My current DVD player

uptheblades

Bought it along with my digital tv a couple of years ago - both Sony. Now I'm no whizz with this kind of stuff, but when I play DVD's it's nowhere near the quality of the normal television channels.

I have a feeling it's my scart lead(!? and if so what makes one scart lead better than another) but would be very grateful for any advice somebody could give as I really want to start enjoying the piles of dvd's I havn't watched!

Thanks in advance!

Pink.

Hi uptheblades,

I hope that you don't mind, but I am going to move your thread over to the techie board, where hopefully you will get more replies.

Pink


Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [email="andrea@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/email].

brummybloke

always go for the best connectors you can afford, i used to think it made no difference and i also thought ' !!!!!! paying £30 for a scart lead"

it really does make all the difference.

you want gold plated connectors.

no point spending £1000 on a tv, £290 on a dvd player and £5 on the connectors, you may aswell have spent £250 on the tv, £19.99 on the dvd player and £50 on the scart.

POLDO_DONK

brummybloke is correct - use the best possible connectors you can. In addition makes sure that your DVD player is outputing the highest quality signal. There will be at least three quality levels available - 1) Composite which is the lowest quality available 2) S-Video and finally (and best of all) 3) RGB.

Make sure you choose the RGB setting - this may require you to go into the DVD set up menu and select RGB as the output. Make sure your (good quality!) scart lead is plugged into a RGB capable scart socket (not all scart sockets can input RGB - read your TV's instruction manual) and the picture quality should be at it's best. The picture quality should exceed that of normal television broadcasts.

If there are other output sockets on your DVD player (and the corresponding inputs on your TV) please post again to see if a further improvement can be made.

Poldo

Hintza

I have used this company in the past and found them superb and their stuff is top notch and very quick to deliver.

HERE is a good scart for £14.99 or this one HERE for £17.98

or if money is no object you could have this 20m one for £229.95 see HERE (ouch!!)

As far as I can see/remember P+P is free.

One other thing to mention the same thing happens if you usepoor quality coax for your ariel or joing another TV/PC to the system especially for digital signals. I have a TV card in the PC and bought a cheap coax in B&Q and it was worse thane useless.

Sput2001

Have you tried borrowing a scart lead from a friend to see if that makes a difference? There's no point in buying a new lead unless you're sure that's where the problem lies.

If you're sure you need a new Scart, Hintza's has already pointed you towards https://www.tvcables.co.uk, which I've used before without any problems - I got the Philex Thor cable, and it's great. It IS worth paying a bit extra.

Incidentally, when you say "Digital TV", what do you mean? Is it a Plasma or LCD, or a standard CRT?

If it's a Plasma or LCD, does it have separate component (RGB) inputs? They'll look like stereo phono inputs, coloured red, green & blue.

mrnomoneybags

I think what Nick is getting at if you do have ones that are Red Green and Blue it might be worth trying a Scart to RGB cable.

If you have ones that are Red Green and Purple this is compomnent and is far better than RGB and scart and if your screen supports progressive then even better.

Also you might want to try CPC for a scart cable i have bought a couple from there and they are pretty good.

Although i bought my component cables from the website above.

Sput2001

I think what Nick is getting at if you do have ones that are Red Green and Blue it might be worth trying a Scart to RGB cable.

That is, indeed, what I was getting at. Bear in mind though that RGB connections only carry the picture, you'll need a separate connection for sound.

matty_c608

Use an Optical cable for sound!