Why use a SCART?

There are two good reasons why the UK market has gone with SCART connections. They can deliver both standard picture quality and the slightly higher quality RGB signals, which are worth having for STBs and DVD players.
As well as handling video and stereo audio signals, a SCART lead also sends out useful control signals and these three are really useful when connecting up digital TV set top boxes and recorders:

• Auto source selection – when you switch on a digital box, this SCART signal tells the TV to automatically select the right input, so you do not have to search through all the TV inputs to get a TV picture.
• Widescreen switching – this tells the TV if the programme is true widescreen (so it fills the screen of a widescreen TV) or an old standard 4:3 picture (so it formats the picture to sit in the centre of the screen without stretching it).
• Recording link – this signal is sent from the on-screen TV guide when you bookmark a future programme, to put a DVD recorder into record mode. It also works with some more recent VCRs.

Most digital TV boxes are supplied with a SCART lead, so how do you judge whether it’s giving you the best reception?  Go to What to look for

If you need to buy a SCART lead, should you pay less than £10, more than £40 or somewhere between the two?  We tested four such leads – see Tests if you are interested in what we did and what we found, and Recommendations for how much to spend on SCART leads.