Okay, here's a strange VCR/ Cable question

[Rajah]

See if anyone here has heard of this happening before or has any idea how to fix it...

We've run into a strange problem with our VCR / Cable. For the past year, we've had the VCR set up to our digital cable system. Here's the setup. The cable comes out of the wall and directly to the digital cable box. Output from that goes to a splitter. One side of the splitter goes directly to the receiver for our TV (we have a surround-sound receiver). The other side of the splitter goes from the cable box to the input on the VCR, and from the VCR to a second input on the receiver. This has worked without a problem for over a year now.

But sometime last week, the strangest thing started happening. On some of the lower stations (9, 11, 13, 21...) if you're watching them straight from the cable box, they're fine. But if you watch them through the VCR, there is *no* sound. Video's perfect, just no sound. There's sound on all the other channels, but on a specific few channels there is no sound whatsoever. And it's consistently the same 5 or 10 channels.

We've checked the cable connections and as near as we can tell, nothing's come loose nor has a cat chewed through the cable. Anyone ever heard of this happening before, or have any ideas what might be up? Most of the shows I watch/record on broadcast TV are on one of the channels that doesn't get any sound through the VCR now. :/

 

[nativetxn]

I don't even understand what you just described, much less have an idea what is happening

Just thought I would bump this back to the top of the list for you.

 

[aunt lissa]

Give me a few hours and I have a friend that did this kind of thing for a living. I'll ask him when he gets home from work. If you don't have an answer in a few hours PM me and I'll get the answer for ya!!

 

[Rajah]

Thanks lissa. I know I won't have an answer by this evening -- the only thing we can think of to try that we haven't already done is move the VCR to another TV and box, then to another house to see if it's the cable or the VCR, but our setup is so complex it'll require getting behind a cabinet / entertainment center to disconnect the VCR, which is going to take 2-3 people to do. Which we haven't had a chance to do yet.

I'd appreciate it if your friend had any input.

 

[TammiMcMan]

Probably not the answer you want to hear, but did you call your digital cable provider? A few months ago I started having problems with my set-up and when I called my provider, they informed me that they had made some system enhancements. I had to get a new cable box and nothing works the same anymore. I hope it ends up being a much easier fix for you.

 

[Micca]

We recently switched from regular cable to digital. It screwed up recording things on our vcr's. When we get past the trial period, we're going back to regular cable. Most of those extra channels suck anyway.

 

[Ted and Holly]

We run our digital cable through our surround sound, and directly to the TV. When we first got digital, I played around with the settings. I turned on an option called "Play Secondary Audio [SAP]" and it did pretty much what you described.

Have you changed any settings lately? Maybe not even on purpose?

Another thing that happened is that I recorded something for the first time on our VCR and it recorded without sound. I chalked it up to the fact that I had the digital box muted... I didn't look into it since we traded our digital box for a DVR. It is the same price per month and SO cool!

Ted

 

[Rajah]

Ahh hah!!! That did it, Ted. I don't know how, I blame a kitty, but the VCR sound settings were turned to something other than stereo. When I put it back on stereo, it works!! Thanks!!!