TV/DVR/NTL Digital - Watch Digital while recording Analogue??

[Blueberry08]

Before I start fiddling about with connections does anyone know if it is possible with my set-up (TV/DVR and NTL Digital) to watch your Digital channels while recording an Analogue channel?

My TV (a new-ish Philips LCD) has five 'sources' - TV, EXT1, AV/SVHS, PC and HD - but whatever way I hooked it up Digital and my DVR (a new-ish Pioneer) are both using EXT1. So if I'm recording an Analogue channel I can't watch Digital through EXT1.

Can I use AV/SVHS for the DVR? At the moment the picture is coming through AV/SVHS but there's no sound. (HD is being used by my Apple TV and I'm assuming PC is for hooking up a computer??).

Has anyone with a similar set-up found a solution to this, or is there no way around it?

Thanks.

 

[Bootdog]

1) if you're using an s-video cable, you also need to connect an audio cable (most likely red&white connectors). There's no reason why that shouldn't work and allow you to watch the DVR on "AV/SVHS" input.
You may have to fiddle with the settings in your TV menu to set up the AV/SVHS input correctly.

2) if you want to record analogue while watching digital, this should work:
- connect DVR to AV/SVHS as above
- connect NTL cable (co-ax) to NTL box, take TV out co-ax from NTL and connect this to the DVR "RF in" or similar
- connect "RF out" from DVR to "RF in" on TV (normal aerial connection).
- you will then have 2 scarts from the NTL box, one going to the TV, and the other going to the DVR, and a S-video(plus audio) going to the TV from the DVR
- you'd also need to tune the analogue stations into the DVR, and use "Ext1" or similar on the DVR when recording digital.
- to watch analogue while recording digital, use the TV input on the LCD, although there might be a loss of quality with all the cabling going on.

 

[Blueberry08]

1) if you're using an s-video cable, you also need to connect an audio cable ........................

That's fantastic Bootdog, thanks a million for the help - will follow your directions tomorrow and hopefully get it sorted. Thanks again.