Tests

We put a few different SCART leads through their paces:

• A budget, 1.5 metre lead without screened cables, costing less than £10
• Standard 1.5 and 3 metre leads with screened cables and gold plated pins, costing £15 to £25
• An expensive 3 metre lead with all that the standard lead had but costing £50.

First we viewed the picture quality they produced – on good performing LCD TVs, using a good set top box and DVD player.

Then we carried out technical measurements to see if these suggested any problems.

Findings

• the budget SCART lead gave a reasonable picture on most of the TVs we tested it on – just a bit of fuzziness that you could hardly see from your sofa. But with a few TVs there was also ghost-like background interference, that got worse with very long, thin cable runs. Why? Technical testing showed it was caused by interference between the unscreened individual wires in these budget SCART leads.
• the standard SCART lead performed slightly better in the viewing test than the budget lead.  There was even less fuzziness and detailed visual images were just a bit more crisp. This was born out by the technical tests.
• the £50 SCART lead performed very similarly to the standard one.  Our viewers thought there was the slightest of improvements to the crispness of the detail on a viewing card, but this was so subtle most viewers would probably not notice it.  Technically, the expensive lead was also fine.

See Recommendations for our buying advice on SCART leads from these results and What to look for for what to avoid when buying.