Just purchased a refurbished VCR/DVD combo (Sony SLV-D380P) from ebay to replace another. Didn't read the description close enough and now I'm stuck with a unit that can only hook up to cable via a cable box that has audio/video outputs. (see attached hookup diagram) Old unit just connected directly to cable/wall via coaxial and I don't want to spend money on cable box rental every month. Is there anything else I can use to connect this unit to cable...is there such a thing as a coaxial to audio/video cables converter?
Do you mean use both units in the setup (which I'm not sure how to do)? Or somehow remove the tuner from the old unit (which does still work, by the way) and somehow include it? I'm willing to try anything once, but I'm not very adept at working with the INSIDE of electronics devices.
You could connect the two together. If the old one still works you'd probably be better just using it. You're going to get some signal degradation using both.
If you want to use the tuner in the old one to record on the new one, connect RCA cables from the out of the old unit to the in of the new unit and set the new one on the input you used.
I'd love to be able to use the old one by itself. But it recently started recording "sometimes." I'd set the timer as usual, and sometimes it would record and sometimes not. I assumed it would cost more to fix something like that than buy a new one. So I bought the refurbished one. And now it looks like I'll have to use both of them in order to record. I don't plan on using it for high-quality recording....but I am curious to see how much signal degradation will happen. Thanks so much for your help. I wish you had told me "why, yes, there is a converter made just for this!" ;)
There is a converter for RF to RCA. You need a tuner to select the channel you want though. The difference in PQ shouldn't be too much, VHS is so poor quality anyway you might not even notice it.
DVD recorders record far better PQ than a VCR and blank discs are a lot cheaper and take a lot less storage space.
