geordie
Established Member
I have just bought a Panasonic TH-PWH50 and have a new (Grundig) Sky digibox. The Panasonic is clearly capable of producing a fantastic picture if fed a clean signal, but....I find the lip-sync delay a real pain on some channels, notably BBC 2 and News 24, and it was awful on Sky Sports the other day. But on some channels it seems barely noticeable eg ITV. Anyway, I bought a SyncBlaster scart - SVGA cable and tried that. Arghhhh!! Not only did it have no effect on the lip-sync problem, it was impossible to achieve a stable picture due to obvious (but variable) distortion of verticals, with or without separate power supply, with all other kit disconnected, every permutation of input setting on plasma and output setting on digibox. It also displaced the image, requiring both vertical and horizontal repositioning of image every time you switch between inputs, no thank-you. It is going back to Keenes this morning.
So now I have a connection problem as well as a lip-sync problem.
2 questions
Easy one (I think) first:
Does anyone make a sensible money black box convertor which converts a Sky digibox RGB scart output to a clean SVGA plasma input WITHOUT moving the image or adding any visible distortion (I anticipate a reply from Dr Sim explaining that you only get what you pay for, although I resent coughing over a ton to move an already good signal eight feet). What about cheaper boxes listed in Lektropacks and Keenes catalogues etc?
Hard one:
Does anyone make a black box with a controllable (remote, ideally) time delay for the stereo AUDIO signal? Has to be a variable delay as some channels exhibit longer delay between sound and picture than others. I hear you can do this on some high end AV receiver/amps, but I already have a top notch audio amp (Musical Fidelity A3cr pre/power) which isn't budging, and I plan to just use a Yamaha DSP E800 for surround sound with dvd's (haven't even got a proper dvd yet, just a playstation 2 which lives in another room!). The adjustable delay between front L/R and centre channels on av amps and processors is no use here as TV is only stereo (I am not getting Sky Plus either).
Failing that, I think the sad answer will have to be a 14inch tv sitting next to the unused plasma for watching news, documentaries, etc with the plasma reserved for films and drama. Then I'd go back to not noticing the lip-sync problem which in my opinion is obviously far more to do with inadequate digital broadcasting than Panasonic or Plasma picture processing. This would also have the advantage of avoiding background tv dominating the room, and, best of all, avoid the excrutiating din the plasma fan and picture buz make when listening to speech at low-to moderate sound levels. However magical with feature films and high octane crash bang blockbuster stuff (which it is) I am afraid the Panasonic Plasma is PANTS when it comes to anything QUIET like news at ten or when trying to read a book at the same time as someone else just wants to watch the telly. Should I have bought the fan-less Pioneer?
So now I have a connection problem as well as a lip-sync problem.
2 questions
Easy one (I think) first:
Does anyone make a sensible money black box convertor which converts a Sky digibox RGB scart output to a clean SVGA plasma input WITHOUT moving the image or adding any visible distortion (I anticipate a reply from Dr Sim explaining that you only get what you pay for, although I resent coughing over a ton to move an already good signal eight feet). What about cheaper boxes listed in Lektropacks and Keenes catalogues etc?
Hard one:
Does anyone make a black box with a controllable (remote, ideally) time delay for the stereo AUDIO signal? Has to be a variable delay as some channels exhibit longer delay between sound and picture than others. I hear you can do this on some high end AV receiver/amps, but I already have a top notch audio amp (Musical Fidelity A3cr pre/power) which isn't budging, and I plan to just use a Yamaha DSP E800 for surround sound with dvd's (haven't even got a proper dvd yet, just a playstation 2 which lives in another room!). The adjustable delay between front L/R and centre channels on av amps and processors is no use here as TV is only stereo (I am not getting Sky Plus either).
Failing that, I think the sad answer will have to be a 14inch tv sitting next to the unused plasma for watching news, documentaries, etc with the plasma reserved for films and drama. Then I'd go back to not noticing the lip-sync problem which in my opinion is obviously far more to do with inadequate digital broadcasting than Panasonic or Plasma picture processing. This would also have the advantage of avoiding background tv dominating the room, and, best of all, avoid the excrutiating din the plasma fan and picture buz make when listening to speech at low-to moderate sound levels. However magical with feature films and high octane crash bang blockbuster stuff (which it is) I am afraid the Panasonic Plasma is PANTS when it comes to anything QUIET like news at ten or when trying to read a book at the same time as someone else just wants to watch the telly. Should I have bought the fan-less Pioneer?