Video remote via fibre-optic cable

[AndiFlatland]

I recently bought 2 new VCRs off E-Bay, to replace the ones I'd had for many years, and had ceased working efficiently.
Both machines are variants of the same make and model, but unfortunately only one had a remote. However, I found when I got them up and running that both machines responded to the one remote - which can be both an advantage and a problem. Obviously if you're doing 2 recordings at the same time, and want to cut the ads from one, you don't want the other one pausing as well. There are all sorts of other similar problems, too.
What I was wondering if anybody can give me an answer to was an apparently simple solution to this dilemma that I thought of:
It occurred to me that it should be possible to get 2 short pieces of fibre-optic cable, and attach one end of each to the remote sensor on each VCR, and have some kind of remote-shaped receptor on the other ends of the cables, into which you could push the remote, and operate one machine or the other, depending on which one it was pushed into.
Would this work, and if so, is there any particular type or guage of cable that would be the best to use. And where would I get it from?

[Whiskery Ron]

Andi,I would suggest that the best solution would be to run 1 VCR with remote & operate the other manually.Ron.

[sarah_louise]

Dont laugh at this suggestion just try it.
Put one VCR facing sideways and point the remote at the wall facing it to bounce the signal.

Was this a wise purchase. You do know that VCR's are soon becoming obsolete dont you when Digital takes over. (next year where I live)

[AndiFlatland]

Whiskery Ron:
Thanks, but you're obviously not running a very large private archive. To do that would firstly involve some very complicated movements which the remote is designed to avoid, and secondly, there are many functions that are only available on the remote, not on the machines themselves - so it really isn't a solution.
!

[AndiFlatland]

sara_louise:
Yes, I thought something like that would work - I've tried masking them off from each other in all sorts of ways, but the signal still gets through, and the only way I've found so far is by putting a piece of card directly over the remote sensor on the machine - that's as well as the large piece of board I've put between the machines (one is on top of the other), sticking out at the front by about 9 inches. It''s a bit Heath Robinson and awkward, but it works well enough, as long as I remember certain sequences of operation.
And yes, I'm fully aware of the impending great switch-over to digital - as far as I can see, this is one of the greatest cons of modern times, designed solely to force us into having huge numbers of channels which we don't need, and watch programmes which are no better than the ones put out by the perfectly adequate 5 network channels we already have. Why does anybody need any more? Go through the Radio Times carefully each week, and make a list of all the programmes on the network channels you want to watch, or think are worth recording to keep. Put them in order, and see how big a list you come up with, and add up all the time it takes out of your week to watch these programmes - then tell me if you REALLY, HONESTLY need any more of your life taken up with sitting in front of that seductive, glittering little box of moving colours. And if you still think, 'oh, there's nothing on that I want to watch' - just turn the thing off, and go and do something else!!

There's more to this response, but I'm being told it's too long - so I've copied it to MSW, and I'll try and paste it back to a second reply...

[AndiFlatland]

sarah_louise: (part 2)
Even being rabidly selective in the stuff I want to archive, over the last 15 years or so I've ended up with well over 3,000 tapes, about a third of which are still awaiting watching, copying or editing down.
Nobody will be happier than me, when the big switch-over finally puts the TV channels beyond my reach, and I can devote my time to dealing with that vast volume of material, and bringing my archive to its intended organised state, so that it can be left to charity for educational purposes.
So you can see, from that point of view, that purchasing 2 new video recorders made perfect sense - otherwise, I would not be able to play and copy the tapes I've recorded. It may be that at some stage in the far future, I will invest in a DVD recorder, so that I can transfer it all to that format - but I'll still need the VCRs to read the tapes. And I'm not sure I'll live long enough to do that!
(OK, that seems to work... that's all, but thanks for your attempt to offer a solution!)