What you need (and I’m not being arrogant about this) is to read your owner’s manual because it contains precisely the information you’re looking for. Failing that, you could call the store where you bought the equipment and ask them for hookup advice.
I’ll bet your manual DOES contain such instructions. It’s a very common situation since the majority of us owned at least one VCR before we bought our first DVD player, wouldn’t you agree?
But on the off-chance it doesn’t, yout best bet is to talk to the guy who sold it to you and ask him how to hook it up because he was the one who told you the equipment was compatible as-is. It may be, then again it may not.
The alternative would be to give you an abbreviated technical education on the structure and function of “prong-thingies,” but again (and I mean no offense) if you’re not interested in reading the manual or in calling the person who sold it to you, I’m not sure it would be worth the effort to try.
Take my advice. You can read the manual or waste $30 on a piece of hardware you don’t need. But since the guy you bought it from was the guy who told you it would work, he should be the first person you talk to if that promise isn’t realized, yes?
Do you mean the TV has a coax (I pin, plus the outer connector you screw in?) Because I never heard of a S video only input (4 metal pins plus a plastic pin)
Your VCR has only this input output too? If it had RCA (like stereos typically have) connectors, you could do DVD==>VCR==>TV, but you might have problems with copy protected discs (they do stuff so you can’t tape them). My 10 year old mono VCR (not high end) has A/V inputs.
If your VCR and TV only have coax inputs, I think you are out of luck without extra hardware.
Could yoiu post you modle numbers of your VCR and TV, I can mabye do a websearch and find out stuff.
Hook the S video cable from the DVD “out” to the TV’s S video in.
Hook the red/white audio cables from the DVD audio out to the TV’s audio “in”.
Hook the cable wire coming into the house to the VCR’s antenna “in” (looks like a big nipple with threads)
Hook a short cable wire from the VCR’s antenna “out” (looks like a big nipple with threads) to the TV’ s antenna or cable “in” (looks like a big nipple with threads).
for cable viewing put the TV on channel 3 and use the cable controller to change channels
for VCR viewing just play the tape and leave the TV on channel 3
for DVD viewing change the TV’s signal input selector (with your remote) to S video and you should see the DVD player. If you don’t get sound let me know and I will advise a slightly different way to hook up the DVD player.
see also
How to hook-up your DVD player
How old is the TV to which you’re trying to connect your DVD player?
If your TV is a fairly recent model it should have options such as AV-1, AV-2, etc in it’s channel menu.
We can either connect our peripherals directly to out TV with the RCA leads (the red, white and yellow leads you’re talking about) or we can connect everything to run through a DVD.
Your DVD player instruction manual should certainly tell you how to connect everything, but you can also check your VCR manual.
I’ve never known a peripheral device such as a VCR or DVD player to be sold in the box in Australia WITHOUT the required leads for connection.
Do you have TWO sets of white and yellow sockets on your VCR, or one?
You should be able to pick up an RF switch at your local pawn shop for bugger all - the Sega Mega-Drive and a couple of other outdated games consoles used them.
You don’t need to buy a RF modulator if your VCR is fairly new (less than 5 years old approx).
Follow these steps if you see that the VCR can accept A/V input (You can find this by seeing if you see any VCR yellow white or red input jack). The VCR will 2 sets of yellow/white jacks. One of them will have the label IN and the other OUT. You will not connect anything to the OUT jacks.
Now, There can be two scenarios
Scenario One - YOUR VCR IS NOT STEREO BUT MONO (likely if VCR is more than 2 years old)
1> Connect the White Output (Audio OUT) of the DVD to the White Input (Audio IN) of the VCR
2> Connect the Yellow Output (Video OUT) of the DVD to the Yellow Input (Video IN) of the VCR
3> Keep the Red Output of the DVD unconnected to anything.
4> Connect the RF out from the VCR to the RF in of your TV ( the cable connection of the TV you referred to before)
5> Press the INPUT (A/V) button on your VCR Remote (Universal Remotes don’t have this button)
6> Change your TV Channel to Channel 3 or 4 as the case may be and you are all set.
Scenario TWO - YOUR VCR IS STEREO (likely if VCR is more than 2 years old)
Same as above except for Step 2 where you connect the red cable to both DVD [AUDIO OUT] and VCR [AUDIO IN] . Best Option
If you have a STEREO Receiver or a home theatre system, connect the Red and White to the CD in AUDIO IN SECTION.
I’ve tried to make it as simple as possible, Hope it helps
If your TV only has coax input (cable TV) and your VCR only has coax in/out then your going to have some problems.
I wouldn’t go with the RF Modulator for 2 reasons.
First, if you modulate your DVD to RF then back again (in the TV) your going to loose some quality.
Second, if you hook the modulated DVD (once again coax) to the input of the VCR, you won’t have any place to hook up your cable. You would then have to buy an A/B switch to hook up your cable.
Your best bet, if you have the money, is to buy a new VCR that has A/V inputs. Preferably stereo.
You really need to post more info about your TV & VCR, like a model number, so we can look it up on the 'Net.
