jeremymiles-ga:
Thank you for your Question regarding your tangled web of SCART leads!
With five (potentially six) devices, four (or five) of which can be
outputs, two of which are inputs, you definitely have a wiring knot to
untie.
One approach to cut through the mess would be a switch box. The
challenge is the number of devices involved.
You mentioned the idea of using multiple switch boxes; one
complication of this would be the need to follow a map every time you
wanted to watch one source, and tape another.
A more user-friendly approach would be a switch box that can handle
the number of devices you have, plus can handle two outputs.
Please take a look at the following online vendor's page:
http://www.threedoubleyou.com/quattroscart.htm
Here you will find a plethora of SCART switch boxes. The top of the
line units at the bottom of the page will allow you the simplest
wiring scheme, but definitely are the priciest.
However, other options also are possible. For example, the SCART
output of the VCR, and the SCART output of the DVD, are really only
ever going to need to go to the SCART input of the TV (assuming that
you don't happen to have a need to convert your personally-recorded
DVDs to VHS). So, you can use something like the "3 in to 1 out Scart
Switcher" (found on that same page) to connect the TV's SCART-in with
the DVD and the VCR-out. This still leaves you with a problem: two (or
three if Freeview is added) inputs, two outputs (TV, VCR-in). While
the "4 Way SCART Switching Box SVS-200", used with a phono-to-SCART
adapter to give you two SCART outputs, would allow you to take in the
three inputs, only one of them can be sent to the two outputs at any
one time. To have the ability to independently switch either of the
outputs to any of these three inputs, you would still need a device
like the Trilogy 1 (second from the bottom of the page).
The final alternative would be to use
- 1-in/2-out SCART splitters for each of the satellite, cable, and
eventually Freeview;
(see "2 Way SCART Splitter" half-way down this page:
http://www.threedoubleyou.com/distribution.htm )
- a "3 in to 1 out Scart Switcher" on the VCR SCART-in to combine and
select between the three sources;
- a "3 in to 1 out Scart Switcher" to combine the three sources back to one output;
- a "3 in to 1 out Scart Switcher" to combine this combined source
with the VCR-out and DVD, to connect to the TV.
When you consider the cost of the number of manual switchboxes and
leads required to implement this last option, the Trilogy 1 and Holdan
6 Way Control Centre options start to look reasonable!
Hope this helps,
aht-ga
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