Gold plated vs. ordinary scarts

AMcG · 18-11-2003, 16:42

I'd be grateful if anyonce could tell me what the great advantage is in having gold plated scarts vs. ordinary cheap ones? I need to buy three so the combined difference between the two types would be €42 vs. €21.50...

Thanks.

tight fart · 19-11-2003, 09:34

The shop makes more money, scarts should cost no more than £5 each.

mpark · 19-11-2003, 10:57

Forget gold plated, oxygen free copper, etc unless you're a real HiFi nut.

But do look out for ones that "individually screened". Cheap thin SCART cables can suffer from interference problems, but if each wire inside is individually screened that shouldn't be a problem.

GDK · 19-11-2003, 11:32

Quote:

Originally posted by tight fart
The shop makes more money, scarts should cost no more than £5 each.

Yeah, sure. As long as you don't mind looking at pictures with interference and listening to sound with inteference due to cross talk in the cheap cables. Not to mention having to push them back in occasionally after they slip back a bit in the socket, causing the total loss of picure or sound or both.

You don't need to go to the expense of single cables costing £50 and upwards each (SQART etc), but getting gold plated connectors wired with just the pins you need connected and each wire separately shielded is my advice.

And don't buy them in either a specialist hifi shop or Currys and the like. If you've got a specialist electronics hobby shop in your area (a bit anoraky, I know, but worth it), they'll probably make cables up for you to your spec cheaper than you could buy them from those places.

Graeme

Jim Rae · 19-11-2003, 14:17

You don't need gold SCART plugs - you ain't got gold sockets have you?

You don't need anything more than £10 a go as they are connecting to very basic circuitry inside the set.

Phil S · 19-11-2003, 17:08

In my experience gold plated make little difference to any performance but they will not oxidise after a few years like ordinary ones do. More importantly get ones that are double screened. Modern TV circuitry is much more sensitive to cross interference on Scarts than a few years ago. Double insulated cuts out the flutter you can get on bright colours.

Wilkinsons (if you have one in your area) do a gold plated double insulated fully wired scart for £4.99. Don't buy at Dixons, Currys, Argos etc cos you'll get ripped off.

MDX · 19-11-2003, 17:26

the best scarts i have ever seen are Monster Scart Cables that cost from £19.95 to £69.95 from Comet.

the picture and sound diff is so much

dont listen to the people who say just get a £5 one because there is so much difference, if its a shit TV then get a £20 Monster Scart but if its a good TV (£500+) get a nice £69.95 Monster Scart.

there are no other Scarts in the *World* like Monster Scart cables as they are the only one in the world to be made the way they are.

The_One · 19-11-2003, 20:41

Gold is the best metal to carry power/signals.
Copper used for wires is used because theres just so much of it on the planet, so its cheap, and does a good enough job.

Only people that are very seriously into quality entertainment will use gold, or unless your a snob and think your "it" if you have gold connections even if they havnt a clue how it all works.

99.999999999999% of the human population couldnt tell the difference from using gold or anything else for their home entertainment.

chrisbartley · 20-11-2003, 09:51

Be nice for some people to have matching gold taps and scart cables - that sort of things important to some people ( fortunatly I don't know any)

Quote:

there are no other Scarts in the *World* like Monster Scart cables as they are the only one in the world to be made the way they are.

LIke drugs I think the only valid test is a double blind test - I think your judgement may be clouded by just having forked out £70 for a cable which may lead you to 'see' an improvement

Wonder if they do one of these for SCART leads

And don't forget the main lead - that can make such a difference - Think I'm joking, then have a look round AVFORUMS, there are people on there paying £40 a metre for 'special' mains cable and having the elements of the 3 pin plug gold plated - I wonder what they think happens on the 3 mile of cable that connects them to the national grid
Link

"Footman - Bring me my new clothes ! "

Orbitalzone · 20-11-2003, 10:07

While decent cables can make a massive difference, theres still the simple fact that probably a large amount of the lower cost 'gold' plated scart cables are probably such low grade gold that it's more likely to be tarnished and so makes a poor connection... especially when scart sockets aren't gold... oxydisation is possible where the 2 different metals touch, causing resistance, waving goodbye to the supposed impovements by using gold in the first place.

Of course there are good gold plated scart leads and there are useless gold plated scarts, just like there are excellent non gold plated scart leads which will outperform a cheoply made gold scart lead.

It is important to use good cables, but having owned a TV shop until not so long ago, I know just how much profit there is on AV cables... and even the monster scart cables are probably still made in China (I don't know this for sure however) and therefore I'd still not pay the sort of prices that they go for..

I used to be able to buy good quality fully screened scart cables for about £4 plus VAT in bulk quantities.... of course they weren't branded or translucent blue cased, but internally they were well made with good screening ability.... retailed for about £10 to £12..... plenty good enough considering most TV sets have awful non screened circuitry on the inside....

Anyhow, I still think a decent scart cable shouldn't need to cost any more than £20....unless you've got top notch AV gear perhaps.

Oh and finally, the scart connector is pretty awful in design for the purpose it's used for... I just couldn't part with £40 for something so god damned badly conceived!

(Orbitalzone runs for cover!)

comicsansserif · 20-11-2003, 10:40

Quote:

Gold is the best metal to carry power/signals.
Copper used for wires is used because theres just so much of it on the planet, so its cheap, and does a good enough job.

Actually as far as I am aware Silver is the best electrical conductor followed closely by Copper. Gold is a poor third but used because of its resistance to corrosion and so is ideal for coating outer surfaces which are prone to oxidisation where Copper and Silver could be a problem.

AMcG · 20-11-2003, 11:05

Wow - thanks for all the replies. And here I thought that there was just one decisive answer! I really didn't know that there would be so much contention on this front. Certainly I can't afford to spend £60 per lead, in fact even £20 per lead would seem to me to be steep (skinflint that I am) and after reading all the replies I may just purchase 3 leads from D.I.D. for €6.50 each.

Are there any other arguments that might sway me?

David (2) · 20-11-2003, 15:15

In recent times, I had to buy a new scart lead for the Sky box (the one they put on for me was loose and falling apart). I paid £10 for a 1.5m long scart in Dixons. Works very well, and is put together well. No problems. Go for something like that and you should be fine.

I notice that Homebase have got some scart cables with the new "latched" plugs. Simply put, this latches onto the one's on the scart socket on the back of the equipment, helping to keep a firm connection. Nice idea, as scart cables can be heavy. But, only some new equipment has got the matching latched sockets. You can still use these wires on equipment without the matching latched sockets, but there would be no advantage over a cheaper "non-latched" scart cable.

Gold on silver or silver on gold wont give the advantage we are often told of in the shops (due to the mixing of 2 types of metal). Silver on silver is fine, or gold on gold (some equipment does have gold connectors).

Scart wires with both normal all over shielding and the individual core screen is a good bet. You shouldn't get any cross over between the various internal wires. I did have one old scart a few years back which suffered from cross talk badly, and you could see it on the screen in the form of another tv channel faintly visible in the background of the video playing in the foreground. Another things was, the colours (mainly reds) had a "pulsing" effect on the screenNot nice.

Dave

Jim Rae · 20-11-2003, 15:37

I have taken part in a test between Monster cables and budget cables with two identical Sky boxes and two Philips Pixel Plus TVs.

Absolutely no difference to be seen.

I had to look round the back to see which was which - and even when I knew which was which - there was no picture difference at all - honest!

comicsansserif · 20-11-2003, 15:48

I once saw a display in Dixons where they had a DVD player plying into 2 "identical" portable TV's one with a £50 SCART connection and the other a £5 one. The TV connected with the expensive SCART had fantastic colour and contrast. The other was very washed out pale and poor contrast. There was no way that even using a cheap lead you would have got a picture that poor. It was certainly down to picture set up on the TV. When I asked a sales assistant if I could exchange the leads and TV's needless to say he wouldn't let me or do it himself even when I promissed I'd buy the lead if it gave the same results on the other TV. Nuff said really.

AMcG · 20-11-2003, 15:54

I've found a place in Letterkenny that sells fully shielded gold scart leads (http://www.donberg.ie/descript/s/scatale5.htm) for €5.90 a pop (ex. VAT). I'm presuming that I can't go too far wrong with these...

AndyM · 20-11-2003, 16:31

Quote:

Originally posted by The_One
Gold is the best metal to carry power/signals.
Copper used for wires is used because theres just so much of it on the planet, so its cheap, and does a good enough job.

Only people that are very seriously into quality entertainment will use gold, or unless your a snob and think your "it" if you have gold connections even if they havnt a clue how it all works.

99.999999999999% of the human population couldnt tell the difference from using gold or anything else for their home entertainment.

Copper certainly isn't cheap, if that was the reason the cable would be made of steel. Copper is used because of its high ductility and conductivity.
Monster cables are certainly good but im sure they're not the best in the world, I've never seen anything that good in Comet

Personally I'd pay a bit more for the build quality, so they stay in the sockets.

AndyM · 20-11-2003, 16:43

Quote:

Originally posted by comicsansserif
Actually as far as I am aware Silver is the best electrical conductor followed closely by Copper. Gold is a poor third but used because of its resistance to corrosion and so is ideal for coating outer surfaces which are prone to oxidisation where Copper and Silver could be a problem.

That is correct, silver is the best, pure copper and some of its alloys and second and gold is third. Aluminium isn't far behind gold. Gold is a very stable material and doesn't oxidise easily hence why it makes a good coating.

The_One · 20-11-2003, 18:40

Copper is cheap talking of when its made for the usage of wires/cables.
Steel and alloy are cheaper.

I install thousands of meters every month of such electrical cables.

Youll commonly never find in retail/specialist cable that is gold based, it is the best conductor, just talking words from college lecturers a few years ago, it got me an A level.

I "think" copper, is ranked third best conductor, maybe second.

If you use a copper wire, ideally you use brass for the termination.
Reason being is that very tiny arcs are created if you use copper to alloy/silver, the higher the voltage the more arcs created, which helps higher resistance which you dont want.

If using an aluminium wire then you use same metal for termination, a silver coat helps.
Reason being alluminium arcs against brass (i dont know why but thats how it happens).

In specialist situations (LV and HV), tiny quantities of gold mesh peaces are supplied to wrap around any termination as it produces less resistivity, better conductivity.
Extra low voltage (25vac-) (audio/video signals) wires dont really notice the above mentioned, so an alloy termination is cheapest so thats what they use for that voltage range, hence silver (solder) is used in all tiny circuitry which typically have all alloy terminations.

MDX · 20-11-2003, 18:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Jim Rae
I have taken part in a test between Monster cables and budget cables with two identical Sky boxes and two Philips Pixel Plus TVs.

Absolutely no difference to be seen.

I had to look round the back to see which was which - and even when I knew which was which - there was no picture difference at all - honest!

Quote:

Originally posted by comicsansserif
I once saw a display in Dixons where they had a DVD player plying into 2 "identical" portable TV's one with a £50 SCART connection and the other a £5 one. The TV connected with the expensive SCART had fantastic colour and contrast. The other was very washed out pale and poor contrast. There was no way that even using a cheap lead you would have got a picture that poor. It was certainly down to picture set up on the TV. When I asked a sales assistant if I could exchange the leads and TV's needless to say he wouldn't let me or do it himself even when I promissed I'd buy the lead if it gave the same results on the other TV. Nuff said really.

to the both of you go to your local *Comet* store as most Comet people go on the Monster training (Dixons dont as far as i know)and they will let you play with anything you want.

tichtich · 20-11-2003, 20:05

I'm not sure if this is irrelevant, but I have a problem which I was thinking might be due to an inadequate Scart cable.

When I play DVDs, I can often see some ghostly images moving from left to right across the screen. I assume this is some sort of interference, and I thought it might be due to an inadequately shielded cable. Any opinions?

Perhaps I should mention that I've got the DVD and TV set up with an S-video connection. The problem seems to disappear if I set the connection to RGB (using a different Scart socket on the TV), but there's a separate reason why I want to use S-video rather than RGB.

Orbitalzone · 20-11-2003, 21:53

Yes this is the 'cross talk' you hear mentioned....

The TV scart socket outputs the last viewed terrestrial channel via the scart socket EVEN when you are viewing a scart socket input... so essentially there's an outgoing image/sound down the cable while you're watching the incoming signal from your DVD, VCR or DIgibox... the two merge (signals from one wire bleed across to the other wires and you get some faint image/sound breakthrough.

Usually using a better quality screened scart cable should cure this, or if you're a bit short of cash, open the scart plug that goes into the TV, find the wire that connects to pin19 (should be numbered) and cut the lead, wrap it in some insulating tape so it can't touch any other wire... reassemble plug and problem solved!

The scart lead now works one way, so if you reverse the cable, it may not work correctly....

hope that helps

tichtich · 20-11-2003, 23:31

Thanks for the info. My DVD box is actually a recorder, so I use the cable in both directions. It looks like I need to buy a better cable. The one I have came free with the recorder.

comicsansserif · 21-11-2003, 08:45

Quote:

Thanks for the info. My DVD box is actually a recorder, so I use the cable in both directions. It looks like I need to buy a better cable. The one I have came free with the recorder.

I would be very surprised if you record from your TV tuner. Doesn't the DVD have its own tuner?

Phil S · 21-11-2003, 09:42

This Scart talk has got far to technical. At the end of the day if your happy with the picture and sound your getting then its the right lead for you. In my case I had "flutter" on the picture and slightly costlier double screened leads cured it. (£4.99 from £2.99). £50 Scart leads are a total rip off and unnecesary.

18-11-2003, 16:42	#1
AMcG Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Dublin Posts: 170	Gold plated vs. ordinary scarts I'd be grateful if anyonce could tell me what the great advantage is in having gold plated scarts vs. ordinary cheap ones? I need to buy three so the combined difference between the two types would be €42 vs. €21.50... Thanks.

19-11-2003, 09:34	#2
tight fart Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Hainault Posts: 77	The shop makes more money, scarts should cost no more than £5 each.

19-11-2003, 10:57	#3
mpark Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Northampton Posts: 639	Forget gold plated, oxygen free copper, etc unless you're a real HiFi nut. But do look out for ones that "individually screened". Cheap thin SCART cables can suffer from interference problems, but if each wire inside is individually screened that shouldn't be a problem.

19-11-2003, 11:32	#4
GDK Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Wigan Posts: 4,892	Quote: Originally posted by tight fart The shop makes more money, scarts should cost no more than £5 each. Yeah, sure. As long as you don't mind looking at pictures with interference and listening to sound with inteference due to cross talk in the cheap cables. Not to mention having to push them back in occasionally after they slip back a bit in the socket, causing the total loss of picure or sound or both. You don't need to go to the expense of single cables costing £50 and upwards each (SQART etc), but getting gold plated connectors wired with just the pins you need connected and each wire separately shielded is my advice. And don't buy them in either a specialist hifi shop or Currys and the like. If you've got a specialist electronics hobby shop in your area (a bit anoraky, I know, but worth it), they'll probably make cables up for you to your spec cheaper than you could buy them from those places. Graeme

19-11-2003, 14:17	#5
Jim Rae Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Ayrshire Posts: 4,125	You don't need gold SCART plugs - you ain't got gold sockets have you? You don't need anything more than £10 a go as they are connecting to very basic circuitry inside the set.

19-11-2003, 17:08	#6
Phil S Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 1,749	In my experience gold plated make little difference to any performance but they will not oxidise after a few years like ordinary ones do. More importantly get ones that are double screened. Modern TV circuitry is much more sensitive to cross interference on Scarts than a few years ago. Double insulated cuts out the flutter you can get on bright colours. Wilkinsons (if you have one in your area) do a gold plated double insulated fully wired scart for £4.99. Don't buy at Dixons, Currys, Argos etc cos you'll get ripped off.

19-11-2003, 17:26	#7
MDX Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 3,829	the best scarts i have ever seen are Monster Scart Cables that cost from £19.95 to £69.95 from Comet. the picture and sound diff is so much dont listen to the people who say just get a £5 one because there is so much difference, if its a shit TV then get a £20 Monster Scart but if its a good TV (£500+) get a nice £69.95 Monster Scart. there are no other Scarts in the World like Monster Scart cables as they are the only one in the world to be made the way they are.

19-11-2003, 20:41	#8
The_One Inactive Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Birmingham Posts: 2,359	Gold is the best metal to carry power/signals. Copper used for wires is used because theres just so much of it on the planet, so its cheap, and does a good enough job. Only people that are very seriously into quality entertainment will use gold, or unless your a snob and think your "it" if you have gold connections even if they havnt a clue how it all works. 99.999999999999% of the human population couldnt tell the difference from using gold or anything else for their home entertainment.

20-11-2003, 09:51	#9
chrisbartley Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: berks Posts: 1,643	Be nice for some people to have matching gold taps and scart cables - that sort of things important to some people ( fortunatly I don't know any) Quote: there are no other Scarts in the World like Monster Scart cables as they are the only one in the world to be made the way they are. LIke drugs I think the only valid test is a double blind test - I think your judgement may be clouded by just having forked out £70 for a cable which may lead you to 'see' an improvement Wonder if they do one of these for SCART leads And don't forget the main lead - that can make such a difference - Think I'm joking, then have a look round AVFORUMS, there are people on there paying £40 a metre for 'special' mains cable and having the elements of the 3 pin plug gold plated - I wonder what they think happens on the 3 mile of cable that connects them to the national grid Link "Footman - Bring me my new clothes ! "

20-11-2003, 10:07	#10
Orbitalzone Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Sussex Posts: 12,173	While decent cables can make a massive difference, theres still the simple fact that probably a large amount of the lower cost 'gold' plated scart cables are probably such low grade gold that it's more likely to be tarnished and so makes a poor connection... especially when scart sockets aren't gold... oxydisation is possible where the 2 different metals touch, causing resistance, waving goodbye to the supposed impovements by using gold in the first place. Of course there are good gold plated scart leads and there are useless gold plated scarts, just like there are excellent non gold plated scart leads which will outperform a cheoply made gold scart lead. It is important to use good cables, but having owned a TV shop until not so long ago, I know just how much profit there is on AV cables... and even the monster scart cables are probably still made in China (I don't know this for sure however) and therefore I'd still not pay the sort of prices that they go for.. I used to be able to buy good quality fully screened scart cables for about £4 plus VAT in bulk quantities.... of course they weren't branded or translucent blue cased, but internally they were well made with good screening ability.... retailed for about £10 to £12..... plenty good enough considering most TV sets have awful non screened circuitry on the inside.... Anyhow, I still think a decent scart cable shouldn't need to cost any more than £20....unless you've got top notch AV gear perhaps. Oh and finally, the scart connector is pretty awful in design for the purpose it's used for... I just couldn't part with £40 for something so god damned badly conceived! (Orbitalzone runs for cover!)

20-11-2003, 10:40	#11
comicsansserif Forum Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: In front of my computer! Posts: 2,865	Quote: Gold is the best metal to carry power/signals. Copper used for wires is used because theres just so much of it on the planet, so its cheap, and does a good enough job. Actually as far as I am aware Silver is the best electrical conductor followed closely by Copper. Gold is a poor third but used because of its resistance to corrosion and so is ideal for coating outer surfaces which are prone to oxidisation where Copper and Silver could be a problem.

20-11-2003, 11:05	#12
AMcG Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Dublin Posts: 170	Wow - thanks for all the replies. And here I thought that there was just one decisive answer! I really didn't know that there would be so much contention on this front. Certainly I can't afford to spend £60 per lead, in fact even £20 per lead would seem to me to be steep (skinflint that I am) and after reading all the replies I may just purchase 3 leads from D.I.D. for €6.50 each. Are there any other arguments that might sway me?

20-11-2003, 15:15	#13
David (2) Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: S.West England. Posts: 18,037	In recent times, I had to buy a new scart lead for the Sky box (the one they put on for me was loose and falling apart). I paid £10 for a 1.5m long scart in Dixons. Works very well, and is put together well. No problems. Go for something like that and you should be fine. I notice that Homebase have got some scart cables with the new "latched" plugs. Simply put, this latches onto the one's on the scart socket on the back of the equipment, helping to keep a firm connection. Nice idea, as scart cables can be heavy. But, only some new equipment has got the matching latched sockets. You can still use these wires on equipment without the matching latched sockets, but there would be no advantage over a cheaper "non-latched" scart cable. Gold on silver or silver on gold wont give the advantage we are often told of in the shops (due to the mixing of 2 types of metal). Silver on silver is fine, or gold on gold (some equipment does have gold connectors). Scart wires with both normal all over shielding and the individual core screen is a good bet. You shouldn't get any cross over between the various internal wires. I did have one old scart a few years back which suffered from cross talk badly, and you could see it on the screen in the form of another tv channel faintly visible in the background of the video playing in the foreground. Another things was, the colours (mainly reds) had a "pulsing" effect on the screenNot nice. Dave

20-11-2003, 15:37	#14
Jim Rae Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Ayrshire Posts: 4,125	I have taken part in a test between Monster cables and budget cables with two identical Sky boxes and two Philips Pixel Plus TVs. Absolutely no difference to be seen. I had to look round the back to see which was which - and even when I knew which was which - there was no picture difference at all - honest!

20-11-2003, 15:48	#15
comicsansserif Forum Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: In front of my computer! Posts: 2,865	I once saw a display in Dixons where they had a DVD player plying into 2 "identical" portable TV's one with a £50 SCART connection and the other a £5 one. The TV connected with the expensive SCART had fantastic colour and contrast. The other was very washed out pale and poor contrast. There was no way that even using a cheap lead you would have got a picture that poor. It was certainly down to picture set up on the TV. When I asked a sales assistant if I could exchange the leads and TV's needless to say he wouldn't let me or do it himself even when I promissed I'd buy the lead if it gave the same results on the other TV. Nuff said really.

20-11-2003, 15:54	#16
AMcG Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Dublin Posts: 170	I've found a place in Letterkenny that sells fully shielded gold scart leads (http://www.donberg.ie/descript/s/scatale5.htm) for €5.90 a pop (ex. VAT). I'm presuming that I can't go too far wrong with these...

20-11-2003, 16:31	#17
AndyM Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Lincoln Posts: 1,621	Quote: Originally posted by The_One Gold is the best metal to carry power/signals. Copper used for wires is used because theres just so much of it on the planet, so its cheap, and does a good enough job. Only people that are very seriously into quality entertainment will use gold, or unless your a snob and think your "it" if you have gold connections even if they havnt a clue how it all works. 99.999999999999% of the human population couldnt tell the difference from using gold or anything else for their home entertainment. Copper certainly isn't cheap, if that was the reason the cable would be made of steel. Copper is used because of its high ductility and conductivity. Monster cables are certainly good but im sure they're not the best in the world, I've never seen anything that good in Comet Personally I'd pay a bit more for the build quality, so they stay in the sockets.

20-11-2003, 16:43	#18
AndyM Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Lincoln Posts: 1,621	Quote: Originally posted by comicsansserif Actually as far as I am aware Silver is the best electrical conductor followed closely by Copper. Gold is a poor third but used because of its resistance to corrosion and so is ideal for coating outer surfaces which are prone to oxidisation where Copper and Silver could be a problem. That is correct, silver is the best, pure copper and some of its alloys and second and gold is third. Aluminium isn't far behind gold. Gold is a very stable material and doesn't oxidise easily hence why it makes a good coating.

20-11-2003, 18:40	#19
The_One Inactive Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Birmingham Posts: 2,359	Copper is cheap talking of when its made for the usage of wires/cables. Steel and alloy are cheaper. I install thousands of meters every month of such electrical cables. Youll commonly never find in retail/specialist cable that is gold based, it is the best conductor, just talking words from college lecturers a few years ago, it got me an A level. I "think" copper, is ranked third best conductor, maybe second. If you use a copper wire, ideally you use brass for the termination. Reason being is that very tiny arcs are created if you use copper to alloy/silver, the higher the voltage the more arcs created, which helps higher resistance which you dont want. If using an aluminium wire then you use same metal for termination, a silver coat helps. Reason being alluminium arcs against brass (i dont know why but thats how it happens). In specialist situations (LV and HV), tiny quantities of gold mesh peaces are supplied to wrap around any termination as it produces less resistivity, better conductivity. Extra low voltage (25vac-) (audio/video signals) wires dont really notice the above mentioned, so an alloy termination is cheapest so thats what they use for that voltage range, hence silver (solder) is used in all tiny circuitry which typically have all alloy terminations.

20-11-2003, 18:43	#20
MDX Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 3,829	Quote: Originally posted by Jim Rae I have taken part in a test between Monster cables and budget cables with two identical Sky boxes and two Philips Pixel Plus TVs. Absolutely no difference to be seen. I had to look round the back to see which was which - and even when I knew which was which - there was no picture difference at all - honest! Quote: Originally posted by comicsansserif I once saw a display in Dixons where they had a DVD player plying into 2 "identical" portable TV's one with a £50 SCART connection and the other a £5 one. The TV connected with the expensive SCART had fantastic colour and contrast. The other was very washed out pale and poor contrast. There was no way that even using a cheap lead you would have got a picture that poor. It was certainly down to picture set up on the TV. When I asked a sales assistant if I could exchange the leads and TV's needless to say he wouldn't let me or do it himself even when I promissed I'd buy the lead if it gave the same results on the other TV. Nuff said really. to the both of you go to your local Comet store as most Comet people go on the Monster training (Dixons dont as far as i know)and they will let you play with anything you want.

20-11-2003, 20:05	#21
tichtich Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,094	I'm not sure if this is irrelevant, but I have a problem which I was thinking might be due to an inadequate Scart cable. When I play DVDs, I can often see some ghostly images moving from left to right across the screen. I assume this is some sort of interference, and I thought it might be due to an inadequately shielded cable. Any opinions? Perhaps I should mention that I've got the DVD and TV set up with an S-video connection. The problem seems to disappear if I set the connection to RGB (using a different Scart socket on the TV), but there's a separate reason why I want to use S-video rather than RGB.

DS Forums

Gold plated vs. ordinary scarts

20-11-2003, 21:53	#22
Orbitalzone Forum Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Sussex Posts: 12,173	Yes this is the 'cross talk' you hear mentioned.... The TV scart socket outputs the last viewed terrestrial channel via the scart socket EVEN when you are viewing a scart socket input... so essentially there's an outgoing image/sound down the cable while you're watching the incoming signal from your DVD, VCR or DIgibox... the two merge (signals from one wire bleed across to the other wires and you get some faint image/sound breakthrough. Usually using a better quality screened scart cable should cure this, or if you're a bit short of cash, open the scart plug that goes into the TV, find the wire that connects to pin19 (should be numbered) and cut the lead, wrap it in some insulating tape so it can't touch any other wire... reassemble plug and problem solved! The scart lead now works one way, so if you reverse the cable, it may not work correctly.... hope that helps

20-11-2003, 23:31	#23
tichtich Forum Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,094	Thanks for the info. My DVD box is actually a recorder, so I use the cable in both directions. It looks like I need to buy a better cable. The one I have came free with the recorder.

21-11-2003, 08:45	#24
comicsansserif Forum Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: In front of my computer! Posts: 2,865	Quote: Thanks for the info. My DVD box is actually a recorder, so I use the cable in both directions. It looks like I need to buy a better cable. The one I have came free with the recorder. I would be very surprised if you record from your TV tuner. Doesn't the DVD have its own tuner?

21-11-2003, 09:42	#25
Phil S Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 1,749	This Scart talk has got far to technical. At the end of the day if your happy with the picture and sound your getting then its the right lead for you. In my case I had "flutter" on the picture and slightly costlier double screened leads cured it. (£4.99 from £2.99). £50 Scart leads are a total rip off and unnecesary.