Well, I had it checked out and was told that the dvd player will need to be replaced - will be $89+tax. My hubby had paid for it in Dec 2009 as an anniversary gift, but he had his dad pick it up for him (Walmart), and of course, didn't get an extended warranty. Doesn't that just figure?! Also, within the last 2 weeks, I had to purchase a replacement adapter (to the tune of $70) as, of course, the other one quit working. When it rains it pours...I wonder what will be next.

oh well you have every type of connection on there you could get and you only need ONE! IF you have an HDMI cable that goes from your TV to the DVR player that is it that is all you need disconnect all those other cables! the HDMI is video and audio all in one cable that is the advanatage of HDMI one cable and the highest quality. The other options are only to be used if you are using devices that do not use HDMI. So plug the HDMI cable to either the DVR or the DVD depending on which one you want to use, then use the the red and white RCA jacks on the tv (it does not matter if there is a yellow one beside it that yellow is for video not audio so you will use the red and white only) plug your headphones red and white male cords in to those red and white female out jacks on the tv. That is all! leave all other cords out of the equation. As long as all of your devices that you want to connect to the tv have HDMI use that. IF your tv did not have HDMI then you would use the 3 colored ones yellow white and red that carries video on yellow and right and left audio on the red and white. Ok try that just the HDMI cable and your head phones. BE sure that the source input on the tv is set to HDMI if that is what you will be plugging the DVR or DVD into, if the source input is not selected on the tv you will not be getting the signal. This statement right here is very baffling -a 3-prong (yellow, red & white) from the TV (video out) to the three middle (audio out) jacks on the DVR. you state you are going from tv out to DVR out you can not go from out to out there has to be an IN for anything to work. But you do not need those cables so remove them completely from the equation. HDMI out from DVR to HDMI cable IN on the tv period. Headphones base unit red and white male plugs into the TV red and white female audio out jacks. Period

you need to detail what cables you have and where they are hooked up to. this will tell us more. to me it sounds like you have the DVD video hooked up but not the audio. what style cable(s) are you using?

First things first. No matter how much you spend, what you record is not going to be any better than the original. Yeah, there might be a little tweaking you can do with contrast and the like, but you will not make a DVD copy of a VHS tape which will look much better than the tape. The keys there then become the quality of the VHS tape player and the tape itself, with the tape itself being the most limiting factor. Tape quality is affected by the original formulation of the tape, how the tapes were used and stored, etc. At this point, there is little you can do about any of that. Let's just assume that the tapes you have are good enough to view and to transfer. If you already have a VHS player which has a picture you like, I would use it. You won't gain much at all by buying a new combo unit. If you have to buy a VHS player, you could consider a combo unit (though I'd check the owner's manual just to make sure you can copy from tape to DVD without problems; I've never done this myself and I'm not sure what the tape copy protection [if any] might do when recorded onto a disk). One thing to consider is the quality of the DVD itself. There is a growing concern about the longevity of DVDs and CDs. "Bargain-basement" or "free-after-rebate" disks often won't hold a valid signal after as short as six months. This is too much work to repeat in a year or two. Make sure you buy high-quality disks from companies like Imation, TDK, Maxell, etc. That will help insure that your disk copies live longer. And get "record-once" DVDs, not rewritable ones. That will help them live longer, too. As for the unit at Target, I'd be leery of why it was returned. A decent name-brand DVD burner goes for about $100; there's little point IMHO to buying a returned one for $50 and spending more on an extended warranty.