I bought a panasonic recordable dvd machine for my dad who has a freeview
box to watch channels like BBC3 etc. The papers publish videoplus numbers
for BBC3 and BBC4 but how do i tune in the machine to the freeview. I rang
up panasonic and the first person said to turn on the freeview box and
MANUALLY tune in a blank channel on the dvdr (like channel 6) to the
freeview box. The reasoning being that the automatci tuner won't pick up the
digital signal. This didn't work.

I then rang panasonic again and the next person said it would never work as
the machine was analogue and the freeview was digital!!

I rang up again shortly afterwards and was then told that it was possible to
watch freeview through the dvdr machine but i couldn't record.

Could somebody please clarify the matter. Can i record BBC3 or 4? How do i
tune in the dvdr with the freeview box??

Peter

"Peter Brown" <peter@brown9322.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:cseilf$eqk$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...

You need to connect the Freeview tuner to the DVD Recorder via a SCART lead,
the DVD Recorder then connects to the TV via another SCART lead. The
Panasonic instruction manual has all the details. You can not watch one
digital channel and record another digital channel however.

Regards

Philip

Maybe i've got the wrong problem here?!? When i type in the videoplus number
for a bbc3 show i get the screen showing the entered start and end times
(just so that you can double check you've got it right). where you're meant
to confirm the channel on the screen there isn't a channel asinged for the
freeview channels (bbc3, bbc4 or itv2 etc..) do i have to tune in another
channel to freview or what do i enter at this point?

Philip <philip@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:41ead14b$0$41726$ed2e19e4@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net...

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said "Peter Brown"
<peter@brown9322.freeserve.co.uk>, "I always pay it extra."

<falls off chair>

If you can watch it, you can record it!

You can connect the FreeView box to the sonyPanic recorder using a
SCART lead, as has been mentioned. You can, if you wish, connect the
RF out from the FV box to the DVD recorder with a coax lead, and tune
it in on an RF channel, but I wouldn't recommend it.

You *might* be able to use VideoPlus to record programmes, provided
that you have the correct channel selected on the FreeView box, and
the DVD recorder input selected to SCART, but I wouldn't guarantee it.

Maybe there's method in the madness here ... defining an RF channel on
the DVD recorder as "FreeView" might prevent it from rejecting VP
numbers for channels it doesn't recognise.

If you want to record a sequence of programmes on different channels
using VideoPlus, I don't think that that can work, unless can you
input the VP numbers to *both* the FV decoder and the DVD recorder,
*and* the DVD recorder will accept the SCART input for a VP recording.

The bottom line is that you're not going to be able to programme it
simply with a single remote cotrol :-(

--
Humbug

Peter Brown wrote:
I don't think you can use videoplus to record from Freeview unless you've
got a Freeview box with a hard-disc recorder in it, or (if such a thing
exists) a DVD recorder with a Freeview tuner.

When you connect the Freeview box to the DVDR you're only connecting the
signal through the AV1 or (in hifi terms) the "Aux" input. You run the
machine with the DVDR's remote, and you run the Freeview box with the
Freeview remote. Nothing you do with the DVDR remote is going to affect the
Freeview box, and vice-versa.

The only way you're going to record from two different channels unattended
is by manually programming the DVDR to record channel AV1 from say 11am to
11.30am and then again channel AV1 from 3.30pm to 5 pm, and _also_ programme
the Freeview box to play channel 5 from 11-11.30, and channel 7 from 3.30 to
5. You've got to programme them both.

paul