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Recording digital TV

Video recorder
  • Posted at 11:45am
  • 05 July 2008
  • by DoctorDigital-RT
  • 5 comments

Q On Virgin cable I can only VHS-record a programme if my TV is switched to the same channel. On terrestrial TV I could watch one and record another. On Freeview, I can't VHS-record at all. Not what you'd call progress, is it? Or is there a way round this? And I don't mean "chuck away your video recorder and get a hard-drive recorder"!
Barry Hyman, Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire

A Sorry, but the obvious solution here is…chuck away your video recorder and get a hard-drive recorder.

However, you can record Freeview onto VHS. If your video recorder and Freeview box both have Scart sockets, connect the digibox to your video. Often, digiboxes come with two Scart sockets and cables to connect the box to both TV and video. If yours doesn't, you may still be able to connect digibox to video and then the video to your TV . You'll then be able to record any Freeview channel. But it will be the same one you're watching.

Both your TV and digibox are using the digibox's tuner to watch channels - you'll notice that to change digital channels, you use the digibox's remote, not the TV's. All your TV is doing is tuning in to the digibox; it's the box that then finds different channels. When watching/recording from terrestrial, your TV would use its own terrestrial tuner, leaving VHSs to use theirs to record something else.

Now you need an extra tuner. Many digiboxes come with two - but almost all of them have built-in hard-drive recorders. Virgin offers one, V+, that has three tuners, allowing you to watch two channels while recording a third.

**

Do you have a question for Doctor Digital? Just get in touch using the form below.

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Comments

  • Posted on 21 September 2009
  • at 9:36pm
  • by getting-sick

Barry in Hertfordshire, and others with a VHS can just get an extra digibox for the VHS - I find they work perfectly. One can even program some of them to come on for the VHS recorder (via SCART of course), but the recorder will need to be programmed too. I notice that there are VideoPlus codes even for digital only channels…

  • Posted on 27 April 2009
  • at 11:30am
  • by DoctorDigital-RT

FAO Weeble - Red Button services are still seen by broadcasters as an adjunct to a channel, an extra: if you try to record one on Sky+, for instance, your digibox refuses, calling the Red Button service an "application" instead of a channel. Freeview viewers benefit from that service's limitations; the Red Button material has to be presented as a separate channel, it can't ride on top of the normal BBC1, for example. So that's why you can record it on Freeview yet you won't see a digibox EPG guide listing more than a rudimentary schedule.

Radio Times introduces extra coverage for Red Button services during events such as the Olympics, where you can easily have eight streaming videos at the same time: the terrestrial channels, digital Red Button and Freeview Red Button. Even then we have to see that as a guide to what's on right now more than for planning ahead to record items, because the schedule changes constantly. It is almost normal for us to get a final schedule in the morning and for hardly any of it to stay the same during the day: that sounds chaotic and frustrating when you want to know where to watch a particular event, but it makes sense. The aim of the BBC and all broadcasters is to get the best sporting event to the most people, so if something of interest happens then an event's coverage will be promoted to terrestrial or demoted to Red Button almost minute by minute.

Away from the Olympics, things do get more straightforward. Your best bet is to look for the event first and then see which Red Button service it will be on: Radio Times magazine and website will both tell you when coverage is continued or augmented on digital or Red Button channels.

  • Posted on 26 April 2009
  • at 10:28pm
  • by Weeble

I want to get a PVR and record Freeview - I gather that some of the BBC Red Button services are available on channels 301-305, and was told Radio Times would give listings, but I can't find how to add the Red Button channels to the TV guide or any other way to know which channel a particular Red Button video stream is to be on? I'd be most grateful if anyone can point me in the right direction!!

  • Posted on 06 March 2009
  • at 6:33pm
  • by chazz

you can buy from toshiba a box with a vhs dvd and hdd recorder giving you evert thing you need and it has an analog and digital tunner

  • Posted on 06 January 2009
  • at 5:22pm
  • by Rosie

I agree. i dont know how to record on digital :S if you do, just tell me x

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