Recording from Freeview

[Slade]

My friend wants me to connect up her TV system. She has a TV, a VHS recorder, a DVD player and a Freeview set-top box. I have plenty of scarts and co-axial cables etc. How do I connect all these up so that the VHS will record from all the Freeview channels, and not just the five terrestrial ones? Thank you.

[Headtime]

This had my head in a spin, when I had to reconnect my TV boxes, but I eventually worked it out. 

Firstly.  The Feeview Box, Video and TV all need an RF (Coax Arial) Lead to receive a TV signal.  So firstly run the RF arial cable from the wall into the input of the Freeview Box first.  Then Run a RF arial cable from the output of the Freeview box to the RF input of the Video.  Then Finally, run aother RF cable from the output of the Video to the input of the Telly.

Effectively the RF lead has looped through the Freeview box and video on it's way to the TV. This means that all three of the above machines can now receive Tereestrial/Digital broadcasts.

Next. Connect the Freeview box to the Video Via a SCART lead.  This means Freeview will appear on one of the Video Players 'Auxilliary' channels.  On a Sony Video, they are called 'L1' and 'L2'  So to record or view Freeview channel you would select one of these channels on the video.

Connect the DVD directly to the telly with a SCART lead.

[Headtime]

If your friends Freeview box has a second Scart socket, you connect it directly to the telly with a SCART lead, and would then be able to wach Freeview directly on one of her Telly's 'Aux' channels.  Although she would still have to change the video to L1 or L2 when she wanted to record anything.

Or again, If your friends Telly has a 2nd SCART *******, you can also connect the Video to the Telly via a SCART Lead.  This means that as well as being able to view the video on Channel 8 (or whatever) on the Telly, you can also watch the output of the video on one of the televisions Aux channels which is better quality.

Hope this all make sense.

[Headtime]

If your friends Freeview box has a second Scart socket, you connect it directly to the telly with a SCART lead, and would then be able to wach Freeview directly on one of her Telly's 'Aux' channels.  Although she would still have to change the video to L1 or L2 when she wanted to record anything.

Or again, If your friends Telly has a 2nd SCART *******, you can also connect the Video to the Telly via a SCART Lead.  This means that as well as being able to view the video on Channel 8 (or whatever) on the Telly, you can also watch the output of the video on one of the televisions Aux channels which is better quality.

Hope this all make sense.

[Headtime]

Didn't mean to post 2nd Half twice!  Also SCART ******* Should read 'Socket' an errant 'c' got in the world making half of it rude.

[tomd]

Scart sends video signals both ways, so if you plug everything into the telly, then you will be able to record anything that is on TV screen by setting the video player to auxilary (usually called aux or av/av1) and setting the TV to the aux channel of the device you wish to record from. You could also use a scart switching box for this, as tuning devices in via RF signals (plugging it into the arial socket and tuning it in like another channel, like we used to do with video players back in the old county) tends to result in a lower quality picture.

This way she would be able to watch a freeview channel which recording a terrestrial channel, but not the other way round. That would need the freeview box going into the VCR before the tv, or taking two routes.