Cable advice for home cinema please!

Ashok_2

Hi there,

I was hoping for some advice on what cables to pick for my new "home cinema" for my gym/games room as I really know nothing about this kind of thing...

The equipment I will have will be:
Panasonic 42PX80B
Samsung HT-TZ315R home cinema system
Sky + box
Nintendo Wii

I want it all connected up so that I can make full use of the home cinema system (and ALL of the speakers) with all the equipment. The cables I'm thinking of getting are as follows:

Ixos XHD308 optical cable (£29.15) to connect Sky + to home cinema
Ixos XHT288 hdmi cable (£48.92) to connect home cinema to TV
Ixos XHT251 scart lead (£15.65) to connect Sky + to TV

As far as I know that covers the TV, Sky+ and home cinema system cables, but I'm not sure exactly what I need to get for the Wii so I can connect it to the TV and home cinema system?

Also I've basically gone to cable-shop.co.uk and choosen the cheapest Ixos cable, if you think I've made bad choices/could make better choices please let me know...

Thanks!

Conor_3

HOW MUCH FOR AN OPTICAL CABLE? Aww look, it's got pretty gold connectors on - must work better :rolleyes:. Get one from the pound shop - it's just as good as the expensive one. They transmit light, not electrical signals. As long as it fits, it'll make no difference.

HDMI cable - make sure you get one that says "High Speed." Yes there are two types and although interchangeable, the "Standard HDMI Cable" is only certified to 74.5MHz which equates to 1080i/720p.

SCART cable. Not a bad price but "gold connectors" and "oxygen free cables" is just marketbollox and you'll not notice the difference. It can in fact CAUSE connectivity issues if the connectors on the equipment aren't gold plated as the two different metals react. Make sure that whatever SCART lead you go for is fully populated (some only have a handful of pins connected) and screened.

As for the Wii, what it comes with will suffice.

My main bugbear is this:
Samsung HT-TZ315R home cinema system

It's a DVD player with a built in decoder/amp. So if you want to upgrade your player to a HD one, you've got a device going mostly unused. If the DVD player part of it packs up, you've got to buy the whole rig instead of just getting a £30 DVD player.

Far better to get a dedicated decoder/amp than one built into a DVD player. The ones inbuilt into DVD players also tend not to offer the same tweaking and customisation that a bespoke DD Decoder Amp does.
In fact, looking at this one, I think I might replace mine as I've run out of optical inputs on my Panasonic SA-HE7 and only have one HDMI slot on the telly so it solves a host of problems for me:
http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=SONY-STRDG820-BLK

And you don't need 1000W in a home. Mine is 100W a channel and I can't stand being in the same room with it on more than 3/4.

withabix

There's nothing there that produces a 1080p signal, so no need to buy an HDMI cable costing more than about £5. As for the Mhz frequency rating of the cable, how do the copper and the electrons know they have to travel slowly in a cheap cable? Who told them?

£29 for a fibre optical cable? Again, no need to spend more than a few quid. The four I've got cost me 99p each and work fine with my Sony amp.

And don't be tempted to buy one of those Monster power socket things. Do you want some snake oil with that???

Conor_3

withabix wrote: »

There's nothing there that produces a 1080p signal, so no need to buy an HDMI cable costing more than about £5. As for the Mhz frequency rating of the cable, how do the copper and the electrons know they have to travel slowly in a cheap cable? Who told them?

:rolleyes::rolleyes: The information about the different HDMI speed cable ratings was taken from HDMI.org, the organisation responsible for the implementation, standards settings and certification.

Different types of cable material, screening and impedance give different maximum operating frequencies. For example, if you've got poor screening, you can only operate at low frequencies before crosstalk occurs. As the frequency goes up, it requires more power to deliver the same output level which in turn means thicker cables.

withabix

Conor wrote: »

:rolleyes::rolleyes: The information about the different HDMI speed cable ratings was taken from HDMI.org, the organisation responsible for the implementation, standards settings and certification.

Different types of cable material, screening and impedance give different maximum operating frequencies. For example, if you've got poor screening, you can only operate at low frequencies before crosstalk occurs. As the frequency goes up, it requires more power to deliver the same output level which in turn means thicker cables.

Could make a difference if you've got a long HDMI cable. But not for your typical 1-3m length...

Sput2001

As has been mentioned above, DON'T spend big money on an optical cable or an hdmi cable.

You don't mention what lengths you require, but assuming you don't need anything extra long:

One of these HDMI cables will be fine.

One of these optical cables will be fine.

The scart cable will be carrying an analogue signal so there is an argument for spending a bit more. I can highly recommend the Philex Thor.

That's your three main ones covered for about £25, and if you go via Quido you can get 3% cashback. Honestly, it's not worth spending more. (I don't work for tvcables.co.uk, incidentally!)

Your Wii will have everything you need to connect it by composite or scart. If you want to use a component connection, which will almost certainly improve picture quality and allow you to feed the audio straight into a surround amp, get one of these.

BillScarab

The only thing I would add is if you have a component input free on your TV buy a component cable for your Wii, it gives a better picture than the standard composite/Scart cable.