Page 1 of DVD - a few questions

Hope someone can help

1. I have a Sky digibox and VCR in my current setup, so it it important for the DVD player I buy to have 2 scart sockets ? If not, then why ?

2. As Im buying a new 32" Widescreen at the same time, are their any special featues or connectors that I should look for on a new set?

3. Any comments on these sets Iv been looking at.....

Sanyo 32WP4 - Dolby Pro Logic

Hitachi C32WS10SN

Hitachi C32W511TN


Or any other 32" Widescreens at around £650 - £700 ish.

4. Are the LG3200 any good, as Iv seen a few posts with some negaive comments on them ? Are the Phillips 711 or Samsung 511 any good ?

What are their shortcomings ? Im finding it hard to find a budget player that is remote hackable for multi region (inc RCE) and has decent sound output.

5. As far as widescreen sets go, what do I need to look for regarding aspect ratio modes on the set so that both 4:3 and 16:9 look good on the set ? It seems that all the different sets have different names for various stretch modes ect.... and their it no set standard to look for.

If anyone can help with any of my question, I would most appreciate any advice you can give.

This item was edited on Friday, 1st June 2001, 01:45

can only try and answer the first one. You would be best having a DVD player going straight to the TV without chaining it through VCRS or a digibox, this way you avoid macrovision and also makes things a lot simply and easier =) .

If you havent got a seperate sound system and are planning on using the TV speakers only then I wouldnt worry about having more than one scart lead socket in the back of the DVD. The only reason I can see you needing more than one is if you NEED to connect your video or digibox through it or if you want to connect a seperate sound system and I am not sure how that works, I am still a pretty simple viewer:

DVD ------ Scart ------- TV

does me fine ;)

I`ll try and help, I`m no oracle though, (however after reading this back to myself I am very long winded ;-)

You don`t need to have 2 scart sockets on your DVD Player. There are loads of ways to skin this cat. It depends on if your video or digibox has 2 scart sockets. If either does just run the DVD to the TV and then use 2 scart leads to daisy chain the digibox to the video or vice versa. This means that at some stage you`ll need one on to watch the other (depending how you do it).

But as you`re buying a new TV get one that has an S-video connection. That way you can leave your VCR and DigiBox connected to the TV via Scart and just run an S-video cable to the TV from the DVD. As S-video only carries pictures you could then take the audio out`s from the DVD player direct to the Pro-logic TV you mentioned and you have basic dolby surround, hurrah!

If you don`t get the Pro-logic TV you could just run the audio out to either the audio in of the Nicam Stereo TV or to a hi-fi amp to get stereo soundtracks.

Even better you could get an AV amp and speaker package and run an optical cable from the DVD to get 5.1 surround sound. You then have the best sound and picture quality available (the point of DVD nes pas?). It doesn`t come cheap though.

I know nothing of the TV`s you mentioned. Get the pro-logic for home cinema on a budget. You`re SKY movies and sport will work in surround as well. As for the LG3200, my pal has one. The picture seems ok to me, they are cheap and can be hacked for multi region playback. 2 negatives I have noticed. Menus etc take a while and it only has one digital output which is coaxial.

The way I see it is once the bug get`s you, you will end up moving all this stuff upstairs to the bed room and re-mortgaging the house for something more fancy anyway. It`s happening to me!

"can only try and answer the first one. You would be best having a DVD player going straight to the TV without chaining it through VCRS or a digibox, this way you avoid macrovision and also makes things a lot simply and easier =) . "

"DVD ------ Scart ------- TV"

response:

The reason for getting a dvd player with 2 scarts is to allow him to connect the digibox and the dvd player up to the RGB scart rather than having to use s-video scart or composite scart.

Digibox > DVD > TV (using RGB scart)

2 scarts on the dvd player was an important issue to me when i bought my dvd player and that is why i went with a Sony dvd player.

In the end however, it turned out to be irrelevant as I have a Toshiba television and they handle s-video better than they do RGB so i connect up using the s-video scart instead.

Some equipment does not handle the passing of signals too well. You may only find out after you purchase that you are not able to use pass through without a loss of signal. quality