Dopey question: How do you hook up cable, VCR, DVD and TV?

[edbermac]

Got some stuff on a home theater setup from BestBuy; looked like I was setting up a nuclear reactor. All I have at home is what's listed in the Subject line. Some folks say I need an RF splitter(?) with those 3 colored input jacks, but I thought that was for stereo.

My setup was:
cable to cable box,
cable box to VCR,
VCR to DVD,
DVD to TV

It worked okay before with the exeption that I couldn't tape any DVD's on my VCR if I wanted to.

Any info or websites on how to this up correctly? :dunce:

[ET Awful]

1. Well, to do it with what you have, reverse the DVD and the VCR in

the chain.

Currently, the DVD signal only goes to the TV. In order to tape a DVD, you'd have to go from DVD to VCR to TV.

Make sense?

Of course, there's no guarantees this will work because of the copy protection and so forth, but theoretically that's the only thing wrong.

[Blue-Jay]

2. Does your VCR have RCA-type inputs?

If it does, you can hook up the DVD directly to the VCR without changing your current setup. Audio (L&R) and video out from the DVD and into the VCR. Depends on the VCR features, however.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. If you have one of those new bitchin' home theater things,

and have a fairly current TV, you plug everything into the receiver - video and audio all - and then run the video from the receiver into the TV, and run the audio FROM the TV into the receiver. If you're really lucky, you can run the cable from the wall into the receiver as well, in which case you won't need to run the audio from the TV into the receiver, since the audio will already be there.

But to answer the question you pose, you need to supply LOTS more information as to all the components, and what jacks (output and input) you have on all of them.

[edbermac]

5. Okay everyone, this is what I've got at home...

No home theater! No stereo Receiver! Just this:

X=coax, O=jack

Cable box: 1 cable in coax, 1 rf out coax, 1 audio out jack, 1 video out jack
__________________
X
X.....O....O
_________

Sony VCR: in back, 1 VHF/UHF in coax, 1 rf out coax, Line-1 in red white yellow jacks, Line out red white yellow jacks...in front Line-2 in red white yellow jacks

Back..................Front
______________ __________

O...O...O...X
.......................O...O...O
O...O...O...X
______________ __________

Panasonic DVD: no coax, Audio out L R and subwoofer jacks; Component video out Pb Pr Y and Video out jacks

_________________________
....O |....O...O
O...O |...O...O
________________________

Terk RF modulator: To TV coax, ANT IN coax, Video R and L audio jacks...

________________

X X...O...O...O

________________

TV with 1 coax

Thats it! Glad you asked right? If you can make sense of it, you are a genius!

Okay I'm off to play around with this and see how I can do...

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. Speaking personally, I'd go back to Best Buy

What did you buy there today?

Ideal situation would be to get, minimum, one of those home theaters with the DVD player built in and the five speakers, which you can get for $199. You can even get one that has a DVD and VCR built in, for about the same price as well.

That will solve all your nasty problems AND let you listen to movies over speakers, and not over the crappy TV.

If whatever you bought there today is worth the $199 range, I'd take it all back and get something better. I'd also scream at the basically retarded moran who works there (because 99 out of 100 Best Buy people are basically retarded morans who don't have a clue how any of their shit works) for selling you the crap. Assuming, that is, that it was crap that you bought there today. If all you bought was the RF splitter, then, well, we have another issue.

But, if you keep the situation as is, the only thing you can do is run the cable box into the VCR and the VCR into the RF splitter, run the DVD into the RF splitter, and the splitter into the TV.

You won't be able to record from DVDs onto VHS anyway, so no sense trying to get those two things to talk.

[edbermac]

10. WAAAAHHHHOOOOOO!!!! Finally got it hooked up right!!

For anyone's info here's how in case you have the same equipment...

Using coax:
From cable to cable box in - cable box out to rf splitter in - rf splitter out to VCR in - VCR out to TV.

Using 3 colored input jacks cord:
From rf splitter to DVD.

And that's it...AND...I can tape my from my DVD player as well...

Thanks for everyone's help......:applause:

[crispini]

4. Radio Shack is your friend.

That said, you probably want to plug EVERYTHING into the home theater setup. Does it have a switcher so you can switch the signal around? Think of the home theatre box as your central junction switcher.

But it's really, really variable depending on what you have. Good luck. Last time I set up a home theatre system it took two days and two trips to Radio Shack.

Get a friend who knows how to do that stuff, that'll help too.

[Kellanved]

6. Heh

I'm using Euro-AV cables, but somehow I suspect that isn't a viable option for you :P.





On a more reasonable note: DVDs are copy-protected, you can't tape them with most VCRs. A RF splitter is IMHO (unless the term has another meaning stateside) a no-no; if you can use components or S-VIDEO: do it. The only thing worse than using three jacks (yellow for video and the two others for sound) is using an RF splitter.

[SoCalDem]

7. Call a 14 yr old guy..

:)

[ogradda]

9. I still can't figure out how to

hook up the super nintendo my nephew gave me. I'm about to blow my mind.:mad:

[_testify_]

11. super nintendo? don't you have to wind those up? n/t

[ogradda]

15. Aren't you the little cutie patooty.

:P

[snowbear]

12. Will anyone from Best Buy help out?

[grasswire]

13. now add in a Playstation. Argh!

Nobody in this house can work half of the electronics. It's insane.

[Zhade]

14. Your hands are usually the best method.

*rim shot*