VGA Splitter

[marcus]

I have a VGA input on my Panny plasma which I currently use for my Sky+ box. I also have a DC which I was thinking of connecting up also via VGA, does anyone know of a item which will allow me to make the two connections into one VGA socket and switch between them?

[steve_dynamic]

Try this:

http://www.kvm-switches-online.com/vs201.html

[mt50]

marcus OT but does sky+ look better via VGA than RGB? and how did you get it to do VGA?

[marcus]

Thanks for the link Steve, I might look into that.

MT50 I have a (ridiculously expensive) Scart to VGA cable which even comes with its very own power supply, as my plasmas havent had any scart inputs Ive used this instead, I doubt there is any difference at all as its basically an RGB signal afaik. Whatever though, and particularly on my new screen, the usual deficiencies of Sky digital are present.

Slightly OT, but a guy at the AV shop I was in said that as I have an old Sky plus box (ie the long white one) I can get it modified so that it receives a pure digital signal (or something), Ive just reminded myself to look into that as apparently the improvement in picture from bypassing the analogue conversion is substantial.

[Brats]

Marcus,

As a fellow VGA lover I have one of these:

http://www.scancom.plus.com/index.html?target=dept_6.html&lang=en-gb

Works a treat. Four VGA signals into one and you're not paying for the keyboard and mouse relays as you are with a typical KVM solution. Recomended.

[marcus]

Bloody hell those are cheap! What I can do then is to hook my DC and also Gamecube as well as my Sky+ box to this and be able to switch them at the press of a button - sounds perfect! Is there much (if any) picture loss that you are aware of?

At that price though its worth a risk.

/edit these are similar to the switchbox units I see everyday at work, Im surprised it never occurred to me in the first place to use these!

[gIzzE]

mt50, depends on your display, if your plasma is a tv, ie tuner box etc. then there probably isn't any point going vga, but with alot of monitors, like the panny pw6, going frm rgb scart to vga can give better results than buying the panny scart board as this can be noticeably softer.
The JS rgb2vga converter is just as expensive, in fact more so, than buying a scart inout board, but it does give better results, although you will loose aspect ratio control.

Marcus, if you have the version 1 sky+ box (silver) you can modify it for sdi, which is a pure digital signal which means you bypass the video encoder, you can then input this into a suitible scaler like the lumagen or crystallio. The scale can then scale to the native resolution of your display, completely bypassing the scaler and de-interlacer in your plasma that will generally be pretty poor. Great way of doing thing but starting to get expensive.

[gIzzE]

If they are passive then there should be no loss at all, should be fine mate.

[marcus]

Thanks for the info gIzze, I doubt Ill bother as the only time I really have cause for complaint with Sky+ is occasionally during football matches, which can come across as a bit garish at times. Not really anything to worry about, and not worth going the SDI route either. I have the TH50PHW5 Panny.

Im also looking at that component switcher, I already have a passive JVC one however it has 3 component inputs and I now require 4. I could purchase a GC VGA lead (as its this which loses out usually), or daisychain another switchbox which would give me a further 3 more component inputs.

[gIzzE]

Don't get the scancom component switcher, it is awful, it cannot handle progressive very well and gives bad banding with 720p and 1080i.

Best to order a unit from www.copperbox.com , the audio authourity one is very good, I have the Zektor 4.2, which is awesome as it sends one output to the plasma and the other to the projector, it also learns any remote code so when I press dvd on the amp remote it switches the component input to the correct one too.

And if you don't like the way footbal can look a little pixelated then sdi just makes this even more obvious

[mt50]

cheers gIzzE and marcus, i'm getting a 26 or 27inch LCD screen hopefully in november. but i aint sure which one to get yet. been looking at a few for around 1k but it's a hard choice as i need it for a few thinks, PC use, console use(us xbox so want prog scan for that and then ps2 and cube) and also for sky. the main thing i was worried about was the quality of sky on a lcd TV.

the Sharp LC26GA5E looks good from what i've seen of it(not out yet) and the Thomson 27LCDB03 looks very good aswell both are around the ?1000 mark(+/- ? ?50)

will just stick with RGB for sky then.

[Brats]

Don't get the scancom component switcher, it is awful, it cannot handle progressive very well and gives bad banding with 720p and 1080i.

You've mentioned this before and I see from here and the AV forums that a few people have had issues, but others haven't. Maybe the luck of the draw, but I see that the Zektor unit comes highly recommended.

Marcus, that VGA splitter is fine. No loss at all as far as I could make out on my 22" CRT.