VCR not recording in color

Despite the cliché "Nobody uses VCR's any more" there is still a few of us around that still do or at lest all we have well, for the time being anyway. The same rules here apply to DVD players to reorders and other digital media devices. For those with the money and resources the internet has taken over. Digital TV has taken over New Zealand television.

If you have VCR, DVD player/recorder or other electronic devise plays back inn black and white recording problems go into all the three AV set up units, the freeView, VCR. DVD player/recorder   electronic device including the TV AV set up. Observe any PAL or NTSC indicators and set to that. Look for words color ( short for color  Col: B/W and reset to color modes.

There is no analogue television, yet analogue TV sets can still be used thanks to digital to analogue converter black boxes called freeViews specifically programmed for the free TV channels. Those with money don't need additional analogue to digital converters for analogue TV sets when they have internet resources. The rest of us have to struggle along with what we have.

Sometimes there is a recording or DVD player playback problem records or plays yes, but we are disappointed when only plays back in black and white. Some of us have experienced recording in full color for month's and suddenly our VCR or DVD player or recording started recoding only in black and white. When this happens we are in a quandary. What had just happened?

Some time or another ( New Zealand uses with freeVeiw units at lest ) may have noticed when you changed the FreeView TV channel ( at lest in New Zealand ). An error message signal box appeared for a few seconds. explaining there was some missing or incorrect information. Yet thankfully for that at lest, we could still view the TV's channels as normal anyway. We'd think this could be a warning we may not be able to record in color any longer. But not quite.

This could possibly between ( in New Zealand at lest ) the FreeView output, your TV, VCR, DVD player or recorder to other digital devices NTSC and PAL menu set ups. NTSC is analogue North American Corporation television transition standard and PAL is Phase Alternating Line color encoding system for analogue television and VCR's used in broadcast television systems in most countries round the world at 576i.

RF ( Radio Frequency, or in other words the aerial input ) freeView aerial socket is a digital receiver converting to an analogue output for the old analogue TVs and VCR's. Digital TV's and Internet systems enjoy everything in full color and HD ( High Definition ) surround sound directly achieved with RCA cabling. Fortunately the same applies to the FreeView units connected to analogue TV sets.

The best thing with the latest FreeView models they are perfect in good reception areas only requiring a crude indoor aerial. In some areas just a open wire lead is good enough for a aerial. Poor reception areas becomes a bit tricky. If in a good reception area all we need are the corresponding RCA in and output cables just as we do with regular digital TV's and ignore the RF in of the TV and the RF output of the freeView. We don't need those. The TV uses the converted digital to analogue output from the FreeVwiew though the RCA cables connecting the FreeView unit to the TV set. The TV is set in the Audio Visual ( AV ) mode.
The AV mode by passes the normal TV channels permanently redundant in New Zealand. Notset in the AV mode the TV is switch off from the digital device.

Budget TV's and VCR's DVD players and digital devices will only have one RCA set. Regular priced perhaps two. Expensive models will have up to three or four sets. AV1, AV2, AV3 respectively.

The RCA FreeView outputs are connected to the VCR inputs ( The left and right audio stereo channels and the single video inputs ). The outputs of the VCR go directly to the left and right audio and video TV RCA inputs. Any AV1, AV2, AV3 TV input will do. The only tuning in is the FreeView unit. The TV tanner is redundant because it is by pasted though the RCA cables.