alexbartman wrote:
Hope someone can advise......here's the problem

Just bought my mother in law (aaargh) a DVD player and a Freeview
box.
She has a Sony Tv with one scart socket and a VHS video hooked into
the
TV via scart.

How on earth can I get these three appliances to hook into a single
scart input TV whilst allowing her to use the VHS to record
TV/Freeview......I'm stumped...

As you've probably guessed, for a definitive answer, you'll have to
tell us how many SCART sockets there are on the VCR, the DVD player,
and the FreeView box.

If the DVD player has two SCARTs, then the whole thing becomes easy and
flexible, but unfortunately very few modern DVD players do!

VCR STB
STB DVD
DVD TV

allows pretty much any functionality.

If it's a standard 1 SCART DVD player, then

DVD VCR
VCR STB
STB TV

is about the best you can do. The VCR should loop through the DVD when
switched off. It may not loop through copy protected DVDs correctly
when switched on. You can't watch a DVD while recording something else.

If the VCR only has one SCART, and no other input, then you're stuffed.

You can use a switch box, but to most non techy people they're just not
worth the hassle. Most none techy folks would rather just have the DVD
into the SCART, and the other equipment looped through RF (in which
case I hope that FreeView STB has an RF modulator - rather than just an
RF pass through like most modern ones). The quality is lower (no stereo
sound either), but convenience is more important that quality for most.

For the price of a fully automatic 4-way SCART switcher with RGB
capability, you could replace one of the other units with one that has
sufficient SCARTs to solve the problem anyway. Cheaper composite only
(non-RGB) automatic switchers could be your best bet.

Hope this helps. If it confuses, well, ask before buying in future!

Finally, the DTG have a good guide to all this - it's the first
publication on this page...

http://www.dtg.org.uk/retailer/publications.html

Cheers,
David.