Thanks so much for the offer, Bob. We do have Cox Cable, and it is connected to the TV monitor. Our VCR-DVD is a Toshiba DVR620KU, and the TV is a Samsung Led TV monitor, SyncMaster, series 3, TA350 and series 5, TA550, whatever that means. I don't know which letters and figures may be useful, so am repeating them all. I am sorry for not having gotten back to this problem for several months. There has been illness in the family, as well as computer problems, which are now solved, hopefully, with the aid of a friend, and what with personal problems and job demands, I just didn't feel like concentrating on the TV/recording problem. What I want most now, and can't do, is to record TV shows. Not HD or HBO or anything--just a few KPBS or sit-com things. Our TV cable service is basic. A visitor showed me that with an HDMI cable, I can watch tapes and DVDs from the Toshiba unit, a step in the right direction. However, I seem unable to bring up anything on the TV screen that will let me record to either the tape or the DVD. There is no place to plug in a coaxial cable to the Toshiba, so I figure that any recording would have to be from signals sent from the TV. (In fact, even if I could send signals directly from the cable connector in the wall to the Toshiba, there would still be no way to select channels to be recorded.) The problem is that all the ports and other places for hitching the TV to the Toshiba are labeled "IN" and, unlike our old TV, there are none for "OUT". Well, Bob, or any other kind person, does it seem that there may still be a way to record to the Toshiba device? Even to be able to record to VHS tapes would be great.

Is the 'channel 10' that you are trying to record an analog or digital signal? If analog, then you probably need to turn the converter OFF, so that the 'analog pass through' feature is enabled. Then tune your VCR to channel 10. (If you want to also watch the broadcast, your TV would need to be tuned to either channel 10 or channel 3 - depending on the specifics of your VCR.) If digital, then yes, your VCR would need to be on channel 3 (as does your TV.) If you are recording a digital signal though, you will get better audio and video quality by using the A/V connections from the converter box to the VCR. And same between the VCR and the TV set. I wonder if the reason you couldn't get the A/V connections to work was because some menu option in either the VCR or TV was not set to the correct input? What you might consider is to connect the VCR to the TV using the A/V cables. Period. Then use the TV tuner in the VCR for all the analog tuning for the next 2.5 months. (When watching/recording digital, you would turn the converter box on and set the VCR to channel 3.) After that, just use the A/V cables between the converter box and the VCR. This gets rid of all the 'channel 3' stuff and gives the best quality possible.

Well my daughter was off on Monday and we tried again to hook it all up and still nothing. We got it all hooked up so you can view either the DVD player or the VCR player but can't record from either one. I KNOW there HAS to be a way we can record from one of them. There has to be since BOTH are capable of recording. BUT we just can't figure it out. The VCR is hooked so that it can be viewed through the video 1 on the TV and the DVD is on video 2 for viewing. The TV has 2 in areas on the back of it and the DVD player has only one out area in the back of it. She says we need TWO out areas on the DVD player to record. ????? BUT it's a recordable DVD player so that doesn't make sense. I'm so confused at this point I'm ready to say the heck with it all! :( The back of the TV only has one out and has 2 in hookups. Then the TV has an in hookup on the front of it and the DVD recorder has an in hook up on the front of it as well. The VCR has a hookup on the front of it but it's only yellow and white in colors. The others, the DVD and the TV plug ins have red, yellow AND white plug ins on the front. I used to record from the TV onto the VCR but don't know how to do any of that now since we got the DVD and it's hooked up. Anyway just wanted to tell you guys that and to also thank you for trying to help me get it hooked up!!!

I'm no expert on this, but I have fiddled around with my own home entertainment components for several years now. Are all your uses video-based? I mean, will you always have the TV on? If so, that might be a good distribution device - everything into the TV (assuming it has enough inputs). Are you using a separate sound system, or using the TV's built-in amps? For my home system, I was (and am) very concerned with high quality sound, so I built my system around a Yamaha surround sound amp with many more inputs than I need. The cable box (or satellite box if that's what you have) goes into it, and from it HDMI to the TV. The sound comes from the cable box to the Yamaha (and then to the speakers), so it bypasses the poor quality amps in the TV. I connect my Apple TV, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, etc all through the Yamaha. I have a separate antenna feed directly to the TV and pipe the sound connection from the TV audio out to the Yamaha, so I get good sound when I am not using cable. If you want to use the system without the TV (such as listening to CDs, audio from your computer or Apple TV, or radio), then you will need a sound system similar to my Yamaha, so you don't have to have the TV on all the time. You have a lot of flexibility, so decide what's best for you. I hope my observations help you.