HDMI connection and output resolution queries

[Johnbhideo]

I have just bought an LG DRT389H Digital TV DVD Recorder and connected it by scart cable only to my Toshiba TV (32BV702B 32-inch Full HD 1080p LCD), with good results so far. There is an HDMI cable on its way to me now, and I have two newbie questions: when I connect the HDMI between the recorder and TV, should I afterwards remove the scart connection or does it not do any harm to leave it connected? (The instructions for the player are not at all clear on this).

Secondly, what resolution should I set on the player once I've connected the cable? It is currently at 576i on scart (I switched to 576p and noticed a small improvement in picture quality).
The supported signals on my TV are 576i/p, 720i/p and 1080i/p at 50/60Hz. Should I just go for the highest that works, or are there pitfalls I'm unaware of? Any help would be much appreciated, thanks.

[pandy]

HDMI can't carry many (all) VBI services (like WST Teletext for example) thus SCART can be helpful.
You can select input on TV and use or HDMI or SCART thus no problem at all.

Resolution is slightly different case - sometimes it is good to set highest possible output when source is the one to care about resizing video - knowing detailed video structure it can decide better that TV which don't have full information about source thus sometimes can be confused.

[Brad]

For the resolution, just try them all. The player should in theory be able to deinterlace better than the TV because it has access to more information than just the pixels to make its decision, as pandy alludes to. So I would say almost definitely that one of the progressive output modes will provide the best picture. But it all depends on what algorithms are in place in each device.

The way to check this quickly is with test patterns designed for stressing pulldown detection and interpolation. Spears & Munsil does this for 480i but I can't remember if 576i is included.

[Johnbhideo]

Thanks. I did try removing the scart cable after plugging in the HDMI, but the whole setup went haywire, so back in it went and after auto retuning I fitted the HDMI again. It runs well now with both cables connected. Seems to give the best picture at 1080i so I'm happy with that.

[jagabo]

Something isn't set up right if you can't get a picture without the SCART cable. You may not even be seeing high def video. There should be a very obvious difference in picture quality between SCART and HDMI when watching a good HD broadcast.

[Johnbhideo]

Thanks jagabo, I tried switching off everything, removing the scart and the player now works fine with just the HDMI connection.

I don't receive HD broadcasts, just have ordinary Freeview, so wouldn't expect to see a massive difference in picture quality (?) but it does look better and the recordings are virtually indistinguishable from the original broadcast at SP quality. The picture quality of commercial DVDs has really jumped though