1. Home
  2. Electronics Repair
  3. Any options available for new VCR/DVD player

Any options available for new VCR/DVD player

My mother-in-law bought a new VHS/DVD combo and wants to record on it and play it back later. She has cable, but the combo has no antenna in or out; so I bought an RF modulator thinking that was the fix; it wasn't. I have to be able to get video out from a source (which the RF mod doesn't have; it is video in) to put into the combo input. The only thing I can think of is to use her old vcr/dvd combo (vcr is broken) to inbetween everything but I am afraid it will degrade the signal. Any suggestions on a sensible hookup with the way they manufacture stuff today without RF mods?

Reply to
harryhomer
Loading thread data ...

Is it not possible to get a cable box with baseband out? Using RF for this is a cludge.

--
*If at first you don\'t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn\'t for you *

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.
Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I don't understand how a VHS recorder can NOT have an RF/cable input, unless it were designed solely for VHS to DVD dubs.

Take it back, and find one that does.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

I went thru the same thing. Sometime back, in preparation for the grand debacle that is the US DTV transition, there became a rule for any VCR sold in the USA. If it had an RF tuner, it had to have an ATSC tuner. DTV is a poor match for VHS, so format conversion is necessary. Early on, there wasn't any HDTV to watch, so people wouldn't pay the BIG cost increase for something that couldn't record what was available, so VCR's became tunerless. If it has an RF connector on the back, it's likely a passthru only.

Reply to
spamme0

nless

d

What is posted above is what I have run into. All new VCR's, etc. are sold without RF Modulators because of HDTV. I am trying to figure out some way to make this work and the only thing I can think of is what I posted above with hooking the old VCR to the new but running the risk of screwing up the video because it is going through 2 devices.

Reply to
harryhomer

DTV converter box works just fine. Problem is that you get only one channel. There are a few older cable boxes that have unlocked ATSC tuners and built-in timers. You have to set the channel timers on the cable box and again on the VCR. Picture is no worse than from a NTSC tuner.

Another option is to get a VCR with two AV inputs and an NTSC RF input. Put a converter box on each one. I have two dual-AV Vcr's , one single-AV VCR and four DTV converter boxes and three cable boxes. Doesn't completely solve the problem, but goes a long way. I'm afraid to ask how much of my electric bill is due to all that crap.

A better solution would be a DVD recorder with ATSC tuner. I tried a couple of older DVDRW recorders with NTSC tuners and a DTV box. I NEVER got a complete recording. The recording process is so fragile that it can't recover from an error. A plane passing overhead that disrupted the signal for an instant caused the process to crash. It should just give up and keep going. All the ones I tried crashed and aborted the recording. Ditto for any kind of DVD write issue. USELESS.

Reply to
spamme0

Hi!

That's going to make it more complicated than it has to be, because the use of an external tuner is going to be required. And she'll have to make sure that the external tuner is set up properly so that the VCR will record from it.

I believe the best solution will be to return it for a unit that does what is needed--and has a built in tuner capable of receiving the programs to be recorded.

William

Reply to
William R. Walsh

In the waning years of VHS, VCRs began to be supplanted by VCPs. (Player vs. Recorder.) Turns out that most VCRs were used only to play rented movies, not record off the air. So in an effort to keep the retail price at $29 or so, they dropped the record capability.

Reply to
Smitty Two

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.