Fixing Damaged TV Reception by Using DVD Recorders and VCRs

Here’s a tip or two about DVD “recorders vs. players”. This saved one friend the cost of replacing his not-so-new but well-loved TV. There’s a difference between DVD players and those that have a recording function. Knowing this distinction can come in handy, if you ever end up in the horrible situation that my friend did. Home electronics has some fine points to know, apparently.

He moved from one apartment across town to another. The TV was on until it came time to pack it. We turned it off, put it in the original box and into the truck it went.

Some days later, when the cable TV guy showed up to do the new installation, he explained, after about 500 tests, that the TV tuner was damaged. Not broken altogether, but apparently moving a warm TV can somehow partially disable it. At the old apartment the unit received 60 to 80 channels. At the new place six to eight came in clearly.

He was envisioning replacing the old set at a cost of several hundred dollars, but the cable guy suggested a quick solution.

His diagnosis was that the tuner in the TV was partially damaged, due to moving it warm, apparently not an uncommon problem. (Who knew?!)

Due to electrostatic discharge? Who knows! But the whole situation was unfortunate. A real bummer.

The solution, he suggested, was to route the cable TV input into and through the tuner of a DVD or VCR recorder.

I guess cable guys deal with this stuff all the time. It really seemed like he was trying to help, not hype us or sell us anything– he wasn’t gaining financially from the advice.

“You’ve probably got an old one around that the eject drawer doesn’t work on, everyone has one,” he suggested.

Well, my buddy  didn’t have an old one, but got an inexpensive VCR, DVD combination “player” at a major retailer. It didn’t do anything to solve the problem.

When reading the owner’s manual in detail and the exterior of the box, it said something like, “works great with your exterior cable box or through your TV.” That translates to, this player does not contain a TV tuner and depends on your TV or cable box to receive and decode the cable signal. It’s just like hooking the cable TV wire up to your computer monitor. There’s nothing to receive, select and route the cable signal to the screen.

Luckily for him, he’d simply failed to buy a DVD or VCR “recorder”. What’s critical here is that you make sure what you’re buying has a TV tuner included in it. It may cost you one or two hundred extra, over a basic “player”.

There are two distinct advantages of the DVD recorder over the player. First, it will receive, select, and route your cable provider’s signal to your screen. You just select the TV channels using the DVD / VCR remote rather than the TVs, thus bypassing the broken tuner in the TV.

Secondly, you can now tape or digitally record anything coming across your cable signal. Cool!

If you’ve only got a simple player right now and you’re missing NFL or American Idol broadcasts, consider getting a DVD “recorder.” That added function can help out your home electronics in the event that the tuner in your television set breaks.