How do I hook up my DVD recorder, et al?

[magnoliasouth]

Okay, here's what I have:

• Panasonic EZ28 DVD Recorder *gasp* (I should've read this forum long before I bought the thing)
  Cable box
  TV (not HD)
  Stereo
  Playstation 2

At the moment, we can only hear the stereo when the DVDR is on.

What we want is to obviously hear everything in stereo, but also we want to be able to record premium channels, even if we have to leave the DVDR on the same channel to record while away.

EONS ago (over 20 years ago and when VHS was the only format), I had hooked up my VCR, cable box and my TV with an A/B switch and was able to record premium that way. As I mentioned above, the con was that you could only record the one channel that the cable box was on at the time of the recording, which was fine. I was able to do it, so that was all that mattered to me.

Today there are way too many media items, gadgets, cables and plugs so that I have no idea what I'm doing.

I'm not sure if I've provided you all with enough info, so if you need more just let me know and I'll see what I can do. I can even take a picture of the back of everything if need be.

Many thanks to anyone who can direct me.

[wabjxo]

Connect like shown in the 1st sketch here.

If you want audio to go thru stereo, connect to Stereo then on to TV, but Stereo must then be on to get audio when playing the DVDR. I've got my DVDR connected via digital coax out, which I use only for playing commercial DVDs, but I use connections shown in sketch for normal TV watching.

[jman98]

Do note that if by the term "premium channels" you mean something like HBO that you may be completely unable to record it even though you connected everything correctly. HBO and some other channels are broadcast with a "Do not copy" flag turned on and it's been reported that some home recording devices honor the flag.

[magnoliasouth]

Thank you to both. I'll try and hook this up this weekend. If I have problems I'll report back. We worked on this the other day for an hour or more and we just couldn't seem to get it right.

[jman98]

Glad to help. If you test recording capabilities after hooking everything up, I strongly suggest doing so on either DVD-RW or DVD+RW discs and that you try to record a channel from one of the "Big Four" (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) as those are not supposed to be set to "Do not copy" mode. The RW disc suggestion is so that you don't waste a good disc on a test.