I have just bought a new TV. This tv has a hdmi input, my DVD player has a HDMI output. Will I notice a difference if I go and buy a £40+ cable between the hdmi and scart which is currently connected??

depends

both ways of doing it are effectively taking a normal signal and ‘upscaling’ it to HD, be it in the DVD player (you’d need to use a HDMI cable) or in the TV (with normal scart)

one may be better at the job than the other. more likely that a HDMI cable will be better quality. unless you can change the DVD scart output to component video in the menu and the scart input on the TV to the same?

if so then this will vastly improve quality without needing a new cable (assuming your scart cable has all the pins wired up)

Yes hdmi is better – but don’t spend 40 quid a sub 10 quid one will be just as good.

I went for an HDMI TV/DVD lead on my new set and it is a little better quality, not massive but not bad for £10 Argos lead (£10 or £40 they all work the same unless you have £thousands of kit to connect!)

Plus it lets me keep the Wii plugged in the SCART socket…no messing about changing plugs 🙂

SSP

Yes definitely. Scart is analogue meaning information can get lost on the way, HDMI is digital so everything gets through.

As someone above said, no need to spend more than a tenner either.

+1

so expensive cables are a waste of money??

yes, unless you need to push the length of cable run to outside normal limits, HDMI will either work, or it won’t, there is no in between

I got a Tesco “Value Range” HDMI for about a fiver. It works fine.

what ogg and johnners said

Agreed, tesco HDMI will give much better picture than an expensive scart as there is no digital to analogue conversion and then baclk again.

Once you have the HDMI you then need to work out what looks best; letting the dvd player output at 480p and having the TV upscale to 720p or 1080p (depending on what TV you have) or having the dvd player output straight at 720p or 1080p and handle the upscaling.

For me it worked best when I told the DVD player to out put at 480p but that was a cheap HDMI equipped DVD palyer.

Yeah Comet/Currys etc should get their asses kicked for trying to sell £70+ HDMI cables (with the staff claiming they give a much better picture), it doesn’t matter a jot given they only carry digital data.