JS Technology SCART->VGA & Panny Aspect Ratios

[JulianL]

I'm pretty much set to buy a Panny 7 series panel so the only decision left is Scart board or JS-Tech SCART->VGA converter. I'm leaning towards the JST solution but the one thing that bothers me a bit is losing the automatic widescreen switching.

Could someone with this setup (or the 6 series is equally applicable of course) please talk me through how you deal with this in real life (I wil be mostly watching output from a Sky box and so expect to have quite a few 16:9 to 4:3 changes). Are you stuck with 4:3 broadcasts stretched horizontally or do some of the aspect settings on the panel still work via the VGA input? Are you able to manually adjust the aspect between 4:3 and 16:9 as required?

Thanks.

- Julian

 

[jonl1973]

I have PWD6 and a JS RGB to VGA converter and while the widescreen switching does not work automatically you are able to change the aspect ratio on the panel between 16:9, 4:3, Zoom (for letterbox stuff) and Just (For 4:3 stuff 'intelligently' sized to fit the screen)

I'm going to buy one of these eventually:
http://www.av-sales.co.uk/html/aspect_switcher.html
which will send a signal to the panel's serial port to tell it to change aspect ratio when the switcher detects a change of widescreen signal from it's scart input. That sounds like it would be ideal for you too...

Hope this helps,
Jon

 

[Mep]

do you know how that links in with the JS RGB Scart > vga ?

 

[JulianL]

Outstanding. Thanks Jon, that answers my question perfectly. That aspect switcher is something I hadn't come across and looks to be the ideal long-term solution.

Now all I need to do is wait and hope that the price of the 7 series commercial panel (as opposed to the consumer version) comes down a couple of hundred quid. Unfortunately I want mine in black (or charcoal) which means that all the great deals on the silver consumer model just serve to annoy me right now. Once I find a charcoal unit at sub £1,300 then my money gets spent.

- Julian

 

[jonl1973]

You'd need an extra scart cable, so the scart cable that currently goes into the VGA to RGB converter would instead go into the scart input of the Aspect switcher. There are then two outputs from the aspect switcher - one is a serial cable that goes to the serial input on the panel, the other is a scart (hence the need for the extra scart lead) which goes on to the RGB to VGA converter.

It's a powered device, so there should be no picture degradation as long as both scart leads are good quality.

 

[Bearded_Malc]

FYI

If you go scart RGB, JS->VGA, to panny then you lose colour adjustment as the panny does not allow colour adjust on any RGB modes. I don't know if that also applies to the scart board but I'm told it does to VGA input and RGsB (RGB sync on green) via the RGB/Component panny board. Not that RGsB is an option from scart. JS-Component would give you colour control with a panny RGB/Component board, however that is more conversion than the JS-VGA which does not touch the RGB but just generates sync from the scart composite video.

 

[Mep]

Thanks Jon

 

[nemo66]

Hello,

this is my first post.

About the SCART-VGA connection (I have a PW6 plasma monitor) I'm just thinking on the possibility to enter in the VGA input with a RGBs signal: i.e using a SCART-VGA cable instead of the JS Tech. converter.
In fact in the manual and in the set-up menu seems that even with the VGA you can select the composite sync.

Has anyone tried such type of connection?

Thanks,

Stefano

 

[Mep]

no expert but i think there needs to be amplification bewteen scart and vga and an alternative is the sync blaster cable but the JS gives better results (i've tried both)

 

[nemo66]

an alternative is the sync blaster cable

Do you mean a cable with the sync extracted directly from the SCART socket as described in the following link?

http://www.hifi-regler.de/scart/vga-scart.php

Regards

Stefano

 

[Mep]

I was thinking of this one

http://www.av-sales.co.uk/html/syncblaster_cables.html

 

[JulianL]

FYI
If you go scart RGB, JS->VGA, to panny then you lose colour adjustment as the panny does not allow colour adjust on any RGB modes. I don't know if that also applies to the scart board but I'm told it does to VGA input and RGsB (RGB sync on green) via the RGB/Component panny board.

I'm glad you mentioned this, I didn't mention it in my first post, but lack of colour control is my second nagging doubt about the JS Tech route so I'd be very interested to hear people's thoughts on this too.

My parents have a 6 series with scart board and I can confirm that colour control is definitely available for the scart/RGB input. I did find the colour on my parent's display a bit to high for my liking which is why I'm a bit worried about the lack of colour control on the VGA input.

- Julian

 

[Bearded_Malc]

The PW7 is one I'm considering too. Tomorrow I hope to see the NEC VR5 as I read good things about that. I also read bad things. The views are so worlds apart that I want to see to make up my own mind. The 42VR5 has loads of adjustment so could be that the bad views relate to badly adjusted ones.

BTW the VR5 also has all the inputs you need, future proof etc. and NEC will answer you emails. My experince is panasonic never do . So the question for my eyes is "is the PQ acceptable?". The blacks are probably not as good as the panny but then not even pioneer has the panny's contrast ratio. However, the blacks could be good enough. One USA review reckoned there was more fine detail on the VR5 compared to the panny.