[warmbells]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone has ever come across this problem before? We have had a Goodmans K2105 TV for some time, it has a single SCART socket at the rear which we have never used until recently. We have a HITACHI HDB73 freeview set top box and a LG DRT389H freeview and DVD recorder also a LG LV 210 VCR. The problem we are experiencing is that when we use any of the equipment that connects to the SCART socket we get a sliding ghosting of the program that we had switched on to before using the external equipment, when facing the TV the ghosting travels from right to left. I'm wondering if the chip controlling the socket and TV content is not isolating the two inputs. They way it is at the moment it is making the external equipment unwatchable. Any ideas?

Gerald

[mechanic]

Do you have only one piece of equipment connected to the scart when this fault occurs?

[warmbells]

Yes, I have tried it with only one piece at a time and it still happens. If we have been watching BBC1 then a ghost of BBC1 shows, if we have ben watching ITV then ITV ghosting shows, presumably as the TV is still receiving that particular channel up to the switching IC.

Gerald

[fallenangle]

It sounds like it's the very common problem found with single fully wired but poorly shielded SCART cables/sockets.

A fully wired SCART carries both signals in and out and if you're tuned to a TV channel that is what is being sent out by the TV via the same socket. In a poorly shielded SCART that signal interferes with the signal from the external equipment and causes the ghosting or more commonly herringbone
inteference patterns.

The audio output can also picked up in the same way too so you will often hear the TV channel audio in the background.

Simplest solution is just to turn your TV to an untuned channel number before switching on the external SCART connected equipment.

A more sophisticated solution is to disconnect or insulate the SCART cable's output pins (pin 19 video out, pins 1 and 3 for R/L audio out). There's little chance of any problems if you try this method but you do it at your own risk.

[NST]

I had a similar problem with a Bush portable, and also an old Sony 20" TV. The problem seems to be that some TV's don't blank the analogue tuner properly when a SCART device is activated.

The way round it is of course to switch the TV to the AV/ SCART input manually from the remote, or from a button marked 'AV' (or similar) on the front of the TV.