S-Video or Scart for Sky box to Plasma

masterK

I have a Phillips plasma screen and want to connect my sky box to it. Both the TV and the sky box have s-video and scart connections available so I was wondering which one would be best to use? Is there any noticable picture quality differences between the two.

pH

Firstly SCART is not a format like s-video, SCART is just a connector arrangement, capable of delivering RGB, s-video, composite, stereo audio and widescreen switching on predefined pins.

So you cannot say is scart better - s-video on SCART is the same as s-video, composite on scart will normally be worse than s-video.

The best picture available from a Sky box is RGB over SCART. You need to check if the SCART inout on your TV is RGB compatible (it should be), and change the picture output on your Digibox from PAL to RGB, then use a SCART (must be in the TV output *NOT* the VCR output).

This will give you the best quality picture from Sky digibox, if your TV is any good then there should be a noticable improvement in clarity and colour separation over s-video.

masterK

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go later.

One more query, does the Scart lead you use make a whole lot of difference? If it does can anybody recommend me a good quality one and where to buy?

pH

Yes, some SCART leads don't have all the pins wired up in them, so you need one with everthing connected.

As to quality, I'm extremely skeptcial about gold plated connector what-nots, just get a decent quality cable (not the cheapest bit of taiwanese rubbish) and you'll be fine.