[steev]

Some time after we got our Twin, I had to plug the VCR in to watch a video. It's on the 2nd SCART and that works fine.

Today I wanted to try and record something via the 2nd tuner to avoid filling the disk. I only had a few minutes to try this, but could not seem to see the Freeview signal on the VCR. I was using the tv/dtv button to see the VCR signal. The weird thing is that on the VCR AV input I see an analogue signal rather than the expected Freeview. Our analogue signal is very fuzzy so no good for recording. Had to give up and record to disk for now.

Is there something obvious I'm missing here? At some point I'll want to archive from the disk to tape and I can see myself having the same problem.

The VCR is a standard Aiwa NICAM, not S-VHS. It's just connected to the Twin SCART and the aerial is looped through the Twin and VCR before it gets to the TV.

So far I've been very happy with the Twin, but just need to work out this last stage. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to play with the configuration options.

Thanks for any pointers.

[wookieman]

Couple of ideas, is your vcr set to record from the aux input (scart) rather than the tuner ? this would give the best possible picture quality. Also try changing the 2nd tuner output between svid & composite... Menu, Config, Install, TV Setting. Does that make any difference ?

If you havn't connected the the 2nd scart from the Twin to your vcr have you tuned the vcr to the uhf channel that the Twin is outputting on ? Be carefull if that's around 36-40 since most vcr's use that and it can cause interferance. Change the uhf out on the Twin default is 69 i think... Menu, Config, Install, Misc. Also make sure the Source is TV2/VCR not Main TV.

Hope that helps

[steev]

The 2nd SCART is set to composite. I managed to get it working on the UHF channel 69, but that is compromising the signal somewhat.

I'll play again when I get a chance.

Thanks

[wookieman]

Hmmm

Assuming your TV has two scart sockets and so does your video, your connections should be as follows....

a. TV out on twin to TV scart 1
b. TV/VCR out on twin to video in/out
c. VCR out on video to TV scart 2

a. is so you can watch freeview on your tv
b. is so you can archive off the twin to your vcr and record freeview on your vcr
c. is so you can watch videos on your tv

if your video only has one scart socket then the aerial loop thru will replace C, likewise if your TV has only one scart socket.

Hope this all makes sense

[steev]

That makes sense apart from the DVD being plugged into the other TV SCART. I can live with slight degradation on VCR playback.

So what I have is:

UHF->Pace->VCR->TV

DVD -> TV SCART 1

Pace SCART 1->TV SCART 2 (composite)
SCART 2->VCR
S-Video->TV S-Video

This last one is to get a better picture as we're getting interference on the SCART componsite. I may change things around so the TV gets RGB from the Pace and S-Video from the DVD.

The hope is to keep it all relatively simple so that the whole family can use it all. I used to use a SCART switcher with the NTL box, but that confused people. I'm not always here to sort them out.

Unfortunately my test of archiving last night was not very successful. Despite my initial tests working, the full dump resulted in nothing on the tape. I need to check that out.

I'll keep playing. It's not too big a deal just now.

Am I missing something here but...

The VCR is connected to the pace via a single SCART lead - this input must have in/out capability. The pace is connected to the TV, again via a single SCART lead and the TV must have automatic SCART switching.

To archive/record from Pace box to VCR, the VCR is set to the video input that relates to the SCART input.

To watch the video on the TV, you press play on the video - you may have to select D/TV but I think that, due to SCART switching, this is all automatic. Not al SCARTS are equal. Im using SCART AV1 on a old Sony TV and it works fine. Not sure if im running S-video or RGB on this. The only difference is the screen is shifted too far left when using one of the inputs and picture quality difference is negligible on this TV.

The only downsides are:
1. The Pace s-video out does not output the composite from the video. Only a problem if you use this to feed something else.

2. The digital audio out does not have the VCR signal but the analogue outputs do. So if you are passing this to a hi-fi etc, you need to select analogue for video and digital for Pace DTV.

-Ian

[wookieman]

Originally posted by idhutt
Am I missing something here but...

The VCR is connected to the pace via a single SCART lead - this input must have in/out capability. The pace is connected to the TV, again via a single SCART lead and the TV must have automatic SCART switching.

I agree that the scart socket on the VCR can be in/out but... Unless I've misunderstood something here, the scarts on the Pace are output only. So how do you pass video signals from the VCR to the Pace to the TV ? It doesn't work like that for me.

To archive/record from Pace box to VCR, the VCR is set to the video input that relates to the SCART input.

Agreed that will allow you to archive from the Pace to VCR.

To watch the video on the TV, you press play on the video - you may have to select D/TV but I think that, due to SCART switching, this is all automatic. Not al SCARTS are equal. Im using SCART AV1 on a old Sony TV and it works fine. Not sure if im running S-video or RGB on this. The only difference is the screen is shifted too far left when using one of the inputs and picture quality difference is negligible on this TV.

Are you sure when you press D/TV your not going back to a UHF connection ?

When pressing D/TV, my TV sticks with AV1 input irrespective of Pace or VCR source.

-Ian

[steev]

When I first plugged the VCR in I got the strange effect of video from the twin and audio from the VCR. That seemed to be due to viewing the Twin S-Video out.

I suspect the TV does switch to UHF to let me watch the VCR now. For the little we use the VCR, mostly kids stuff, that's acceptable.

There's just so many possible configurations with this thing

[LV426]

I must get around to trying this again, myself. The last time I tried it was on the previous version of Pace software, and it did exhibit a problem. What I don't know is if it is fixed in the current version.

And the problem was, that if you set a timer event on the Pace to record to VCR it did not actually produce any video output on SCART 2.

[LV426]

Tried it last night. With the October software, a timer event scheduled for VCR SCART does actually produce an output (audio and composite video) on the VCR SCART - just as it should be.