My scart is better than my HDMI

[Drummerdave]

I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Drummerdave:I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?

I have to say, I find this impossible to believe if you have the settings right. Do you have your Sky box set to 1080i when using the hdmi cable?

 

[Anonymous]

Drummerdave: Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI.

At the same time?

I did throw away my freebie hdmi sky cable but I would imagine it would still have been better than a scart connection.

Some SD pictures when viewed on a HD TV can look quite poor. Even with a top quality HDMI lead.

 

[hammill]

Drummerdave:I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?I compared my 5* £50 cable with the freebies from Oppo and Humax and I could not see any difference at all. Don't waste your money. I bet this is a set up issue.

 

[Anonymous]

Drummerdave - are you watching on the right AV input? The reason I ask, is a friend of mine kept moaning about how bad HD was and he was watching the lot through the scart on the wrong AV input.
I can't see how the scart is better on SD than the HDMI.

 

[Drummerdave]

GC69:Drummerdave - are you watching on the right AV input? The reason I ask, is a friend of mine kept moaning about how bad HD was and he was watching the lot through the scart on the wrong AV input.
I can't see how the scart is better on SD than the HDMI.

The TV setup has AV1 - AV3 and HDMI - it's definitely connected to the HDMI input. The TV only has one HDMI socket and I have to swap cables to use the PS3 - it's definitely the correct input.

 

[Drummerdave]

Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?

I have to say, I find this impossible to believe if you have the settings right. Do you have your Sky box set to 1080i when using the hdmi cable?

It's not a full HD tv.

 

[The_Lhc]

Drummerdave:Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?

I have to say, I find this impossible to believe if you have the settings right. Do you have your Sky box set to 1080i when using the hdmi cable?

It's not a full HD tv.

What's that got to do with anything? It can still do 1080i. I'd actually argue you'd be better off leaving the Sky box set to Auto rather than 1080i, then the TV is doing the upscaling (as it is with the SCART input), you shouldn't really see much difference then.

 

[aliEnRIK]

'Some' Sky HD boxes have very poor scaling and deinterlacing and many people have found SD viewing to be better through a scart cable. Its nothing new.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Drummerdave:Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?

I have to say, I find this impossible to believe if you have the settings right. Do you have your Sky box set to 1080i when using the hdmi cable?

It's not a full HD tv.

What do you have it set to? Either 720p or 1080i, both should make the picture better than scart. Have you tried it with the scart lead out and only the hdmi in? Just to make sure for certain that you have got it in right input/there is nothing wrong with the input.

 

[Anonymous]

Drummerdave

Try setting your TV to 4:3 when watching those SD channels transmitted in 4:3. Enlarging a 4:3 to fit a 16:9 screen, will decline the picture quality further.

My free Sky cable liked to produce lime green vertical line on a dark back ground, so yes inest in a better built cable. These a five star reviewed HDMI cable in this forums review section give that a go

Vance

 

[Drummerdave]

vanceg:
Drummerdave

Try setting your TV to 4:3 when watching those SD channels transmitted in 4:3. Enlarging a 4:3 to fit a 16:9 screen, will decline the picture quality further.

My free Sky cable liked to produce lime green vertical line on a dark back ground, so yes inest in a better built cable. These a five star reviewed HDMI cable in this forums review section give that a go

Vance

My TV will only show 16:9 pictures through the HDMI - I can change to 4:3 with the scart but not the HDMI

 

[Drummerdave]

Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?

I have to say, I find this impossible to believe if you have the settings right. Do you have your Sky box set to 1080i when using the hdmi cable?

It's not a full HD tv.

What do you have it set to? Either 720p or 1080i, both should make the picture better than scart. Have you tried it with the scart lead out and only the hdmi in? Just to make sure for certain that you have got it in right input/there is nothing wrong with the input.

I think it's set to 720p - I'll try different settings

 

[The_Lhc]

Drummerdave:Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?

I have to say, I find this impossible to believe if you have the settings right. Do you have your Sky box set to 1080i when using the hdmi cable?

It's not a full HD tv.

What do you have it set to? Either 720p or 1080i, both should make the picture better than scart. Have you tried it with the scart lead out and only the hdmi in? Just to make sure for certain that you have got it in right input/there is nothing wrong with the input.

I think it's set to 720p - I'll try different settings

Try auto, if you force the box to 720p or 1080i then the box has to do the upscaling on SD, set the box to auto and you allow the TV to upscale, hopefully it'll be better at it than the Sky box.

 

[Drummerdave]

the_lhc:
Drummerdave:Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:Gerrardasnails:Drummerdave:I invested in a decent scart a few years ago for vhs duties. Now I have Sky HD which is connected to my TV with said scart and the freebie HDMI. I noticed last night than the non-HD broadcasts have a noticably better picture through the scart than the HDMI. I realise this is probably due to the quality of the HDMI cable. Would the "best buy" £50 Chord Supershield be the way to go for an upgrade?

I have to say, I find this impossible to believe if you have the settings right. Do you have your Sky box set to 1080i when using the hdmi cable?

It's not a full HD tv.

What do you have it set to? Either 720p or 1080i, both should make the picture better than scart. Have you tried it with the scart lead out and only the hdmi in? Just to make sure for certain that you have got it in right input/there is nothing wrong with the input.

I think it's set to 720p - I'll try different settings

Try auto, if you force the box to 720p or 1080i then the box has to do the upscaling on SD, set the box to auto and you allow the TV to upscale, hopefully it'll be better at it than the Sky box.

Thanks - I'll give it a try over the weekend.