Device to enable us to record and watch something different at the same time?

[vigglewiggle]

Ok, complete ignoramus here, so bear with me!

We watch our digital television through our DVD player/recorder. Both have freeview. We don't have any other Sky or satellite type stuff.

Problem is - if we want to record something we can't watch anything else, we have to watch what we are recording. Are we missing something simple or do we need some additional lead or gadget?

Bump for the late-night techies

you need something which has more than one tuner in it, so one will be recording whilst you are watching the second. There are some freeview DVRs which have this, but I have no idea about DVDRs. I'm not aware of any leads etc you can get to replicate this.

Does your DVD player/recorder have a "UHF Out" "Out" or "TV Out" socket near the input socket ? If so then a male to female UHF cable (sometimes they sell a male-to-male with a female-to-female adaptor in the bag) should allow for the signals from the aerial to be fed through the DVD (recording one channel) and the output from the DVD feeds into the TV, where you can choose a different channel to view.

If the DVD unit doesn't have an RF out connection, then see if you can find a splitter (or budget aerial amplifier) so the signal from the aerial can be fed into both the DVD and the TV, so you can choose another station on the TV.

When you come to play the DVD recording, I assume the connection is SCART or HDMI so you might need to get used to switching input source from TV to HDMI/SCART.

I have my aerial going into a Freeview recorder box, then into a Sky box, and then into the TV. My Sky box has HDMI into my main (42") TV and the Freeview box (SCART) and aerial go to my second (32") TV. I don't have two TV shows on at on at once - my 42" is also used as screen for one of my laptops with wireless mouse and keyboard, but with my setup, I can record shows on Freeview or Sky (up to 4 shows at the same time, but obviously 2 would have to be on Freeview channels). Also have a PS3 plugged into the 42" so can use that to watch films on DVD/Blu-ray and stream TV shows/films from LoveFilm, iPlayer, VidZone, ITV, 4oD etc

Thank you both. I will scrabble under the tv table and take a look.

I had a better idea - I got DH to scrabble under the TV while I read out instructions . He re-jigged things and, not only do we have the ability to record and watch something different, but we also have a better picture. Result!

Thank you - I love Mumsnet!