ok well bought a 42" plasma, not got it out of the box yet as have got to fix bracket to the wall etc

at the mo all i have is a sky+ box to connect to so do i need to buy a decent long scart lead?

the telly has got a few of the hdmi sockets but dont think i can use em?

is the hdmi for when i buy a surround sound setup? if it is ill buy one those too as planning to be next purchase

lee

 

you're asking if you need a long scart yet you dont mention where you're putting the sky box? if the answer is that its further away than the length of your current scart lead then the reply is yes you need a longer one

hdmi sockets you can use for various hd applications. sky hd, ps3 etc etc

 

ahh right see, what i was actually asking is if it was a scart lead i would use, didnt know what the hdmi was for

so ok i presume a decent lead will make a difference in quality of pic , yes putting tv on wall so nead longer lead


ANY RECOMENDATIONS?

lee

 

sorry mate i couldnt resist

yes i think with leads its a case of you get what you pay for. my mate has spent 100's on leads as his setup is hidden 4-5 m away in a cupboard

not sure where best to try but someone will tell ya

 

I'd upgrade to skyHD and make the most of your new telly and use an HDMI cable

 

will do when hd becomes worthwhile

 

If your subscribbed to sky HD channels then you'll need the HDMI cable but if not then a scart should be fine. If your buying a Blueray/HD DVD or upscaling DVD player + surround sound you'll need a HDMI cable. If not then a scart will suffice again.

 

oh with hdmi

a Ł10 lead will do EXACTLY the same job as a Ł200 cable (quality etc wise), so dont fall into that trap. Different case with scart tho.

 

that is crap you get what u pay for, you can notice the differences between leads if u are running it over 3m u will need to buy a good scart lead

 

Agreed, i deliver them and set them up for a living. You'll notice the difference between a shit scart and a good gold plated one.
but with HDMI i havn't noticed any differences between the cheapo one that sky give ya and a Ł90 jobbie but you dont have to worry about that yet.

 

im with u mate,i got a HDMI lead for 7 quid off ebay and the picture is perrrrrfect

 

I was on about HDMI u noggin

 

my bad

 

SCART deffo yes, but HDMI as said, dont get a Ł1 cable from the pound shop, get somat like a Ł10 cable off the bay, but dont pay any more. Its a digital signal, so either u can see a picture or u cant.

I'm sure Ive seen some for Ł250+ as well, the muppets. Even my uncle spent Ł60 on one

 

make sure its a fully wired scart lead and the sky box is set to RGB

 

skybox is set to rgb?

so if i just buy a gold terminal scart will be ok? ill pop down to maplis or are they dearer than currys etc?

 

dont wanna step on your thread

but i have just connected a 42" lg screen to the wall, and the bastard brackets on the wall make it sit a mile out

the brackets were universal ones from maplins????

 

RGB is on your Sky settings mate. its pre-set to PAL but you want to change it to RGB.

 

oh right ok, do i have to do that on the tv too?

can i ask why?

sorry i know fook all lol

 

You can think of HDMI as "digital scart" if you like - it's a single cable solution to providing both audio and video. But thats where the similarities end. HDMI is capable of carrying uncompressed video signals (ie, 1080p HD video) and upto 8 seperate channels of uncompressed (LPCM) HD audio (ie, 7.1 surround)

It isn't fully utilised in most cases; only a handful of amps can handle it's full potential right now. In most cases, it's used to pump digital/HD video signals to HD screens, such as FreesatHD, Virgin/Cable HD and SkyHD, along with 2ch audio (as most TV broadcasts are in 2ch still, tho select programmes/films do carry dolby digital 5.1 on some HD channels) and of course TV's only have stereo speakers, for the most part, as such you will need a multichannel surround amp/processor and speakers.

In your case, your Sky+ box will need to be connected to the TV via scart. a fully wired scart will allow RGB to be passed to the TV. RGB stands for Red Green and Blue, the three primary colours. RGB in scart, contrary to popular belief, is actually of better quality than the RGB of component video (where you have three phono's - red green and blue - but is a different standard and not mixable with RGB scart) Reason for this is Scart carries a single red pin, a green pin, and a blue pin, along with seperate luminance cromiance and sync. Component, or YPrPb as it's actually known, carries seperate red, but sync is on the greenm and luminance/chromiance is on blue. Not as pure as RGB scart can be. But in most cases no-one will know. Whats odd tho, to most, is that YPrPb can carry HD video, and in digital form aswell (YCrCb) whereas RGB scart can't.

So hopefully I've baffled you enough with technical terms, lets sort you out easily

Connect your Sky+ box to your TV with a scart lead. In the Sky box settings change the scart output to RGB. You shouldn't have to do it on the TV, but go into the settings and check it anyway. You now have the best video connection your Sky+ box can output. Audio will be sent down the scart to the TV speakers aswell so you are all ready to go.

When you upgrade to SkyHD or whatever in the future, go for a HDMI connection. As stated above, HDMI cables aren't price dependant like analogue cables are. However, the cheapo throwaway ones will suffer somewhat. What you are paying for are the connectors, and quality of the soldering. Cheap cables use cheap connectors and cheap manufacturing. More expensive cables use more expensive connections and manufacturing. However, the data being sent down the cable is digital - it can't degrade like analogue signals can. Hence why the bandwidth is higher and why longer lengths are easier in digital cables as opposed to analogue. The signal is simple a series of 1's and 0's, so quality of core won't affect this. Quality of materials will affect it, to the extent of noise from interferance (although interferance on a digital cable is lessend compared to analogue still) Basically, a Ł10 cable will be just as good as a Ł60 cable, but it'll still be better than a Ł1.99 bargain cable

Moving onto audio - when you go into DVD/HD-DVD/BluRay surround sound, you'll want a dedicated amplifier and speaker set up - left and right front, left and right back, centre and sub : thats your standard 5.1

You can get all in one set ups, that have an amp with processor and speakers that attach, but in most cases these aren't great and the choice of inputs is limited.

A decent amp will have multiple inputs, ranging from simple L+R phono inputs (2ch) to digital coaxial (digital phono cable basically) and optical - both of which can pass multichannel 5.1 audio, from which the built in decoder in the amp can decode (typically this is only 5.1 Dolby Digital and 5.1 DTS, tho some do 6.1 and 7.1) For the newer breed of multichannel audio formats - Doble Digital True HD, DTS-HD etc, most amps don't decode this. The player does the decoding, and sends the signals down seperate analogue phono cables, which is what the 5.1/6.1 analogue inputs on amps are for. IIRC, the PS3 has 5.1 analogue outputs solely for this purpouse.

But that is a whole different kettle of fish

 

what THRUSH said! lol

 

blimey cheers m8, why do things have to be so complicated, and there was me thinking all i had to buy was a surround sound dvd player