HDTV minefield - connecting older devices
Discussion
Hope you guys can help me out with this one!
So, trying to keep it as brief as possible, I'm about to buy an HDTV - an LG 37LE4500 if anyone's interested in the type - which comes with plenty very nice HDMI inputs. This is helpful for the next ten years.
What it's not helpful for is connecting things like my non-HD Sky box, my quite old DVD player, or - quiet now - my VCR! I appreciate that a loss of quality will occur, and I intend to upgrade these devices in time. For now, though, I need a solution to connecting outputs such as S-Video or Component to this TV.
On the back of my Sky box, I have S-Video, SCART, and something labelled RF Out. What's on the back of the TV for me to plug into can be found here.
Trawling through eBay to see what cable I should be looking at is proving a nightmare.. What do I need to join these two together?!
So, trying to keep it as brief as possible, I'm about to buy an HDTV - an LG 37LE4500 if anyone's interested in the type - which comes with plenty very nice HDMI inputs. This is helpful for the next ten years.
What it's not helpful for is connecting things like my non-HD Sky box, my quite old DVD player, or - quiet now - my VCR! I appreciate that a loss of quality will occur, and I intend to upgrade these devices in time. For now, though, I need a solution to connecting outputs such as S-Video or Component to this TV.
On the back of my Sky box, I have S-Video, SCART, and something labelled RF Out. What's on the back of the TV for me to plug into can be found here.
Trawling through eBay to see what cable I should be looking at is proving a nightmare.. What do I need to join these two together?!
I think my DVD player does output component through the SCART - at least, it is labelled on the front "Component Video Output" so it certainly should do, no?
Trouble with the scalers is that I have three devices that want to be connected, and at a scaler per device the cost is pretty prohibitive.
Reckon the way around it is getting myself a Sky HD box rapido and using the PS3 for DVDs and so on!
Trouble with the scalers is that I have three devices that want to be connected, and at a scaler per device the cost is pretty prohibitive.
Reckon the way around it is getting myself a Sky HD box rapido and using the PS3 for DVDs and so on!
Its pretty simple really, you dont need to buy anything. You can SCART the sky box to the TV you can then SCART the DVD to the Skybox, the DVD will just over ride sky every time you turn it on. For the VCR if you must have it connected then plug your Aerial into the VCR then the RF out from the VCR to the Aerial input on the TV (old skool way) then tune it in with the TV's Analogue tuner.
For setup set the Skybox to output RGB and Aspect of 16:9 (widescreen) and the same with the DVD player. Modern TV's really show up how crappy VHS is so your really not going to gain much in quality over an RF connection, there is that and you may find that the sync on VHS is poop, thats because lots of new sets havent got a VHS sync compensator built in any more... remember the old fashioned video channel? some TV's you had to tune in on channel 8 or 0 that was because the specified video channel compensated for the dodgy VHS sync pulses caused by tape stretch, well they dont have that anymore so generally VHS is no longer compatable with a modern TV.
For setup set the Skybox to output RGB and Aspect of 16:9 (widescreen) and the same with the DVD player. Modern TV's really show up how crappy VHS is so your really not going to gain much in quality over an RF connection, there is that and you may find that the sync on VHS is poop, thats because lots of new sets havent got a VHS sync compensator built in any more... remember the old fashioned video channel? some TV's you had to tune in on channel 8 or 0 that was because the specified video channel compensated for the dodgy VHS sync pulses caused by tape stretch, well they dont have that anymore so generally VHS is no longer compatable with a modern TV.
Ahh.. I did not know I could run the DVD player via the Sky box, that's excellent and solves it, really 
good stuff! Thanks a lot for the excellent and complete advice there. The VCR is so occasional I'd be better off replacing the few videos left with DVDs if it doesn't work well.
I will look into the AV boxes if I find I could use better quality than the SCART allows, though. Thanks a lot, both!
good stuff! Thanks a lot for the excellent and complete advice there. The VCR is so occasional I'd be better off replacing the few videos left with DVDs if it doesn't work well.I will look into the AV boxes if I find I could use better quality than the SCART allows, though. Thanks a lot, both!
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