Connecting Freeview STB with 1 Scart?

A number of the STB’s on the market have only 1 scart socket, how do you connect to TV and VCR.

If you use the VCR as a loop through can you record analogue on the VCR whilst watching freeview?

I though when a VCR was in record you always got the VCR output out of the Scart. Which means the STB will not get through?

 

Usually when looping a STB through a VCR, the picture from the STB will be displayed either when that AV socket is selected on VCR or when VCR is switched off.
Usually this means if the VCR is switched on and a channel other than the AV socket is selected, the STB will not be able to display a picture.
So it is not usually possible to view STB while recording an analogue channel.
One solution is to buy a STB with RF output additional to scart output, ( Panasonic, Nokia ) , or buy a simple multi-scart adaptor.

 

My last two VCR's have had a 'TV/VCR' button which when pressed would release the signal from the Scart that forces it to override the TV, which meant it was possible to watch an STB's output looping through it, when recording something else.

It is also handy as with the forcing VCR signal released, it still forces it when Play is pressed, which means that before hand when the VCR would start a timer recording it would override the TV until we changed it, now it doesn't force the scart signal until you play something.

Look out for it on a VCR remote contol in a shop.