SCART leads – recommendations

SCART leads are the best way to connect up a TV with other digital TV boxes for a number of reasons. Picture and stereo sound are carried together; the SCART signal tells the TV which kit to select; and the switch to widescreen format is also automatic.

If your TV is less than 12 years old, it will almost certainly have a SCART socket for one end of a SCART lead. If your old TV is going strong, but with no SCART socket, or you have a portable TV without a SCART socket, you will need a digital box with a modulator.

From our tests on a range of leads, costing less than £10 to £50 each, here is our advice.

Go for:

• A decent SCART lead costing around £20, so you get individually screened wires, gold plated pins that won’t tarnish over time and – if you can find them in the shops – with plugs at the ends of the lead with extra retention spring clips. Our tests showed that these mid-priced leads give very good viewing and sound, without the risk of interference and poor contacts.  
• It is certainly worth paying a bit over £20 or so if you have long runs of cable or your digital kit gets jogged or moved much.

Avoid:

• Old SCART leads that have a lot of gaps between blocks of pins – these might have worked fine with your VCR but they won’t work well with digital TV and DVD products.
• Probably also best to avoid the cheapest (around £10) SCART leads without individually screened wires. They might work fine most of the time, but if you get a bit of background interference, it could be the SCART wires interacting, so upgrading the lead could solve it.
• On the other hand, you don’t have to pay over £40 for a decent SCART lead. The pricey ones may give very minor improvements on top of the range DVD systems. But you are unlikely to notice the difference with a mid-priced SCART lead connecting up your set top box or digital TV recorder.

See Tests if you are interested in how we tested SCART leads and what we found.

How do you judge whether that SCART lead that came with your digital box is giving you the best reception?  Go to What to look for.

If you want the techy reasons the UK uses SCART leads, go to Why use a SCART?

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