Best cables for sky decoder to plasma tv

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Wills1

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#18494 12-Jan-2008 17:58

Hi there, I have a motorolla DTH335-4 sky decoder. I am wanting to get the best picture I can from it. I had a look in Harvey norman and they had a plasma on display, split screen with monster cable and without. The difference was quite noticable. But they wanted $299 for the cables. There must be a cheaper alternative. Any help would be great, Thank you :)

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#104414 12-Jan-2008 18:10

All you need to buy is a Scart -> component cable. There are normally a few people on Trademe selling these for around $30 or so or you can buy a Scart adapter with component output from DSE for around $20 and then just buy a component cable which will probably set you back around $20 or so.

The monster stand is a con - I guarantee if you put a $30 cable next to the $300 Monster that you will not be able to tell the difference. If it's anything like the old Monster display with an LCD screen they use a component cable for for the monster display and composite for the non monster cable. You can't compare the two because a $5 component cable will be give a better quality picture than a $50 Monster composite cable.

Monster cables are nothing but a rip off. IMHO anybody who buys one has far more money than brains.

andrewcnz

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#104415 12-Jan-2008 18:19

I went into a sky TV branch and they gave me two scart to component leads for free for a mysky box and one of the small silver pace models I have at home. Was better than the standard composite cable’s on the two HD LCD TVs’ they are connected to. But unfortunately the quality of sky’s picture is somewhat limited by the bit rate they use. I would not bother spending big dollars on cables for a sky box as you would see no real benefit. Not sure what the Motorola box will output may do S-video. Free or cheap is the go.

sbiddle

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#104416 12-Jan-2008 18:26

andrewcnz: Not sure what the Motorola box will output may do S-video.

I'm 99% certain that box does component. It certainly wouldn't hurt to ring Sky and ask if they have any free SCART -> Component cables if they are giving them away for free! :-)

Wills1

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#104421 12-Jan-2008 20:07

Oh and I failed to mention, the sky decoder is plugged into a philips hdd recorder via the standard yellow, red, white connection. And the same cables to the plasma from the dvd recorder.

So I should buy a scart to component to run to the plasma.

Then a component or hdmi cable to run from the hdd recorder to the plasma?

Would this be the right setup?

And if sky cannot supply the cable where would be the best retail outlet to buy, Warehouse, Kmart etc... ?

cyril7

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#104423 12-Jan-2008 20:14

That box most certainly does do Component video out. If you check the SCART setup menu for the TV SCART you will find it has component video.

Try the Jaycar WQ7255 and also on EbayAus

Cyril

ingies

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#104447 12-Jan-2008 22:40

I always wonder why people go on about specially insulated (monster) cables etc when the sky input from the sattelite comes from a thin white cable- is that good quality or just a run of the mill cable?

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#104449 12-Jan-2008 23:08

ingies: I always wonder why people go on about specially insulated (monster) cables etc when the sky input from the sattelite comes from a thin white cable- is that good quality or just a run of the mill cable?

The white dual shield RG6 carries a digital RF signal from the dish and is irelevant when discussing analog signal connection types between set top box and tv.

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old3eyes

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#104773 14-Jan-2008 16:23

cyril7: That box most certainly does do Component video out. If you check the SCART setup menu for the TV SCART you will find it has component video.

Try the Jaycar WQ7255 and also on EbayAus

Cyril

Actually with the crappy bitrate of the Sky channels anything better than Svideo is waisted..

Regards,

Old3eyes

cyril7

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#104774 14-Jan-2008 16:33

Paul, I agree to an extent, however some if not most modern digitial panel displays have rather poor and noisy PAL decoders and as such I have found there a some gains to be made by bypassing the PAL decoder all together. The results on better bit rate channels like SM1 a quite noticable and in my view worth the effort.

Further more many manufactures displays (Panasonic in particular) dont terminate the S-Video chroma channel correctly, this causes issues with the current source drivers used in both the Pace and Motorola decoders (and some FTA DVB decoders for that matter), so Component sidesteps this issue.

Cyril

Wills1

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#104802 14-Jan-2008 18:11

On another note.

On another crt tv in the house. I notice when I turn the dvd player on, and the pioneer logo comes up. It seems as though the colour is bleeding through the lettering. Would this be caused by cables, or a setting on the player itself?

bazzer

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#104888 15-Jan-2008 08:22

cyril7: Paul, I agree to an extent, however some if not most modern digitial panel displays have rather poor and noisy PAL decoders and as such I have found there a some gains to be made by bypassing the PAL decoder all together. The results on better bit rate channels like SM1 a quite noticable and in my view worth the effort.

Further more many manufactures displays (Panasonic in particular) dont terminate the S-Video chroma channel correctly, this causes issues with the current source drivers used in both the Pace and Motorola decoders (and some FTA DVB decoders for that matter), so Component sidesteps this issue.

Cyril

I find the component picture probably looks worse on the lower bit rate channels (shows up the deficiencies?). What kind of S-Video issues does this cause? I tried S-Video but noticed some funny things, so I had to go back to composite for those lower quality channels. I agree that Movies and the menus etc look much nicer through component.

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cyril7

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#104891 15-Jan-2008 08:34

Botchy washed out and unstable colour, sometimes dropping back to B&W. This is cause by too little DC coupling on the input stage of the chroma input causing misclamping and false detection and capture of the reference colour burst. Depending on the type of output driver of the source device this lack of DC coupling is not an issue, however the type of drivers these STB's (and some DVD players) have cause this issue.

A fix is to place a 470ohm resistor directly across chroma channel to provide a DC termination that is adequate to allow proper clamping.

Cyril

bazzer

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#104895 15-Jan-2008 08:48

cyril7: Botchy washed out and unstable colour, sometimes dropping back to B&W. This is cause by too little DC coupling on the input stage of the chroma input causing misclamping and false detection and capture of the reference colour burst. Depending on the type of output driver of the source device this lack of DC coupling is not an issue, however the type of drivers these STB's (and some DVD players) have cause this issue.

A fix is to place a 470ohm resistor directly across chroma channel to provide a DC termination that is adequate to allow proper clamping.

Cyril

Sounds about right, although my problems didn't seem that severe. I might give that fix a try but not really sure where I'd put the resistor?