SCART

Published on: January 23, 2025

SCART is magic. Simple as, nothing more to say. 21 pins and all of them have purposes. It supports audio input, audio output, full RGB output, composite in and out. It also carries a data line, Philips utilises this line with their own proprietry system called D2B (Domestic Digital Bus). From my very very brief research it looks like a variation of the one, the only, I2C. Other systems use different signals of course, since the SCART standard only specifies the lines as 'data'. On top of all of this it also carries some magic capabilities, such as being able to force the TV into AV (very helpful for a CRT without a remote) and being able to tell the TV the kind of aspect ratio. Of course the standard was created by France and was legally required on all European TV sets between 1980 and 2015, a hell of a long run for what it is. Of course now adays this is all outdated with HDMI preceding it (and totally crushing it). If this quick little blog post has really got you intrested in SCART, the best place to really learn about it is the WikiPedia page, or the original standard since theres not much more info elsewhere (I didn't look long though). Thanks for reading!