Text 32209, 123 rader
Skriven 2009-05-07 22:33:59 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
     Kommentar till en text av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: TV Systems
==================
Hello Bob,

On Wednesday May 06 2009 18:17, you wrote to me:

 MV>> smaller isn't always better. The smaller connectors are more
 MV>> fragile. A SCART cable doesn't  brake so easily when some
 MV>> mechanical pressure is exterted in the wrong way.

 RB> Look at a normal analog plug

"Normal" is in the eye of thge beholder.I find this one:
http://www.vlist.eu/fotos/63A3P1nE.jpg
pretty normal. You find them at building sites, exhibition halls, theatres,
etc, etc. For our non European readers; the coin on the lower right is a one
Euro coin. Its diameter is 23 mm or just under 1 inch.

 RB> (similar in appearance to a serial connector) for a computer and say
 RB> that again.

You mean a D-connector? There is no 21 pin D connector AFAIK, the closest is
the 25 pin. A bit smaller than a SCART plud and pretty sturdy as well. Granted.

 RB> The SCART plug, which is almost impossible to insert correctly without
 RB> a good light (the black plug on a black socket is almost invisible),

The problem is not the colour (on my TV the recepticles are blue and red) but
he fact that they are at the back of the equipent and only dentists can work
with mirrors. I also have problems inserting D connectors at the back of stuff.

Of course there are differences in quality. The cheap connetors sometimes have
problems. But that has nothing to do with the standard as such. There are cheap
crappy D connectors as wel..

And BTW, puls are not "analog" or "digital". The signal they carry may be
analog or digital, at the physical level of the plug, there is just voltage and
current.

 RB> reminds me of the South African electric plugs, which are - or at
 RB> least were in the 1980s, when I was there, a real handful.

The 5A or the 15A? well, they are bot pretty bulky. Just as the plugs used in
the UK. The are very much the same as the plugs in SA, except that the pins are
rectangular, not round. The SA plug is the old UK plug.

 RB>>> the land of government-sanctioned monopolies and cartels (as long
 RB>>> as they pay plenty of taxes and a little to the politicians on
 RB>>> the side).

 MV>> Good to see you didn't miss this opportunity to make a technical
 MV>> discussion into a political rant, but I have to disappoint you:
 MV>> this time you are way off the mark.

 RB> Am I? When the first thing you say is:

 MV>> SCART was a French thing. The acronym stands for "Syndicat des
 MV>> Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs". Its
 MV>> original purpose was protectionism.

 RB> I figured that. And now tell me again that I was "way off the mark".

You implied that it was the *German* government that had pushed it. It was the
French...

 MV>> When the French switched to 625 lines and so the 819 line barrier
 MV>> was dropped, they made a law that every TV imported into France
 MV>> must have a SCART connector. But instead of acting to protect the
 MV>> French industry, it backfired.

 RB> So there is such a thing as poetic justice.

Indeed. ;-)

 MV>> Adding a SCART connector was too easy and other manufacturers
 MV>> added it to ther TVs. At first to penetrate the French market, but
 MV>> the result was that it became a de facto European standard. And a
 MV>> very successful one at that.

 RB> Europeans have big hands and bright lights in all their TV rooms.

They know a good standard when they see one...

 MV>> Calling it "garbage" is totally unjustified.

 RB> A matter of opinion. I can still remember how difficult it was to get
 RB> a switch to attach multiple signal sources to one TV input. Added to
 RB> the near-impossibility of putting the plug into the socket without
 RB> plenty of room and a good light, I was (and am) not impressed.

If you thought you need a switch then you have not understood how to properly
make use of the standard. You do NOT need a switch to connect multiple video
sources to a TV with only one SCART connector.

Every SCART equiped peripheral has TWO SCART connectors. The "up" and the
"down"connector. To connect more than one peripheral you daisy chain them. A
non active peripheral will act as a pass through. Tyhat way you can connect an
unlimited (in theory) number of peripherals.

 MV>> The design was well thought out and today some 30 years after its
 MV>> inception it is still doing well.

 RB> Obviously, nobody has ever looked for defects and possible impro-
 RB> vement. If it was good enough for grandpa, it's good enough for us.

Not so. Additions and improvement *were* made. One of them is IýC communication
over pin 10. That way peripherals can talk to each other. E.G. to synchonise
channel settings between TV and VCR.

 MV>> You need a digital interface to have digital rights management....

 RB> ;-) Two pins for "stop" and "go"?

It is a bit more complex than that...

 RB> I figure the real experts (the "cracks") will manage to eliminate
 RB> such stuff over time. Same way as they've eliminated the DRM corset
 RB> for HD movies (Blu-Ray) played on a computer.

And maybe they will end up in jail...

Cheers, Michiel

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