Re: Frustrated button-pushing!

"Paul D" <Paul@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:
First, please excuse the length of this. I wanted to give as much info
as possible, in the hope that it will help the experts come up with
some solid advice.

<snip>

Hi Terry, I can understand your frustration! It really should not be that
difficult and I think the problem is an error in the plugging of the
devices. Your diagram helped a lot and I can see an error in each
configuration.

Installer's config: he has not connected the Skybox directly to the VCR.
Silly! This means that the only way the VCR can record from the Skybox is
via the TV - it would record whatever channel you happened to be watching at
the time but as soon as you tuned to a terrestrial channel it would probably
start recording that! There must be a direct connection between Skybox
(output) to VCR (input).

This seems to have been solved in your second option. Unfortunately there is
fundamental flaw: there is now no SCART connection from the VCR to the TV!
Dominic's post below, although helpful, suggested hooking up the VCR to the
TV via its RF output. This is an old fashioned way of doing it and is
totally unnecessary. Forget the RF lead connection between VCR and TV. There
are enough SCART connections to do this properly.

My suggestion: go with the second configuration (Skybox connecting to VCR
via the VCR's AV2 SCART connection) BUT (very important) also connect the
VCR to the TV using a SCART as per the installer's original connection. Do
not connect VCR to TV via RF lead.

This will enable you to view on the TV:

TV AV1 = Skybox
TV AV2 = VCR.

Use the other numerical channel buttons on the TV to view terrestrial
channels.

The connection 'EC1' that you inadvertently selected on the TV is probably a
camera input 'external camera' - ignore.

Record Link: I had a look at the manual for your VCR on the Philips website.
Connecting the Skybox to the AV2 socket of the VCR enables you to use the
'record link' facility which is very handy. What this means is that you use
the timer in the Skybox, rather than the VCR, to record your programme. Once
the Skybox activates the VCR will detect this via the SCART connection and
spring into life, recording whatever is coming down the SCART lead.

The downside is that you can't be using the Skybox prior to the start time
of the recording. It has to be 'sleeping' because it's the very fact of it
switching on that activates the VCR SCART and starts the VCR recording.

To set this up you enable Record link using the VCR's menu system (page 11
of manual) then exit the menu. On the Skybox you programme its own timer
(start time/end time/channel) , select 'timer mode' on and the Skybox will
switch off. That's it.

You can then watch other terrestrial channels on the TV (but not the Skybox
because it will be switched off) using the TV's numerical channel buttons to
select your channel.

Once the start time of the programme arrives the Skybox will switch on and
the VCR will also switch on and start recording directly from the Skybox.

You'll probably find that when the Skybox switches on the TV will
automatically jump to the AV1 socket - this is a characteristic of the SCART
connection. If you are watching another programme at the time just use the
channel number button to get back to it.

I hope this is clear! Post again if not.

Good luck!

Thanks a lot, Paul, much appreciate your taking the trouble to reply
so comprehensively.

I'll revisit the additional Scart method again at some stage. But I
don't think you can have seen the earlier thread describing my initial
foray into all this, in
Subject: Recording digital channel to VCR?
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006
news:urqma2h74hd9cpla939utvl1ua2d2q99qp@xxxxxxx

Amongst many other things, I did try that '3-Scart' configuration, but
it proved unsuccessful. It didn't fix the recording issue, and in
addition some sort of feedback occurred, producing 'howling'. Of
course, it could be that I screwed it up some way, but I'm pretty
confident I was methodical about it, before finally giving up and
settling on the present cabling configuration.

For the moment that 'working procedure' I described at the end of my
initial post, which I eventually recovered, is still working. So I
think I'll stick with that modus operandi for now, even though it's
pretty clumsy and 'easy to lose' <g>.

As for Record Link and Autoview, those too were explored in the
earlier thread. It appears my VCR unfortunately doesn't support Record
Link. I got strange results if I enabled it and tried to use it in
conjunction with Autoview. Prompted by your post I tried it again over
the last hour or so, with similar results to last time. Here's a
detailed description of what I did and what happened, starting with
some 'routine' operations:

1) Switch on TV. Starts up with SKY, using 'AV1/RGB'.

2) Press TV/AV on TV remote. SKY now on 'VCR Ch 35 Mono'. Another
press of the 'i' for Info button on my TV remote changes that to
'VCR', then blank, then 'VCR Ch 35 Mono', cycling through those 3
descriptions. (BTW, what is that worrying 'Mono' all about please?
Does that mean I've somehow lost my stereo? Difficult to tell in
practice, as I just have the inbuilt speakers.)

3) Press 'Menu' on VCR remote, then use Timer menu to setup a program
for recording: Timer number, Start Time, Stop Time, Programme ('002'
has to be entered), PDC (arbitrarily set to Off). Press Exit to
finish.

4) Then press Timer Set on VCR remote to prepare VCR. That produces a
'Noise screen' until I press TV/AV again, which returns me to
'AV1/RGB'.

5) At intended start time, VCR records 1 minute of whatever SKY is
receiving at that time. (Played it back to check. I see it has
recorded 'AV2'.)

So far so good. In practice I would use Autoview to ensure SKY
switched to required programme. No problem if I had then switched TV
off (e.g. while away from home). But no good if I wanted to watch
another SKY programme when the recording was being made. In that case
could I switch the SKY box off and watch a terrestrial channel?

6) As an aside, while SKY is on 'VCR', instead of using TV/AV, if
instead I switch the SKY box off and on again I get 'VCR EC1/RGB'. I'm
guessing 'EC1' means 'Electronic channel 1' or 'External channel 1',
but I'm baffled as to the distinction between this and plain 'VCR', or
why it changes to this. With 'VCR EC1/RGB' displaying, if I manually
switch off TV, when I switch back on it's still showing 'VCR EC1/RGB'.

7) If, from there, I now press TV/AV, I get 'VCR Mono' (= 'VCr Ch35
Mono') as before. And if I now toggle TV/AV again, I get 'AV1/RGB',
not 'VCR EC1/RGB'. Probably irrelevant to current context, but
puzzling nevertheless!

8) Just out of curiosity I then pressed SKY box Off, which gave me
'AV1' on a black screen. SKY box on returned me to programme on
'AV1/RGB'.

9) Now for the Record Link experiments. Pressed TV/AV, Menu, Record
Setup, and enabled Record Link.

10) TV/AV to get back to SKY on 'AV1/RGB'.

11) At ~ 2:20 used Autoview on ITV3 for 2:30. Switched to SKY BBC1 and
watched that while waiting. But I didn't expect anything to happen, as
I had not used Timer Set on VCR remote. (So LED was not on on VCR.)
And, apart from the usual warning message from SKY box at 2:29, no
recording did occur.

12) Repeated for a 2:45 programme, but this time I did press Timer Set
after the Autoview setup.

13) But it IMMEDIATELY started recording, at about 2:35. This is same
exasperating behaviour I reported in previous thread, and to Philips
Tech Support. Worst aspect (until I found out what to do) is that I
cannot then *stop* the recording, either with STOP, Pressing Timer
Set, or even Switching VCR to Standby. The only way to stop it is to
switch SKY box off (--> 'AV1', black screen). Can then also switch off
Timer Set.

14) I switched Timer set back on again at 2:44, just in time hopefully
to test my 2:45 recording again. Something odd then happened. It *did*
start recording, but stopped gain about a minute later. I'd expected
it to continue for 30 mins or so (Athletics on BBC2). And when it
stopped, 'E2' on the VCR had become '----'.

15) Tried yet again, setting recording with Autoview for 3:00 pm and
this time switching TV (on AV1) to Ch 2 terrestrial while waiting. But
that made no difference. As soon as I pressed Timer Set, the same
happened: immediate recording.

So my conclusion remains as before. Record Link doesn't work. Even if
it did, as you point out, it would be pretty useless in practice, as I
would be unable to watch something else on SKY before or during the
recording. Therefore I think I must reconcile myself to using the VCR
Timer setup menu. Very tedious, especially as (before SKY) I used to
use the very convenient PlusVideo feature, simply entering a programme
code.

The SKY people echo my son's advice: scrap this and get SKY Plus. But
that will have to wait. I just don't want *any* subscription, and
having forked out £150 (plus extras for chimney mount, plus IR add-on
necessary because SKY box not visible), I'm determined to get some
value out of it. Apart from that, I hate unsolved puzzles!

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK
.

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