HELP - Recording to dvd/hard drive on new samsung smart tv

[Mins]

After a lot of deliberation we finally upgraded to a new samsung smart tv yesterday. We have got all freeview channels on the tv but we also have a sony dvd player with hard drive. We used to plug the aerial into the back of the dvd which also has a freeview box built in and then connect the dvd to the tv with a scart cable. The new tv does not pick up the tv signal from the dvd/freeview box. You can only pick up tv channels when aerial socket is plugged directly into the tv. We are able to watch stuff recorded on the hard drive but can't record onto it.............. Anyone know what I'm talking about????

Anyone? Please.............. 24 hour late and still haven't been able to work it out!

Some Freeview boxes have "Aerial IN" and "Aerial OUT" sockets, which means you can plug the Freeview box into the TV (and the Fv box sometimes has it's own signal amplifier, so can mean the TV gets more channels available than with the TV aerial cable direct).

If you don't have an "Aerial OUT" socket on the Freeview recorder, then you could "do it yourself" for under a few quid -

see Amazon items:
Aerial Splitter

The "In" socket is used for the Aerial, then the "Out" sockets are used for recorder and TV.

Male to Male cable

Not sure what cables you already have, so suggest getting 2 of the cables (or pop into local Poundland and see if they have some at half the price!). It's only worth spending a bit more if you have a rotten signal. The again, if the signal is really bad, instead of a splitter, you'd probably be better off with an aerial amplifier with 2 or more output (use a third to feed a signal off to another room).

Thank you network guy!! Will give it a try - it's not just a freeview box we have though it's a dvd recorder with hard drive and freeview - not sure if that makes any difference or not??

Yes, appreciate it's not just a Freeview recorder, but without a make and model number I couldn't check any specification details. Exactly what the box can and cannot do isn't really that important if there's no Aerial Out socket !!!!

I assume there is no socket, which is why you had to move the aerial cable to the TV...

All sorted now - thanks again. There is an aerial out socket - we just hadn't quite worked out how to get it to record but now all Ok so thanks v much for your advice!

OK, glad you've worked things out. Now, being nosey (since I'm interested to know what others have used), could you give make and model number ?

I've sometimes wanted to store something permanently and while I have a Freeview recorder, and Sky+ box, I'm looking for other options (particularly so I can see about recording some extra channels not on the existing recorder boxes). There's no (easy or standard) way to record what comes in on an HDMI cable (because otherwise people could pirate copy films from Sky, and other things in HD quality) but I'm looking at material from other sources such as games system, etc. I used to be able to record from SCART to SCART on an ancient VCR but that's dead and thrown out now.

I have the same problem: just purchased a Bush Digital TV Recorder (records onto a Hard Drive) and plugged into a Samsung Smart TV with an HDMI Cable, but it cannot seem to pick up the TV signal.
Every time I try to tune it, it says it cannot find any channels.

The other problem is that the TV does not have an Aerial Out port. Any thoughts?