Playback of vcr just shows the blue screen

[Novel8]

I recently moved and had to hookup my old but good, vcr again to my cable box. I am able to view and record the cable show as I am watching it on my TV's AV input. Now, when i want to do a time recording, and playback what I had hoped was recorded, all I see is the blue blank screen. My cable box rca cables outputs are going to my front end rca inputs of my vcr, called "F1". The rca outputs of the vcr is going to my TV rca inputs, To the best of my knowledge that is how i had it setup years before I moved. I may have forgotten a certain step which is causing this problem and I hope someone here can help me...I would have used component cables but my vcr does not have component ins/outs.

 

[DSzymborski]

What is the model of this VCR? It's admittedly been probably 15 years since I touched a VCR, but I believe the various ones I owned over the years, the RCA ports at the front (when present) tended to be outputs, not inputs. It's hard to provide much insight into how to hook up a specific VCR without knowing much about the VCR!

 

[britechguy]

How is your TV tuned these days? It's been a long time since I've seen any VCR or TV tuner actually work, with all tuning being done by "the cable box". The cable box itself would have to be tuned to the channel you want to record on the VCR before there is anything available to record.

This gets even more complicated with more recent (and I don't mean new, by any means) cable boxes where their output is generally HDMI, and only HDMI, and the VCR itself has no way to support that input. In a situation such as that you'd need to run the HDMI in to something that can act as a pass-through to the VCR using one of the input types it supports.

 

[Novel8]

Its the JVC-VP58U, and the manual says that "F-1" port are inputs. This vcr has rca outputs in the rear, which is connected to my rca inputs of my TV. I have it hooked up this way : cable box rca outputs to my vcr front end inputs. I choose AV source on TV which as soon as the vcr is turned on, shows the input "F-1" and blue screen. I am aware in order to record from cable, one has to choose the channel, the vcr cannot pick a channel. I am able to record in this fashion as I am 'watching' the show, and playback...but its the time shift that I am more interested in and when i choose the channel I want to record, i shut down the TV and vcr...and the playback comes only as the blue screen. Why its able to do so as I watch a program, but not do so on time shift is the puzzle.

 

[hang-the-9]

Its the JVC-VP58U, and the manual says that "F-1" port are inputs. This vcr has rca outputs in the rear, which is connected to my rca inputs of my TV. I have it hooked up this way : cable box rca outputs to my vcr front end inputs. I choose AV source on TV which as soon as the vcr is turned on, shows the input "F-1" and blue screen. I am aware in order to record from cable, one has to choose the channel, the vcr cannot pick a channel. I am able to record in this fashion as I am 'watching' the show, and playback...but its the time shift that I am more interested in and when i choose the channel I want to record, i shut down the TV and vcr...and the playback comes only as the blue screen. Why its able to do so as I watch a program, but not do so on time shift is the puzzle.

If you can play the VCR normally, but this timed recording did not work, I would guess you recorded a blank input. Check the manual again for how to record with timer turning things on.

If you do a lot of recording of things you may just want to get a DVR from the cable company. Will cost you some extra a month, but if you use the service, the extra is not much and would be worth it for a lot simpler and higher quality recordings.