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Best way to hook up a VHS DVD Recorder combo to a Satellite and TV

8 years ago

I need advise on how to add a Toshiba DVR620 to a Dish 722 DVR ,Vizio 650 SmartTV and external digital antenna...all have HDMI except the antenna which only has coax. The TV has 3 HDMI ports but I would like to hook these up so that I can record to the DVD recorder combo from as many sources as possible. I also need the HDMI ports for my Apple TV and PC. Can provide more info if needed....any help appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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Comments (3)

mtvhike
8 years ago
You don't mention an antenna - are you getting your TV signal from that? If so, then you need a receiver and I think the Visio in the only one, so you will have to take the HDMI out from that and connect to your Toshiba. The other devices you could run through the TV to the Toshiba, or run them directly to the Toshiba, if that has switching capabilities.
don_na_na
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Thanks! The components that I have are:

Vizio Smart TV (3 HDMI)

Dish Network 722 DVR

Supersonic Digital Antenna (mounted outside for local channels in hopes of getting rid of the Dish)

Apple TV

Should each device be connected separately to the TV with an HDMI?
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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.
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This thread brings up a problem which I have ran into, so please forgive me if it looks like I am hi-jacking this thread, as that is not my intent. I bought a dvd/vhs recorder/player around Thanksgiving and used it to transfer home vhs video tapes to dvd+rw discs. The discs will play on my pc using various video programs. All went well until I tried to transfer the disc contents to my pc hard drive so that I could edit them. My pc has a 2 gig processor, 512 megs of ram, Win xp home with sp2 and a 160 gig HD with plenty of unused space. I downloaded a program called dvd shrink 3.2 hoping it would allow me to transfer the disc to HD. It was a no go as I keep getting various error messages. Does anyone know how to transfer files from a dvd disc to a pc hard drive? I'm baffled. Thanks in sdvance for any help.
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We've owned a Panasonic VCR/DVD recorder and now have a Toshiba unit with same the same functions. The Panasonic worked well in general, but was finicky about which blank disks it liked to record on. The Toshiba seems to work pretty well; it's a little slower about some things (rewinding VHS tapes; loading disks) than the Panasonic. But we haven't had a problems recording on disks. I'm afraid that someone in your household will have to read the manual and also deal with on-screen menus. That just seems to be the way these machines are. Also be aware that your connections will depend on the age and sophistication of your TV and any other equipement that you are connecting to. I'm pretty good at hooking up electronics in general, but getting this machine properly connected took some time for me to figure out. There are about 5 types of video cables/connections in use now, for example. Good luck.
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I have had a DVD recorder for a few years now and it is very easy to do.I just wanted my old VHS Home Movie tapes on DVD.I do not care about editing or adding music.You can buy a DVD recorder for a very reasonable price now.I recently bought a off brand DVD recorder VHS combo at Walmart for $99.99 and as soom as my wife opens it for Christmas we will see how it does recording her TV programs just like she has used a VCR for.She also has many VHS tapes she has recorded over the years history moments and things she wants to hang onto.But now we will be able to have it on DVD taking up less space then those clunky VHS tapes.
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mtvhike
8 years ago
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.

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