Scart
The scart is a standard connector with 21 connections or pins, which exchanges audio and video information. It was designed in France in 1978 and has been required by law since 1981 on all television and video equipment sold in France. Also known as SCART for the acronym of the Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs (especially in Anglo-Saxon countries), curiously in France that name is hardly used, being used mostly as a name Peritel.
The technical name by the CENELEC standard is EN 50049-1:1997
Designed both as a means of guaranteeing the consumer a quality image (while avoiding the high cost of implementing SECAM modulators in videos and computers) and as a protectionist measure for the French industry, the quality of his signal caused him to fail in the latter, being widely used throughout the world except the American continent. Even in Japan it disputes the field with S-Video. The connector supports a maximum resolution of 480p NTSC or 576p PAL.
The euroconnector facilitates the connection of televisions, videos, DVDs, DTT, satellite receivers, computers (you can even use a VGA-Euroconnector adapter), game consoles, and other devices quickly and with good quality. The connector is designed in such a way that a wrong connection is not possible, and with all the necessary signals in a single cable. By having separate input and output signals, it is possible to daisy chain several devices with two connectors without degrading the signal due to conversions. As its voltages are somewhat high (1V) the signal has good immunity to noise.
This bidirectionality allows a television to process the signal received from the antenna, channel it through the video output to a set-top-box equipment and this returns it already processed to the television without delays. It is the mechanism used in Canal+ decoders in France.
Outside France, however, low-end equipment usually implements a cropped scart connector for only audio/video signals (even mono instead of stereo). For this reason, in Spain, an RGB to audio/video signal adapter had to be marketed. The progressive implementation of DTT and the replacement of VHS by DVD have banished this practice, which no longer exists on plasma or TFT screens.
A standard-compliant cable shields each of its internal wires (similar to antenna cable), but cheap cables are shielded as a group or even not shielded (using ribbon cable), which cuts the cable length, as interference increases. They also tend to use bad materials in the connectors, which causes breakage of the pins.
Another frequent bad practice is in cheap switch blocks, where only the audio/video signals are switched, leaving all the others always connected. This causes interference between the connected equipment (a standby console still has 1V signals) that can even damage the equipment. The same happens if the equipment is connected once turned on. To avoid this problem, push-button switches can be used to select the AV source.
The Scart also allows a device to send commands to the television with rapid exchange of signals. For example, to display subtitles, instead of carrying out a complete recoding process (with the consequent signal degradation), you can tell the television to show the image generated by the device in certain areas, with a grainy pixel instead. from the video
The use of RGB circumvents the problem of the existence of PAL and SECAM in Europe, and even NTSC, allowing you to enjoy the original modes of video games on televisions prepared for it, with a qualitative improvement of the image.
With video game consoles, especially old ones, it is very common for an RCA to Scart cable adapter to be delivered with the 3 RCA females mounted as an extension of the scart, even with an S-Video socket and/or a switch which switches RCA signals from input to output. It is a cheaper alternative to the cable with five RCA connectors each with its own cable.
The cables between devices terminate at each end in a male connector, but since one is input and the other is output, the appropriate cables are switched. This is the case with the pairs of pins 1/2, 3/6, 17/18, 19/20. The rest of the cables connect pins with the same numbering.
Although features have been added to the original design, the advent of HDMI and high definition do not herald a return to expansion.