HD Televisions

SCART is the most common method of connecting audio-visual equipment together, and has become a standard connector for such devices. The SCART connector first appeared on television sets in 1977. It became compulsory on all new television sets sold in France starting from January 1980. Before SCART came, consumer TV sets did not offer a standardized way of inputting signals other than RF antenna ones, and even antenna connectors differed between countries. Assuming other connectors even existed, devices made by different companies could have different and incompatible standards.

SCART makes it easy to connect AV equipment (including TVs, VCRs, DVD players and game consoles). In essence, it gathers together various common analog signal types into a single connector. Previously, each of these would have had their own socket, requiring numerous separate connections and a “spaghetti” type mass of leads. The signals carried by SCART include both composite and RGB (with composite synchronisation) video, stereo audio input/output and digital signalling.

SCART allows a connected device to bring it in and out of standby mode or to switch it to the AV channel. A VCR or other playback device will optimally power on when a cassette is inserted, power on the television set (or switch it to video mode) and then start playing immediately if the cassette’s write protection tab is absent. When turned off, the VCR will ask the television set to power off as well, which the set will do if it had been powered on by the VCR’s request and if it remained in video mode all along. Only some TV sets will do this—most only implement automatic switching to and from the SCART input.

SCART also supports automatic widescreen switching. This is an extension of the functionality of a pin which previously only indicated to the TV set that an external signal should be displayed.

Component video cable is an analogue cable that transmits a picture to the television through 3 differnt cables. They do not carry any audio (although its not uncommon for some custom component cables, like the Xbox 360 component cable to send this seperatly).

You will often seen RGB component and YPbPr. Both are types of component however, but they use different methods to display the image (a not so common variant uses RGB and synch on green, which basically uses the green channel/cable portion to carry the synch signal.

Component connectors can either be BNC (like old co-ax computer network cable) or RCA connectors.

The settings on many DVD players and TVs may need to be set to indicate the type of input/output being used, and if set wrong the image may not be properly displayed. Progressive scan, for example, is often not enabled by default, even when component video output is selected.

HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface.
An HDMI connection is used to transfer high definition digital video and high definition audio signals.

Ideal for HD Televisions, HDMI supports standard, enhanced, or high-definition video and audio in a smaller cable size than DVI. This is the cable input you should be looking for on your TV - even if you dont use them now, if you have extra inputs you will future proof your TV meaning more value for
money. An HDMI Cable connector looks like the following image.

You can obtain HDMI Switch boxes if you need additional inputs - these boxes will take multiple inputs and output it to 1 cable, but you need to flip a switch on the boxes (in most cases) if you want to change the source (ie where its coming from - TV, sky, etc)

To achieve better quality with an HDMI connection try to keep the length of the cable less than 16 feet (5 meters). HDMI is compatible with DVI video. You can use an HDMI-to-DVI adapter plug to make a connection if your source device only has a DVI connector (but you must connect audio separately).

There are so many things to consider when buying a new HD Television. You shoudn’t have to worry about the cable types, so take a look through our following explanation of all HD TV cables.

You will need a selection of different TV cables to connect your equipment to your TV. The following are listed in order, of best quality, to worst. As a general rule of thumb, you will want to connect your devices - i.e dvd player, sky box, consoles, etc to the TV using cables at the top of the list. But make sure the TV has enough inputs first!

These will be linked to full articles explaning each, soon;

• HDMI
• DVI
• Component
• VGA
• SCART
• S-Video
• Composite
• RF