TV via the VGA socket, and you're running HD and Progressive on your TV via RGB