SCART cables can carry RGB, composite video, stereo audio, component video, and svideo. It just depends on what the equipment you're using sends/receives on certain pins. Component video and Svideo are passed over the RGB pins.
SCART is also bidirectional for some signals(composite video, audio left, audio right), meaning it has input and output pins for passthrough sockets on some devices.
It should also be noted that there is a second type of SCART used in Japan generally referred to as JSCART. It uses the same 21 pin connector, but has a different pinout entirely and isnt compatible with European/regular SCART devices without an adapter or cable.
Next to none of the classic systems will output component or svideo through their A/V connectors over SCART though, thus the RGBs-component transcoder is needed to put the RGB output on american TVs.
At home I have 3 15khz RGBs capable monitors. When taking my console(s) to a friends place I use a transcoder/switchbox by Micomsoft called an Xselect D4 that transcodes VGA/Component/RGBs to any of those formats and outputs them all simultaneously. There is virtually no quality loss apples to apples between RGBs and component in terms of image quality. Problems generally only arise when a newer TV's internal scaler causes poor image quality and this is when one looks into an external/dedicated scaler like an XRGB 2+/3.
Reply With Quote