Noticable difference between scart and hdmi

worzel_gummidge

hi,

i have recently purchased an lcd hd projector (panasonic ae900)and am very pleased with it,

Today i bought a sony HDMI DVP-NS76H for a nice price,

i am currently connecting the two with a gold plated scart lead (techlink).

Ill be buying a hdmi lead in the next few days.....i was wondering if there would be much difference between the scart and the hdmi lead in terms of picture quality etc........

any ideas??? both the projector and the dvd player have a hdmi connection.....

would i notice much difference if i bought a hdmi lead???

thanks for your time.

vms7ply9t6dw4b

Yes, a big difference scart doesnt even support progressive scan and the dvd player will upscale your dvds right up to 1080i

SouperComputer

it should improve the quality alright, although it should be rememberd that "SCART" doesnt have a defined quality as such.

The reason for that is that it is a carrier both in and out for a multitude of standards. Including L&R audio, RGB, Composite and Svideo. The quality will depend on what pins are wired up in SCART cable you have, and also what is available on the source and destination appliances.

For example if you have two devices that support RGB and a cable that has the RGB pins wired, changing to a VGA plug will yield little improvement, espcially at lower res'

Also, be warned that using gold plated plugs with non-plated connectors can lead to corrosion. Of course the same applies to gold socket and a non-gold plug.

The AE900 is a great projector, what is your source of signal?

Ivan E

Changed a connection with a scart connection one end and 3 separate composite connections the other end with just a standard two ended scart and it made a huge difference. Although I then changed a scart with component connections and switched my progressive scanning on. Can't say I noticed a difference there which was a huge disappointment to me. Although the lead is 5m long and the scart was only 1m.

I would think that the hdmi makes a big difference judging by the demo's in the shops using the upscaling dvd players.

Balfa

I have a 32" LCD TV and recently got an upscaling DVD player with HDMI output. I hooked up both the component YPbPr progressive scan and the HDMI and didn't notice a huge difference at an upscaled 720p or 1080i. The difference was there, and most noticable in colour reproduction, but it wasn't huge.

Don't forget that, being digital, the quality of a HDMI cable doesn't matter one dot. There's no difference at all between a flashy packaged $100 cable, and the $7 one that I bought online. So don't go looking for a "good quality" cable to get the best picture, because it just doesn't work that way.

mossym

Balfa wrote:

I have a 32" LCD TV and recently got an upscaling DVD player with HDMI output. I hooked up both the component YPbPr progressive scan and the HDMI and didn't notice a huge difference at an upscaled 720p or 1080i. The difference was there, and most noticable in colour reproduction, but it wasn't huge.

Don't forget that, being digital, the quality of a HDMI cable doesn't matter one dot. There's no difference at all between a flashy packaged $100 cable, and the $7 one that I bought online. So don't go looking for a "good quality" cable to get the best picture, because it just doesn't work that way.

depends on the length of the run. What you say is completely true for short cables...but put a cheap cable over 35ft and see what you get. The newest thing in hdmi is going to be cable equalisers which will allow you to compensate for speaker distances. but for now, for longer runs, better cable is better..

Idleater

Remi Weak Videodisc wrote:

Yes, a big difference scart doesnt even support progressive scan and the dvd player will upscale your dvds right up to 1080i

What if the scaler in the screen/projector is better than the one in the dvd player?

Then by using HDMI you are actually decreasing the picture quality...

Also, using 1080i on a 720p screen results in more scaling which reduces the picture quality. More source lines only results in better picture quality if the screen matches the amount of lines. If not, (and most screens are 1366x768 (or 720p)) then the screen must deinterlace and rescale the signal.

Though of course, the 1080i - 720p scaling/deinterlacing is optimised on most screens. There is a good chance that it will result in some slight lip sync delay.

L.

mossym

nereid wrote:

What if the scaler in the screen/projector is better than the one in the dvd player?

Then by using HDMI you are actually decreasing the picture quality...

Also, using 1080i on a 720p screen results in more scaling which reduces the picture quality. More source lines only results in better picture quality if the screen matches the amount of lines. If not, (and most screens are 1366x768 (or 720p)) then the screen must deinterlace and rescale the signal.

Though of course, the 1080i - 720p scaling/deinterlacing is optimised on most screens. There is a good chance that it will result in some slight lip sync delay.

L.

then use the hdmi to send a signal that hasn't been upconverted..
hdmi is a higher bandwidth connecion than scart..it can send everything that scart can, and more..so saying that scart will give you a better picture than hdmi is crazy.the same signal that can be sent by scart can be sent by hdmi. however in scart it goes from digital to analog, then back to digital when it reaches the tv. When it goes hdmi, it's digital all the way to the tv.

if you are getting betterr results with scart than hdmi, your hdmi isn't set up right..what you say about 1080i into a 720p tv is ture...but then jsut set your hdmi to output 720p..or if the scalar in the tv is better, set your hdmi to just pass the data without uponverting or whatever gives you best result.

Balfa

mossym wrote:

depends on the length of the run. What you say is completely true for short cables...but put a cheap cable over 35ft and see what you get. The newest thing in hdmi is going to be cable equalisers which will allow you to compensate for speaker distances. but for now, for longer runs, better cable is better..

Well of course, but I don't want him to be conned by any sales people telling him he'll get a better quality picture with a better cable. Either it'll work perfectly with perfect picture, or you'll get nothing (er, or you'll get choppy skipping video, like a badly streaming internet video - but that's so bad it still pretty much counts as "nothing" )

edit: And the same, of course, goes for digital audio cable, be it coax or optical. Only, for audio, there tends to be far more bandwidth than needed, so you've got to be running it some serious distances before the cheaper cables start cutting in and out.

Sad Professor

I have the NS76H hooked up via HDMI and I find a huge improvement in picture quality. Although I don't notice much difference between resolutions but then my LCD tv is only 26".

Maybe I've been using bad cables over the years but SCART has always looked bad to me.

Balfa

Sad Professor wrote:

SCART has always looked bad to me.

As mentioned above, SCART is just a physical connector which carries one or more of the following signals: composite video, component s-video or component RGB video. If you're passing composite video through your SCART cables, of course it'll look bad, but if you're passing RGB video through, it should look great.

To pass RGB it must be supported by your cable (must have the correct pins/conductors), your source (for example, you can often choose which signal to output from the SCART socket in your DVD player's setup menu) and your TV (many TVs with multiple SCART inputs will only accept RGB through one and S-video through the other, so make sure to read your manual and use the appropriate socket).

Sad Professor

Even with RGB I've always found the image less than great but like I said I've probably just been using bad cables. Would a gold plated or high quality SCART make any difference?

Also is dvd player upscaling basically a waste of time unless your tv is native 1280x720/1920x1080?

Balfa

Sad Professor wrote:

Even with RGB I've always found the image less than great

Well, surely for that to be the case, you'd need to be comparing it to something really good, right? What other connectors have you used that are better? Or are you just incredibly difficult to satisfy?

Would a gold plated or high quality SCART make any difference?

A "high quality" cable might make a difference but, to be honest, the fairly cheap component (YPbPr) cables I use give me really satisfying image quality, so I can't imagine that it'd be that different SCART. As for gold plated, the most important thing is to get a cable with the same connectors as your components. Two different metals in contact will deteriorate each other. After that, I'd have my doubts that gold connections significantly affect the quality, but cables that use gold tend to be better and more expensive anyway, so it's hard to judge.

Also is dvd player upscaling basically a waste of time unless your tv is native 1280x720/1920x1080?

Well, I suppose technically you're going to be upscaling, transmitting the signal, then downscaling it again to something that isn't the same as the original. So yes. What's yours, 720x480?

Sad Professor

Balfa wrote:

Well, surely for that to be the case, you'd need to be comparing it to something really good, right? What other connectors have you used that are better? Or are you just incredibly difficult to satisfy?

I've found the HDMI connection that I'm using now much superior but that's probably because its progressive which SCART isn't. I've never had component on any of my tvs so this is my first experience of progressive scan and I guess I notice a big difference.

Perhaps its just interlacing that's been bothering me all these years.

Balfa wrote:

Well, I suppose technically you're going to be upscaling, transmitting the signal, then downscaling it again to something that isn't the same as the original. So yes. What's yours, 720x480?

No, it's 1280x768 but the tv is going to be up/down scaling the signal anyway. Whether or not the DVD player is better at scaling than the tv doesn't matter since the tv is going to get it hands on it anyway. lol

On the issue of cables I guess I've always just believed there must be a reason for those ridiculously priced "high quality" scarts, etc. When I went to buy a hdmi/dvi cable last month it took me ages to find one at a reasonable price. The only ones I could find at first were those yokes for 80euro in Dixons and Currys.

80 euro!!! for a cable???

Balfa

Sad Professor wrote:

it's 1280x768

Are you sure it's not 1366x768? That's the standard resolution for widescreen "720p" TVs, at least over here.

Anyway, with that TV, you'd want to be upscaling to "720p".

Sad Professor

Balfa wrote:

Are you sure it's not 1366x768? That's the standard resolution for widescreen "720p" TVs, at least over here.

Anyway, with that TV, you'd want to be upscaling to "720p".

Yep, that's what the specs say. It's not 16:9 widescreen but 15:9 (which has caused me alot of headaches). But wouldn't the tv still be scaling the image to fit?

Cmar-Ireland

Just bought a dvpns76 as well. Once it's set up I will be feeding a 720p picture from it to a vplhs60 projector. I will be using a Tech+Link 10m hdmi to connect.
Previous set up was a ns930 feeding a vw10ht via component. So it will be interesting to see what the 720p is like compared to the 576p that I have been watching.

Regarding cable quality, there is a difference between low end and high end over longer runs. 10m would really push a low quality cable. But for typical 1-2m cables, it would not be much of an issue.

worzel_gummidge

there is a huge difference between scart and hdmi....

i was using the scart lead for the player then switched to hdmi,using a tech-link 10m cable(€50).

well worth it!

mathias

Yup ! Exactly the same experience myself , attached my Sky HD box by HDMI instead of the usual scart and the difference was huge ,
Just talking about the SD content now , not the HD.
It was the same with the Pioneer DVD , huge difference once I switched to the HDMI.

Balfa

Cmar-Ireland wrote:

Regarding cable quality, there is a difference between low end and high end over longer runs. 10m would really push a low quality cable. But for typical 1-2m cables, it would not be much of an issue.

You're forgetting that the same people who make the cable and know its quality are choosing to package and sell it in 10m lengths with a connector at each end. This is basically the same as them saying "our cable is good enoguh to work over 10m" and if it doesn't work then you can safely return it under the not-fit-for-intended-purpose consumer protection law.

Until someone shows me a HDMI cable that won't work where a more expensive one does, I'm refusing to believe this "better quality" thing... It's a hold-over concept from a home theater world that's used to analogue signal degredation.