Problem watching digital after recording....

earwax

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Not sure where to put this thread. I hope this is best fit :)

I know that some will think me mad, but I have acquired a replacement for my VCR which was beyond economical repair. It is my intention in due course to purchase a BBC-ITV freesat PVR once the medium has settled in with a wider channel choice, my house already being equipped with quad LNB and two down leads. Currently I use one for Sky freesat.

The SCART connections now are
Sky TV out to DVDR AV2; DVDR AV1 to TV AV1
Sky VCR out to VCR AV2; VCR AV1 to TV AV2.

RF loop through
aerial to DVDR to VCR to TV. This gives me the maximum recording viewing flexibility.

Last evening I met a very odd problem.
On Wednesday I decided to record a BBC1 show on the VCR, as OH wanted to watch a no-interest-to-me effort only available on digital. I left the Sky box on and the VCR set up. OH watched the program and the VCR recording was made. Last night I tired to watch a live program on digital, using TV AV1 but all I got was sound. For a short while my fiddling got it though AV2, but this too went sound only. Eventually I got vision through both AV1 and 2, but inexplicably to my limited brain, only by ejecting the VCR cassette. Can someone explain what may be the cause of the oddity, is my wiring logical? FWIW VCR is a Philips VR550
 
Ejecting the cassette (which can be akin to driving a JCB through a primary school playground) jiggled the scart connections so that they settled correctly into place.

Neither of your scart leads are connected directly from Sky box to TV. Therefore, not only do you have to check the leads going into the back of the TV, you also have to check the leads going into and out of the backs of the VCR and DVDR, and also the leads going out of the back of the Sky box. That's eight connections. Four connections for the scart cable going out of the back of the TV scart on the Sky box, four connections for the scart cable going out of the back of the VCR scart on the Sky box.
 
Hi Broadz:) I presume you mean physically checking. That was the first thing I did more than once and they all were well inserted
 
Not sure how long your new VCR has been connected to your digital tuner source. However I can recount an experience I had twice as follows:

I bought a Sony freeview box and a Panasonic SVHS VCR and connected them together via scart to allow the timer on the freeview box to kickstart recordings on the VCR using the external link function on the VCR. The first recording gave no sound and a black screen with a few odd lines of grey interference. The next recording gave me sound but still the black screen. After the two units had been connected together for a couple of days all recordings worked perfectly.

About a year later I bought another Panasonic VCR, another Sony freeview box and another QED scart cable, all from different suppliers than the first ones, so there is no chance any of them could have been from the same batch. I had the identical experience with recordings starting with nothing, then sound only and after a couple of days all well thereafter.

So I am suggesting that you might possibly be experiencing the same phenomenon, in which case make lots of recordings for a few days and see if the problem goes away.
 

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