Setting up Virgin Media To Work With DVD & VCR

[DoctorButcher]

This has probably been adressed to death, but while I trawl the archives looking for the answer I thought i'd ask directly as well :)

Having never bothered until now, I've realised that I can't videotape
anything shown on Virgin Media.

Despite much switching of cables and scart leads, I haven't been able to get
all my TV devices working in tandem and when I get one component to work, I
knock another one out. Anyone know how to sort this? Here's how it's been
wired up.

DVD player - Direct scart out to scart in on TV (AV2)
VM Box - Co-ax cable feed into box, then scart out to scart in on TV (AV1)
Video - External RF aerial in, co-ax cable out to TV RF aerial port. Video
has 2x scart sockets

There's a video scart socket on my VM box but if I connect the video to that
port through SCART I then lose the VM picture altogether. This means I
currently cannot watch or record VM channels through the video.

I'm sure its something simple, but I cannot for the life of me work it out!

Thx!

[MovedGoalPosts]

:welcome: to Cable Forum :tu:

Which type of VM Set Top Box do you have? Most have 2 scart sockets.

You are going to run out of scart sockets on your TV. If you want scart connections from VM, DVD and VCR you'll need to get a 2 into 2 scart adaptor. Alternatively, just connect the VCR output via RF (coaxial) to the TV and accept the slightly poorer palyed back video (on the other hand VCR playback is often poor anyway.

Suggested connections using all scart leads:
VM #1 > TV #1
VM #2 > VCR #1 (input)
DVD #1 > scart 2into1 #1
VCR #2 (output) > scart 2into1 #2
scart 2into1 output > TV #2

Alternatively using a mix of scart and RF
VM #1 > TV #1
VM #2 > VCR input
DVD #1 > TV #2
RF (coaxial) daisy chain from rooftop aerial > VM > VCR > DVD (you could miss that bit) > TV

You may need to change the output frequency channel from the VCR & DVD to avoid a clash so you can tune the TV channels differently say 6 for VCR, 7 for DVD, 8 for VM. That's in addition to the AV channels where the TV / DVD / VCR are receiving via scart.

You wont be able to record some stuff from the VM box, such as VOD / PPV which have copy protection.