HDMI v Scart
28 December 2008, 10:07 AM
#31
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Just to pick up on Beefs point - the BBC did an experiment many years ago in a large auditorium. They played various music sources and they were actually testing the ability to differentiate between bitrate and quality. If I remember correctly only about 2% could tell the difference between 14 and 16 bitrate equivalent. The number who could tell the difference between 12 and 14 was much higher.
IMHO using a cable that compromises the investment in an HD source and panel for the want an extra £20-40, when probably over a grand has already been shelled out, seems bizarre to say the least.
However in terms of audio I am probably in the 2% that can both tell the difference and the small %age of that that cares!
IMHO using a cable that compromises the investment in an HD source and panel for the want an extra £20-40, when probably over a grand has already been shelled out, seems bizarre to say the least.
However in terms of audio I am probably in the 2% that can both tell the difference and the small %age of that that cares!
30 December 2008, 10:05 AM
#33
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You can transmit whatever the hell you like over a scart lead - you could even use it as network cabling if you wanted. It's just pins and wires at the end of the day.
What you mean is that you almost certainly won't find any AV equipment that will transmit/receive a HD signal from a scart socket.
What you mean is that you almost certainly won't find any AV equipment that will transmit/receive a HD signal from a scart socket.
There is NO ratified standard for HD transmission over scart, therefore you CANNOT get HD over scart!
Just like I said before..............!
Jason
30 December 2008, 10:08 AM
#34
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What I mean is the you CANNOT get HD over a scart lead. If you want to be pedantic, you cannot transmit what the hell you like over a scart lead as there are standards in transmission of signals that have to be met by ALL manufacturers of electronic equipment for them to be licensed.
There is NO ratified standard for HD transmission over scart, therefore you CANNOT get HD over scart!
Just like I said before..............!
Jason
There is NO ratified standard for HD transmission over scart, therefore you CANNOT get HD over scart!
Just like I said before..............!
Jason
Just like I said before..............!
30 December 2008, 10:21 AM
#35
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I am not contesting what you are saying, if you read my post, you will see that I am talking about what is allowed by manufacturers, which is what matters and is relevant.
Not what can be done by some Maplin fanboy in his shed. Lets face it, who cares about that.
It does not matter in the real world
Jason
Not what can be done by some Maplin fanboy in his shed. Lets face it, who cares about that.
It does not matter in the real world
Jason
30 December 2008, 11:56 AM
#36
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I am not contesting what you are saying, if you read my post, you will see that I am talking about what is allowed by manufacturers, which is what matters and is relevant.
Not what can be done by some Maplin fanboy in his shed. Lets face it, who cares about that.
It does not matter in the real world
Jason
Not what can be done by some Maplin fanboy in his shed. Lets face it, who cares about that.
It does not matter in the real world
Jason
30 December 2008, 12:04 PM
#37
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I know this can be quite a heated subject, but here's my 2p worth
I got my PS3 last Christmas and got Spiderman 3 with it on Blu Ray. Now to start with I was using the scart cable that came with it into the back of my HD TV.
To be honest I wasn't that impressed with it. Quality was about the same as DVD, sometimes the black had funny tone changes and the animated action squencies were noticably blurry
A few days later a friend pointed me to a site called hificables.co.uk and I ordered an HDMI cable that What HiFi? had tested and came in 2nd place for about £35 a meter (at £90 odd quid a meter for first place it would have to do!)
I watched the same film again, on the same TV without changing anything but the scart for my new HDMI cable and it totally transformed the image. Black was clearer, the picture was brighter and the action stuff was almost perfect
We can argue about the differences all day long, but in my eyes anyway I have seen the differences - and I am very very impressed!
I got my PS3 last Christmas and got Spiderman 3 with it on Blu Ray. Now to start with I was using the scart cable that came with it into the back of my HD TV.
To be honest I wasn't that impressed with it. Quality was about the same as DVD, sometimes the black had funny tone changes and the animated action squencies were noticably blurry
A few days later a friend pointed me to a site called hificables.co.uk and I ordered an HDMI cable that What HiFi? had tested and came in 2nd place for about £35 a meter (at £90 odd quid a meter for first place it would have to do!)
I watched the same film again, on the same TV without changing anything but the scart for my new HDMI cable and it totally transformed the image. Black was clearer, the picture was brighter and the action stuff was almost perfect
We can argue about the differences all day long, but in my eyes anyway I have seen the differences - and I am very very impressed!
30 December 2008, 12:47 PM
#38
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I think most people agree that there's a massive difference between Scart and HDMI leads.
It's just some are still hung up on the need to pay silly money for a lead that is no better.
I liked the similarities to a Maplin fanboy making a lead himself. I've watched plenty of Arri technicians solder leads in dusty studio's to link the HD cam's to the desks. I can only guess the signal and picture quality is improved later by some peoples Blu Ray players, resulting in the need for these super expensive leads.
I can't work out why all these people that own the equipment, which film's the bloody stuff, don't know as much as some of the SN massive.
It's just some are still hung up on the need to pay silly money for a lead that is no better.
I liked the similarities to a Maplin fanboy making a lead himself. I've watched plenty of Arri technicians solder leads in dusty studio's to link the HD cam's to the desks. I can only guess the signal and picture quality is improved later by some peoples Blu Ray players, resulting in the need for these super expensive leads.
I can't work out why all these people that own the equipment, which film's the bloody stuff, don't know as much as some of the SN massive.
30 December 2008, 03:47 PM
#39
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There are several issues all being confused here 
A SCART lead can carry a video signal in one of four formats, all of which are (in the UK, at least) based on the PAL transmission standard. That means they're all SD (Standard Definition) - 625 lines, interlaced and analogue.
The formats used are:
- Composite video (aka CVBS). This uses a single wire to carry both luminance (brightness) and chrominance (colour) signals, and looks, frankly, pretty awful.
- S-video. This uses separate wires for luminance and chrominance, and looks much better for it.
- RGB. Uses four wires, one each for red, green and blue plus a fourth for picture synchronisation. This is the most common system used by DVD players.
- Component video, which has a luminance signal and two separate colour difference signals. This tends to be used by high-end kit and is rarely used over SCART - typically a set of 3 RCA cables are used instead.
Before you argue about whether SCART is better or worse than something else, you need to be absolutely clear about which signal type you're using. If you have two pieces of equipment connected with a SCART lead and using CVBS, you could get a massive improvement just by going into their setup menus and changing them to use RGB instead.
One thing that all four standards have in common is that they're analogue, so the quality of the cable does matter, especially if it's a long one.
HDMI is a completely digital interconnect, so the signal remains digital all the way from your DVD/Blu-ray player or games console all the way to the TV, with no unnecessary conversion in between to degrade it. This means that the HDMI connection is not degrading the signal at all unless it's actually broken.
With a few rare exceptions, high definition (HD) signals can ONLY be carried over HDMI - so if you use something else to connect two pieces of HD capable equipment, they're having to work in a 'backwards compatibility' mode just to give a picture at all. In that case it's no wonder Blu-ray looks just like DVD, because all the extra picture detail has to be simply thrown away.
Because HDMI carries a digital signal, then as long as the cable is good enough, the TV can accurately recover 100% of the bits that are sent by the source. Using a better cable achieves nothing but line the pockets of hi-fi retailers.
(For the doubters: can you tell by looking at this post whether I'm using a desktop PC or a laptop, whether my internet connection is wired or wireless, or maybe who my ISP is? No? Correct.)
One or two people have compared HDMI to S/PDIF, the standard used to transmit digital audio. This is an interesting one because, if your DAC is poorly designed, then the quality of the cable actually can make a difference to what you hear for reasons I'll be happy to explain by PM to anyone that's interested. But it's nothing to do with bits getting lost or corrupted.
The bottom line:
- use HDMI wherever you can
- don't buy the very cheapest cables, especially if it's more than half a metre long
- buying a very expensive cable, on the other hand, shows the world that you don't understand what a digital signal is. There's a reason the computer industry doesn't use gold-plated triple screened Ethernet cables...
A SCART lead can carry a video signal in one of four formats, all of which are (in the UK, at least) based on the PAL transmission standard. That means they're all SD (Standard Definition) - 625 lines, interlaced and analogue.
The formats used are:
- Composite video (aka CVBS). This uses a single wire to carry both luminance (brightness) and chrominance (colour) signals, and looks, frankly, pretty awful.
- S-video. This uses separate wires for luminance and chrominance, and looks much better for it.
- RGB. Uses four wires, one each for red, green and blue plus a fourth for picture synchronisation. This is the most common system used by DVD players.
- Component video, which has a luminance signal and two separate colour difference signals. This tends to be used by high-end kit and is rarely used over SCART - typically a set of 3 RCA cables are used instead.
Before you argue about whether SCART is better or worse than something else, you need to be absolutely clear about which signal type you're using. If you have two pieces of equipment connected with a SCART lead and using CVBS, you could get a massive improvement just by going into their setup menus and changing them to use RGB instead.
One thing that all four standards have in common is that they're analogue, so the quality of the cable does matter, especially if it's a long one.
HDMI is a completely digital interconnect, so the signal remains digital all the way from your DVD/Blu-ray player or games console all the way to the TV, with no unnecessary conversion in between to degrade it. This means that the HDMI connection is not degrading the signal at all unless it's actually broken.
With a few rare exceptions, high definition (HD) signals can ONLY be carried over HDMI - so if you use something else to connect two pieces of HD capable equipment, they're having to work in a 'backwards compatibility' mode just to give a picture at all. In that case it's no wonder Blu-ray looks just like DVD, because all the extra picture detail has to be simply thrown away.
Because HDMI carries a digital signal, then as long as the cable is good enough, the TV can accurately recover 100% of the bits that are sent by the source. Using a better cable achieves nothing but line the pockets of hi-fi retailers.
(For the doubters: can you tell by looking at this post whether I'm using a desktop PC or a laptop, whether my internet connection is wired or wireless, or maybe who my ISP is? No? Correct.)
One or two people have compared HDMI to S/PDIF, the standard used to transmit digital audio. This is an interesting one because, if your DAC is poorly designed, then the quality of the cable actually can make a difference to what you hear for reasons I'll be happy to explain by PM to anyone that's interested. But it's nothing to do with bits getting lost or corrupted.
The bottom line:
- use HDMI wherever you can
- don't buy the very cheapest cables, especially if it's more than half a metre long
- buying a very expensive cable, on the other hand, shows the world that you don't understand what a digital signal is. There's a reason the computer industry doesn't use gold-plated triple screened Ethernet cables...
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