I hooked up my digital converter to my TV can I still tape shows with my VCR ?

Question

I hooked up my digital converter to my TV can I still tape shows with my VCR ?

Answer 1

digital converters convert the atsc signal to analog signal, similar to a cable box or satellite reciever .connect  the composite cabler (yellow,red, black) from the converter to the line in on your vcr and then the line out from the vcr to the tv. set your vcr input to line in, when you watch tv your vcr will have to be on all the time but you will be able to record whatever is coming trough the converter box.

Answer 2

For this to work, the VCR will need its own converter.  Either that, or you can just connect the converter to the VCR, and the VCR to the TV then just watch TV through the VCR.  Although you won't be able to change the channel while the VCR is recording anything.

Either way, the downside is that the VCR can no longer use its built-in tuner for TV shows.  This means you will have to manually set the converter to the channel you will want to record, then tell the VCR to just record from its auxillary input (where you plugged in the converter).  So, for instance, you want to record The Tonight Show, you would set the VCR's converter to your NBC station, and then tell the VCR to start recording at 11:30pm for 90 minutes.  Kind of clusmy, but it'll work

I believe some converters have a timer function built into them, which allows you to tell the converter to change to a specific channel at a specific time.  For instance, say you like the 11 o'clock news on ABC, but want to record the Tonight Show.  You would set 2 timers on the converter to change the channel to ABC at 11pm, then change the channel to NBC at 11:30pm.  The VCR could just be set to start recording from the auxilary input as normal, starting at 11pm, for 2 hours.  This is how you would program your converter and VCR together to record multiple shows on different channels.

In the future, I expect that you'll be able to buy DVD recorders that have the new digital tuner built into them.  DVD recorders work almost like VCRs, but use a blank DVD instead of a tape.  They also have a few extra advantages, such as creating an index of the shows on each disc so you can skip to a particular show/episode like it was a chapter on the DVD.  DVD recorders aren't too expensive so this would be my recommendation going forward.