Shocking Monster SCART comparison in Currys

I was killing time in Currys yesterday and was fascinated by their
split screen demo of a Monster SCART cable compared with a "regular"
one. The side of the picture supposedly fed by the regular SCART cable
was worse than I could possibly manage going through multiple
iterations of compsite video to RF with the worst cables. I can't
imagine how they could possibly make it look so bad.

Took a quick look at the back and there were two SCART cables from the
source box to the display. (As I'd wondered if it was a *complete*
fake). Rather wish I'd swapped the cables round to see if the problem
followed the cables or not.

Anyone know what smoke and mirrors they use to make this give the
appearance they do?

Made me cross as it's the kind of demo that'd make folk shell out yet
more money to what look to be criminally deceptive demonstration
techniques.

Alec wrote:
I was killing time in Currys yesterday and was fascinated by their
split screen demo of a Monster SCART cable compared with a "regular"
one. The side of the picture supposedly fed by the regular SCART
cable was worse than I could possibly manage going through multiple
iterations of compsite video to RF with the worst cables. I can't
imagine how they could possibly make it look so bad.

Took a quick look at the back and there were two SCART cables from the
source box to the display. (As I'd wondered if it was a *complete*
fake). Rather wish I'd swapped the cables round to see if the problem
followed the cables or not.

Anyone know what smoke and mirrors they use to make this give the
appearance they do?

How on Earth are they managing to feed half the screen from one SCART and
half from the other in the first place? Clearly only one of the two SCARTs
to the display is actually in use, and all the trickery (I use the word
advisedly) is going on elsewhere.

A job for Trading Standards, I think...

"Pyriform" wrote in message
...


How on Earth are they managing to feed half the screen from one SCART and
half from the other in the first place? Clearly only one of the two SCARTs
to the display is actually in use, and all the trickery (I use the word
advisedly) is going on elsewhere.

Well there are plenty of displays about with twin tuners that support split
screen.
That isnt a problem.

Loz

"Alec" wrote in message
oups.com...
I was killing time in Currys yesterday and was fascinated by their
split screen demo of a Monster SCART cable compared with a "regular"
one. The side of the picture supposedly fed by the regular SCART cable
was worse than I could possibly manage going through multiple
iterations of compsite video to RF with the worst cables. I can't
imagine how they could possibly make it look so bad.

Took a quick look at the back and there were two SCART cables from the
source box to the display. (As I'd wondered if it was a *complete*
fake). Rather wish I'd swapped the cables round to see if the problem
followed the cables or not.

Anyone know what smoke and mirrors they use to make this give the
appearance they do?

I can only assume that one was using composite and the other using RGB.

What display type was it?
Some LCDs for example are very bad at handling a poor quality signal -
typically because the noise in the signal results in more smearing in the
picture because of response times.
So the difference between composite and RGB would be like night and day, and
the difference more marked than if it was a CRT.
And, they could have specially selected an LCD that had poor response times
so the problem with a noisy signal would again have been more magnified.

Loz

Alec wrote on 2 Aug 2006 03:17:53 -0700:

I was killing time in Currys yesterday and was fascinated by their
split screen demo of a Monster SCART cable compared with a "regular"
one. The side of the picture supposedly fed by the regular SCART cable
was worse than I could possibly manage going through multiple
iterations of compsite video to RF with the worst cables. I can't
imagine how they could possibly make it look so bad.

Took a quick look at the back and there were two SCART cables from the
source box to the display. (As I'd wondered if it was a *complete*
fake). Rather wish I'd swapped the cables round to see if the problem
followed the cables or not.

Anyone know what smoke and mirrors they use to make this give the
appearance they do?

Made me cross as it's the kind of demo that'd make folk shell out yet
more money to what look to be criminally deceptive demonstration
techniques.

I'd guess that the box outputting the 2 SCART signals has one for "TV"
output with RGB, and one for "VCR" in/out with composite only, and the
Monster cable is on the RGB SCART.

Dan

loz wrote:
How on Earth are they managing to feed half the screen from one
SCART and half from the other in the first place? Clearly only one
of the two SCARTs to the display is actually in use, and all the
trickery (I use the word advisedly) is going on elsewhere.

Well there are plenty of displays about with twin tuners that support
split screen.
That isnt a problem.

Split screen rather than picture-in-picture? I assumed he meant a line down
the centre of the screen, either horizontally or vertically.

I'm perfectly willing to stand corrected but I'm having trouble seeing the
point of such a feature, unless it's to facilitate dodgy demonstrations...

[I also assumed that it was the *same* picture split into two halves
(meaning some external processing had already taken place). Probably this is
because I've already seen a HD split-screen demo in Currys, where the 'HD'
half was just as crap as the SD half, but slightly more *yellow*. Truly this
is the future of television, I remember thinking.]

In article ,
Pyriform wrote:
How on Earth are they managing to feed half the screen from one SCART
and half from the other in the first place? Clearly only one of the two
SCARTs to the display is actually in use, and all the trickery (I use
the word advisedly) is going on elsewhere.

My TV will display split screen from any two of its SCART inputs. Would be
trivial to arrange a poor and decent feed off the one source.

--
*Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , Pyriform
writes
loz wrote:
How on Earth are they managing to feed half the screen from one
SCART and half from the other in the first place? Clearly only one
of the two SCARTs to the display is actually in use, and all the
trickery (I use the word advisedly) is going on elsewhere.

Well there are plenty of displays about with twin tuners that support
split screen.
That isnt a problem.

Split screen rather than picture-in-picture? I assumed he meant a line down
the centre of the screen, either horizontally or vertically.

My plasma does this, also picture in picture. It can split between the
analogue or Freeview tuner and any scart or between any two scarts.

I'm perfectly willing to stand corrected but I'm having trouble seeing the
point of such a feature, unless it's to facilitate dodgy demonstrations...

Came in handy for when the World Cup was on and two matches were played
at the same time, much to the wife's annoyance, I might add ;-)

--
Sean Black

"Pyriform" wrote in message
...

Well there are plenty of displays about with twin tuners that support
split screen.
That isnt a problem.
Split screen rather than picture-in-picture? I assumed he meant a line
down the centre of the screen, either horizontally or vertically.

Yes.

I'm perfectly willing to stand corrected but I'm having trouble seeing the
point of such a feature, unless it's to facilitate dodgy demonstrations...

Er, so you can watch 2 sources side by side...

Loz

loz wrote:
"Pyriform" wrote in message
...

Well there are plenty of displays about with twin tuners that
support split screen.
That isnt a problem.
Split screen rather than picture-in-picture? I assumed he meant a
line down the centre of the screen, either horizontally or
vertically.

Yes.

I'm perfectly willing to stand corrected but I'm having trouble
seeing the point of such a feature, unless it's to facilitate dodgy
demonstrations...

Er, so you can watch 2 sources side by side...

How does it modify the picture to fit the altered aspect ratio?