Sky + Box - is it just SCART?

Shep_Cobain · 9 Mar 2008 at 13:46

Right i noticed o nthe back of my Sky + box that there is S Video output. Could i buy an S Video cable and use that instead of SCART to send the picture to my 40" Samsung M87 tele?

pinkaardvark · 9 Mar 2008 at 13:47

Why would you want to?

Slogan · 9 Mar 2008 at 13:50

Yes and why would you want to?

It'll only do video by the way.

Shep_Cobain · 9 Mar 2008 at 13:53

SCART is terrible quality on my 1080p tele? is there ay other way of getting a sharper picture like SCART to HDMI or something? or SCART to component?

chronicbint · 9 Mar 2008 at 14:20

Shep_Cobain said:
SCART is terrible quality on my 1080p tele? is there ay other way of getting a sharper picture like SCART to HDMI or something? or SCART to component?

No, its poor quality because its SD mostly.

I have a 40" M87 and by playing with the settings I have achieved an acceptable quality. Check out AVForums for some settings to try with the M87. You could try getting a better quality SCART cable but this wont make a huge difference. Changing the settings is your best bet.

Slogan · 9 Mar 2008 at 14:52

How new is your television?

J1234 · 9 Mar 2008 at 14:58

Try an Ixos scart, improved my picture a lot when changing from the bog standard one that came from Sky.

Nymins · 9 Mar 2008 at 15:20

I use the SCART cable with my Samsung 40" M86. The picture quality is good depending on the channel. BBC is always pretty good and so is Sky's own channels like Sky One. Just need to live with it really until i get a SkyHD box when they become cheap.

Corasik · 9 Mar 2008 at 16:26

Make sure you have the Sky+ box set to Scart RGB mode, rather than Scart Composite. Makes a massive difference in picture quality.

Scart RGB is just as good as componant for an interlaced PAL signal, and as Sky+ doesnt support progressive, thats the best you can get.

S-Video is considerably lower quality than Scart in RGB mode.

Scart RGB mode is also slightly more tolerant of cheap scart cables, just as long as its a fully wired cable. (Otherwise it wont work at all in rgb mode). For SD PAL channels, Scart RGB's all you need, obviously make sure you plug it in to an RGB compliant scart socket on the TV. Not all sockets on all TV's have rgb enabled.

Only when you go to SkyHD does HDMI make any improvement at all, and of course the SkyHD box has native support for HDMI anyway

Nymins · 9 Mar 2008 at 16:51

Corasik said:
Make sure you have the Sky+ box set to Scart RGB mode, rather than Scart Composite. Makes a massive difference in picture quality.

Scart RGB is just as good as componant for an interlaced PAL signal, and as Sky+ doesnt support progressive, thats the best you can get.

S-Video is considerably lower quality than Scart in RGB mode.

Scart RGB mode is also slightly more tolerant of cheap scart cables, just as long as its a fully wired cable. (Otherwise it wont work at all in rgb mode). For SD PAL channels, Scart RGB's all you need, obviously make sure you plug it in to an RGB compliant scart socket on the TV. Not all sockets on all TV's have rgb enabled.

Only when you go to SkyHD does HDMI make any improvement at all, and of course the SkyHD box has native support for HDMI anyway

Do you mean put the SCART setting to RGB in the Sky settings interface in the Sky Guide?

Shep_Cobain · 9 Mar 2008 at 19:07

its just when i use SCART i get Wavy lines on my tele. I was told it was the SCART cable and it was bad qaulity by Martin Dawes (samsung contracted engineers). But my dad has the same tele and SCART and his doesnt do it.

Corasik · 9 Mar 2008 at 19:18

Nymins said:
Do you mean put the SCART setting to RGB in the Sky settings interface in the Sky Guide?

Yep.

Corasik · 9 Mar 2008 at 19:22

Shep_Cobain said:
its just when i use SCART i get Wavy lines on my tele. I was told it was the SCART cable and it was bad qaulity by Martin Dawes (samsung contracted engineers). But my dad has the same tele and SCART and his doesnt do it.

1) cheap cables do make it look bad, you can get feedback from the TV's tuner, as scart is a 2way cable, in theory you can record 1 channel, while playing back another, however no recorder I know of supports this mode. But it does mean cheap cables can get crosstalk from the TV's tuner out, which causes nasty interference.

2) your dad might have enabled RGB mode without even realising it. There is virtually no interference issues when using rgb mode, because R/G/B are carried down separate wires, and the signal is more robust. Scart RGB is good.

3) If you compare Composite and RGB modes using the SKY menus (service menu is fine), in Composite mode even with the best quality cable, the menus will have a visible shimmer, switching to RGB mode the menus become totally stable, and a lot sharper.

Some TV's with multiple SCART sockets are setup so that some sockets are Composite+RGB, and others are Composite+S-Video. If this is the case with your TV, you obviously need to connect the SKY+ box via a RGB enabled socket.

Shep_Cobain · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:03

MY settings have always been RGB on sky box. Think ill just buy a HD box for the HDMI.

pinkaardvark · 10 Mar 2008 at 14:38

Shep_Cobain said:
MY settings have always been RGB on sky box. Think ill just buy a HD box for the HDMI.

Not all scart cables are fully wired, so some cheaper 99p ones will not carry RGB, secondly not all scart sockets on TV's are RGB enabled, quite often only 1 is. So get a better cable and plug it in the correct socket before spending too much.

Shep_Cobain · 10 Mar 2008 at 16:40

When i have used either of my SCART sockets on my Samsung M87 LCD 1080p tele the picture is excactly the same.

LadFromWales · 10 Mar 2008 at 18:11

What about running the Sky+ through a DVD Recorder with HDMI upscaling, I think the Panasonic ones can upscale devices through Scarts too.

Corasik · 11 Mar 2008 at 09:56

Does the TV indicate when RGB mode is on, my TV for instance says AV1 for scart/composite, and AV1RGB for RGB mode.

If you sit in the sky+ picture menu, and toggle RGB on and off, you should notice a massive difference in picture stability, the menu's go from fuzzy to very stable.

If you dont notice a difference, then your scart cable probably doesnt support rgb mode.

If you have any interference/wavyness and you have a fully wired scart and can confirm that the TV is getting the RGB input, then the cable must be really cheap. Sure some channels on Sky are overcompressed, but BBC, and Sky's premium channels (Sky One, Sky Sports, and Sky Movies) have a pretty decent bandwidth allocation, and should look pretty good, and Scart is ideal for them.

What LadFromWales85 says is true, my Panny DVD recorder does upscale Scart to 576p, 720p or 1080i depending on how I set it. However the Panny TV I have has an even better upscaler, so I used to prefer using the scart input instead.

Now I have SkyHD, and just use HDMI.

Tesla · 11 Mar 2008 at 17:29

LadFromWales85 said:
What about running the Sky+ through a DVD Recorder with HDMI upscaling, I think the Panasonic ones can upscale devices through Scarts too.

If the scaler is better in the recorder than the one in the TV then it will improve, the same applies to the scaler in the SkyHd box compared to that in the TV.

My guess is the TV's scaler will perform better than either.

Worth noting that the BBC Wales, BBC NI and BBC Scotland channels on Sky are higher bitrate than the regional ones you watch by a fair amount and I am currently doing some looking into quality differences so if the same program is on BBC1 and BBC Scotland could you compare the two for me please.

YoungRogue · 12 Mar 2008 at 00:20

get sky hd or if you can afford the extra tenner a month and £99 it is for the box at the mo then get a half decent monster scart lead will give you an improvement on on picture but obvs wont be as good as sky hd...