January 4, 2007

Making that Pesky DVD Recorder Play Nice with your Other Components

Probably one of the hardest home theater hook-ups is adding a DVD recorder to your existing DVD/VCR equipment and your TV. Robert over at HomeTheater.About.com has a nice article that can help you sort this mess out and has some great information like:

The Copy-Protection Factor
The reason that you should not connect your DVD recorder and VCR in the same path to your television is copy-protection.

Even if you are not recording anything, when you play a commercial DVD on your DVD recorder and the signal has to go through your VCR to get to the TV, the anti-copy signal will trigger the VCR to interfere with the playback signal of the DVD, making it unwatchable on your television.

On the other hand, the same effect is present if you have your VCR hooked into your DVD recorder before the signal reaches the television, in that a commercial VHS tape with anti-copy encoding will cause the DVD recorder to interfere with VHS playback signal, causing the same effect on your television.

However, the copy-protection effect is not present on tapes or DVDs that you make yourself, such as home camcorder videos or most broadcast or cable TV show recordings; with the exception of recordings made from some premium channels, such as HBO.

Be sure to check out the rest of this excellent article for some great tips and tricks.

At HomeTheater.About.com

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