BB FANS

anyone know how you can video off a freeview channel?

my video recorder doesn't seem to tune into the channel

i only want to video the love island live feed, so i can fast forward through all the pish and just perv at the bits with kate in

Hmmm. Not sure I want to help the fat pus-bucket in his lecherous latenight 'activities', but if it keeps him off the streets...

You have two options pervo.

The first, and probably as you are a skinflint, isn't an option at all. To freely record digital channels you will need a VCR that can pick up and record both the analogue (the five terrestrial channels) and digital signals. These VCRs are on sale everywhere, but are a bit pricey for a Lidl shopper such as you.

Your second option is to view the digital chsnnel on your TV and set your VCR to the line 1 or line 2 channel (flick through the channel selector and you should see "L1" or "aux" or similar beyond BBC1 and Channel 5) channel if it is able to. This is dependent upon which connector at the back of your VCR the scart connection from your TV is plugged into.

With TVs, VCRs, and DVD players all having scart connections, it gets a bit complicated. You'll just need to fiddle about and experiment. No, with the cables dolt, wait until Kate appears for the other kind of fiddling.

Remember, because your VCR is picking up a signal from your TV through the Freeview box, it isn't actually receiving a digital channel separately, so you will need to keep watching the channel you are taping. And you have to leave the TV on for the signal to be received by the VCR (but you can mute the sound, quite useful if you're watching Kate).

It's like if you ever taped a DVD via your VHS, you are putting a specific signal/line into your VCR. Normally, your VCR can pick up analogue signals through your brown coax cable, without any other equipment being necessary (including a TV). But you'll need to make sure you keep viewing the digital channel you are taping and that you have your VCR set to pick up and record the signal too.

Anyway. That's how I understand it. But the technical details are likely more complex.

That's it Alan.
Most Freeview receivers don't have modulators so you can't tune them into your video and have to use a scart lead.

Most receivers have two scart sockets on the back one labelled TV and the other VCR.
If your VCR has two scarts than EXT2 in normally input only and is a good option. EXT1 in input and output and is the one normally connected to the TV.

Now with all these scart leads you can daisychain the two units with the Digibox connected via it's VCR scart socket to EXT2 in the VCR and then EXT1 on the VCR to the VCR scart socket.

If your TV has more than one than use Scart1 for your DVD and scart 2 for the Video / Digibox. The reason for this hoop-up is that Input 1 on the TV normally has RGB input which is the best option for the DVD player. Some but not all TV's second input has RGB ,though it doesn't matter for the VCR though if available and the VCR will loop RGB then use it also on the Digibox but check before you change the settings.

Thanks for the additional information Larry.

I'm not technically minded, but that's made it a little clearer for me.

My TV actually has an inbuilt Freeview box, but it does have two scart sockets, with the first going to the VCR and the second to the DVD.

Everything works fine, so I just leave it at that.

All that annoys me is that I can't play NTSC DVDs, but I can on my PC's DVD drive.

Larry, do you know why PowerDVD has a limit on the number of times you can switch between regions (essentially NTSC and PAL formats)?

The dialog box said something like "You can only switch 5 more times". Would reinstalling the program reset this region-switch counter or would I need to make a Windows Registry edit. Always mean to Google this, but since this thread is about these matters, thought I'd ask.

Is that just a legal requirement forced onto the software manufacturer to discourage people from buying American DVDs (and saving themselves some money)?

So much for free choice.

As for domestic DVD players, they should all be multi-region compatible.

The 5 time region change on PC drives has always been the same with the last time locking the drive on the last region used.

Depending on the drive there maybe firmware that gets around the problems .Or there is software that manages to get around it as well that sits in the background on your pc.
Take a look at http://www.videohelp.com
The site has just about everything you'll ever need to do with DVD players ,DVD software etc.

The main TV that my parents use is an old Philips with built-in Freeview. Think the correct model number should be something like 28DW6734 though in this case it's a hybrid that I built which started life as a 28PW6332 which was analogue with Dolby Prologic that I was given. The Digital chassis came from a scrap TV that was going in a skip due to tube failure. The original chassis is stored away for when this one fails. But the two sets are basically the same ,one with Digital and one without hence why everything fitted with only one cable being extended. Think the only thing I didn't fit was the card reader which was because the back didn't have the cut-out.

I work with this type of stuff all day long though we do have a chap that normally does the customer help stuff on the phone. We all have to be able to answer questions in case the Internet side get asked questions about the products and it helps to have played with a whole host of set-up here.

thanks guys

Brilliant, thanks Larry.