mrtheedge2u2

Quick question....

Is the difference in quality between scart and HDMI really that noticeable?

Just want to know before I go out and buy one

HankScorpio

Depends on the source and the display.
If the source can output HD (PS3, SkyHD) AND the display can show it (HD Ready or Full HD TV) - yes.

Snazy

Most TV's and other devices will have both these days anyway. Im still happy with the scart on mine, as I was too tight at the time to buy the HDMI lol

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

I was told that the expensive HDMI leads are a waste of money, I have just bought a £10 off amazon, does anyone know if this is true?

ScooByer Trade

Depends on how much money you want to spend on the source and display. Yes there is a difference & you would instantly notice it.You can buy a blueray player from approx £150 to £1k and above.Most tv's support full hd now so can get one even on a tight budget.

ScooByer Trade

The only thing you need to worry about, is the protection of the cable from getting damaged. The signal is the same so yes that is true.

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

Nice one.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

1m cable 5 quid from Tesco

LG John

Is this a serious question!? The difference is night and day IMHO. Scart is sh*t! RGB-scart is better though but still not as good as HDMI.

GC8

Most SCART cables are carrying a composite video signal, which is at the bottom of the quality scale. RGB over SCART is better (where available) and a component (red, green & blue RCA connectors) is better still. A picture carried over an HDMI cable should be better than all as there is no unneccessary digital to analogue conversion. If the picture is a progressively scanned high definition one, then itll be better over HDMI than component too.

dunx

iTrader: (3)

I paid £20 for my HDMI lead as that's cheap for a quality Scart lead...

1080P up-scaled DVD is awesome, Blu-Ray also.

HTH

dunx

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Always remember, shorter the cable, the less resistance so better quality (unless you buy a stupidly expensive cable )
HDMI is the way forward though, but scart still does the job

Tony

LG John

Cable length and quality for HDMI is, in large part, a myth. It's a digital signal....it either gets there....or it doesn't. There's not much/any room for 'in-between'

Spooky Mulder

There are some excellent digital engineers who might beg to differ!

The signal that is sent is subject to complex error correction protocols to protect the final output. A very high quality connection/cable will maintain the digital signal more accurately.

Low quality cables where poor connections/soldering; insulators that introduce additional electronic noise all introduce errors to the digital signal. These errors then have to be either corrected (done through data packet interleaving so that any given analogue element does not depend on a single data packet).

If the error cannot be corrected the DAC will then 'create' an output by averaging the last and next clean signal.

These factors will affect the picture and sound in two ways. The harder the DAC is working then the less effective it is at producing clean output. If there is digital noise then there will be a degraded output and increased picture and audio artefacts.

These affects can easily be demonstrated on digital sound where a true 16bit audio signal can be degraded by as much as 2-3 bits, i.e. sound like 13-14bit which is very audible, by a poor quality connection.

c-o-l-e

HDMI is much better, but as spooky points out there are poor cables around that are incredibly graded.
I've bought cheap cables off eBay only to find that I can't get a signal through at 1080p.
Some cables work well with picture but can't pass through bitstream Dolby Digital signal.
You don't have to spend silly amounts of money on the cables but try and find cables from retailers that have customer reviews on their pages.

mike1210

Was just about to say what Spooky said, in my year out in uni I worked in Panasonic in the Digital section, you will see a difference between a bad cable and decent one IMO

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

This is very true.

It even occurs with uncompressed fiber optic audio. Notably a background hiss with a damaged/poor fiber optic cable; caused by the reflected signal interferring with the actual signal.

LG John

But for home application is Jonny Everybody really going to notice the difference between a half-decent £25 5m HDMI cable and a high end £150+ one? Very unlikely IMHO.

kona

trust me, you can tell the difference! I've had many cheap cables and bought a QED HDMI lead. the difference is noticeable, much smoother, no panning either...

Spooky Mulder

The difference between 14 bit and 16 bit audio is a bit like listening to Radio 1 (compressed and horrid) and the original CD. 13 bit is worse again.

For some people you may not care - however if you have shelled out over a grand on your HD panel and another £200-500 on your HD source it would seem to be a bit of a waste to then not have proper HD presentation for the want of a decent cable.

You don't need to spend £150, but you are probably better off spending £50 rather than £5-10 for an ebay special.

Odds on

That's a myth. You might want to check for damage to the original lead or some other piece of equipment.

PS, I work with the guys that film the stuff your watching on your Blu Ray/DVD player.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

My Xbox and PS3 both look superb on the cheapo HDMI cables that either came with it or were bought from Tesco for a Fiver, decent 1080P telly, couldnt really get worried about enhancing it any further, you end up AVForums getting all **** about it, its a telly ffs.

Anyway, retro VHS through an aerial cable is where its at, these digital mediums are to cold and I miss the banding, the sound going all muffled, cleaning the heads, I am joking of course but I still enjoyed the films, Blu Ray is a quantum leap over an Amstrad Video recorder, hence why I cant get too excited about £200 HDMI cable, I am sat here wearing my glasses and they are scratched to ****, putting my lenses in makes a bigger difference.

mrtheedge2u2

Yes it is......

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Always aim for teh middle ground:

BUT

Avoid Belkin and Monster and Ebay junk like the plague; most of which are bling, overpriced, poor sheilding, poor grade wire and poor crimping/solder joints on the connectors. But of course, all made to slook nice in nice packaging, thick silcone insulation and gold plated connectors.

But likewise there totally no need to spend anything over anything more than £40 on ANY cable (unless its really long), in most cases £15-20 suffices if you hunt around a bit pay attention to the cable's construction (not the insulation and gold plating ). Or make your own!

Jamz3k

I use QED HDMI-P Purple cables can't remember the actual name but they are fantastic!

Best buy HDMI in my opinion in the Cambridge Audio Budge HDMI 3m cable, its a great well stuck together cable and is good bang for buck.

Odds on

If you LOOK HERE, you'll see that every single lead has won 5 star awards, regardless of price! Trust me, you don't need to spend stupid money on these leads, they all do the same thing.

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

Unless your a serious audiofile??? Which I doubt from buyimg a cheap cable??? It will be spot on But as for scart vs HDMI c'mon was it worth a thread ???? It was obvious HDMI would be seriously better!!!

GlesgaKiss

Yes, yes it is.

Just went to HD on my Xbox 360, and the difference is like day and night. I'm yet to try a Blu-ray DVD on my PS3 with the HDMI cable, but I suspect it will be pretty impressive.

jsh1

iTrader: (1)

I think that the one obvious point here has been missed!

You CANNOT get any kind of HD signal from a Scart lead, whether it be 720P, 1080i or 1080P

So if you want HD, then you have to use an HDMI cable, unless you have an older Sky HD box that uses component, in which case you can use this for HD.

I have been in the AV industry for a long time including several years working for a very high end American cable company. I certainly believe that there is a difference in the quality of cables, but it is down to each individual whether they want to spend the money or not.

One more thing though, is that I would (controversially) is that I think that component is as good, if not better than HDMI. It is a myth that it was introduced to give us better sound and picture quality. It was brought in to give all of the film studios a very high quality copy protection system as they were very concerned about piracy from such a high quality source component.

It does also make connection simpler as the audio is also carried

Jason

Beef

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.

As for this whole thing about buying cheap/expensive HDMI cables, if the signal is getting from one end to the other without loss, great. Even if it does lose signal, it depends on whether the ECC takes a lossy or lossless approach (I would expect lossy). I would expect that 99% of people couldn't tell the difference. For the other 1%, well, there are people ready to relieve them of their money up to any point they choose.