Review of the One For All SCART Control Centre – posted 13/6/04 by Barry Flynn

This is not a review of a Freeview (or Top Up TV) receiver. Instead, it's a review of a useful little device that solves the problem of having to decide which SCART cable to connect to which SCART connector when you have multiple devices (e.g. a VCR, a DVD and a Freeview set-top box) attached to your TV set. (Click here for a reminder of what a SCART cable or connector is and click here for a picture of one).

For it's a sad fact that even the best manuals for audiovisual devices often make it impossible to decide how exactly you should carry out this task. One of the reasons is that the scenarios they offer don't always match your own situation. What a Freeview set-top box manual tells you about how to connect the thing up to your TV will probably ignore the special attributes of your TV set - like which SCART port you have to use to carry an RGB signal (generally the best option to use with digital TV).

Strictly speaking, One For All's SV-1610 gadget is designed for people who only have one SCART connector on their TV, but although my set has two, I nevertheless found it very useful - and it even solved a problem I was having with my digital viewing (of which more later).

The idea is simple. You plug in all the SCART cables attached to your various devices (the box can take up to four inputs - click here for rear view) and then run a single SCART cable from the output socket to your TV set (click here for a diagram of a typical setup). In practice, this should only take you a few minutes.

(It took me a bit longer because the box was supplied with a two-pin plug and I had to find an adapter, but One For All assures me that was a mistake, and that in the UK the product comes with a UK-standard 3-pin plug.)

You then have three options.

1. You can just press the relevant button on the front of the box to switch your TV to the device you want to use (button 1 corresponds to Input 1 on the back, button 2 to Input 2, and so on).
2. You can switch on the auto-detect facility. This 'searches' the inputs to find out which one is 'live'. This is the option I chose, because it means you don't have to get up to manually switch devices. But you do have to switch off the device you were using first. i.e. If you're watching your Freeview box and then want to watch a DVD, you switch off the Freeview box first using your remote control, and then simply switch on your DVD player using its remote control. The box searches for the 'live' input, finds it, and up comes the output from the DVD player.
3. You can make the SV1610 'learn' the signals your various remote controls use. This is pretty time-consuming, and - frankly - I couldn't be bothered. But if you go to the trouble, it means you don't have to switch off one device before using another. You can leave all of them permanently on (not a very Green thing to do, incidentally, but that's your lookout), and whichever remote control you pick up will automatically cause the box to switch to that device. (You could buy one of One For All's universal remotes to save having to switch from one remote to another, but you still have to go through the process of making it 'learn' the codes your various remote controls use).

Anyway, I can testify that the box works perfectly in Modes 1 and 2. It seems to me that if you're the kind of person who has trouble deciding which SCART to plug in where, you'll also be the kind of person who'll have trouble working out how to make the box 'learn' the output from your various remotes. So I would suggest that 'Mode 3' is, in practice, a bit redundant.

Interestingly, the box solved a problem I was having with the widescreen switching feature on my Philips widescreen TV set. This switches the aspect ratio of the picture from 4:3 to 16:9 and back again if the broadcaster has embedded the appropriate signal in the broadcast. Before I ran everything through the box, it wasn't working. After I did this, it began working again. I could have discovered where the fault was myself by trial and error - but if you work out all the possible ways of connecting three devices (one of which is a Sky+ box, another a combi DVD/VCR player and another a Freeview set-top box) to each other and to the two SCART inputs on my TV set, I suspect it could have taken me at least a day to track down what was wrong!

Verdict: Time is money - and if you can't be bothered to spend ages fiddling with a new installation of multiple devices with multiple SCART outputs, you should certainly consider purchasing the SV-1610. It takes all the angst out of the process. Is it worth the recommended retail price of £69.99? I guess that depends what you cost your time at! However, there is a cheaper version, the SV-1600, which retails for around £29.99, but which comes without any of the fancy automatic features mentioned above. To switch between devices, you have to get up and physically push the appropriate button on the front of the box. Is that a disadvantage? Well, if you want to play a DVD or a VCR, you have to get up to physically insert the thing, and you can simply push the relevant button on the One For All box after you've done that. So I would suggest that isn't really a problem, and would accordingly recommend the basic box as the best value for money. To get the most out of the more expensive model, you really need to be a bit of a geek!