With a vcr, you can be recording something from the aerial, and by pressing the "Tv/Video" button whatever is coming in on AV1 gets passed out of AV2.

Just got a dvr540. Sky box is connected to AV2 on the recorder, AV1 goes to TV. If I am recording from say the internal freeview reciever, I am unable to watch something from my Sky box because the recorder outputs the freeview signal, is it not possible to passthrough the signal from AV2 whilst it does this????? I tried pressing the "TV/DVD" button on the remote, but all this does it cause RGB to drop out, I still get the same picture. Any ideas, or is it simply not possible?

I think you will find that while all VCR's and DVDR's will offer a passthrough feature via the scart leads,the ability to switch to the AV input while the recorder is recording from another input is quite rare.
The only VCR I ever had with this was a JVC SVHS model.
The many machines I've had over the years never allowed this.
I've also yet to find a dvdr that does this.
I've had Philips,Panasonic and Pioneer and none were able to switch to an input while recording.

I had the same problem with my 440 when I tried bringing my old freeview box out of retirement. I thought I'd get a better picture feeding it into a high-def telly via component.

In the end I gave up and plugged the freeview box into one of the scart sockets on the telly.

Its very rare that I want to watch something while recording something else. Its usually only if the Missus is watching soaps or some reality rubish and picture quality doesn't seem to bother her.

With the 440/540HX if you are recording from the freeview tuner, you can (apparantly) press CH+ to turn on the scart loopthrough feature, and CH- to turn it off again. Not actually tried it myself though.

Not sure if this is any help with your machine.
Last edited by Cobson : 07-09-2006 at 12:56

Nice one, that does the trick. Interestingly, it only works by pressing the ch+ button on the front of the machine, not the one on the remote (which means I have to get up and do it, not that I'm lazy at all ) As soon as the recording has finished, the recorder takes control again!

I think it would have been better if scart throughput was on during timer recordings by default (which is how every vcr that I have owned had worked), and also a button on the remote would have been useful (again, was the case with vcr's)

Just looked this up in the manual for my DVR-520H - +/- also turn on/off the loopthru for SCART while recording from inbuilt tuner for this, too. Awesome! Until now I've been having to unplug the freeview box from the recorder, unplug the recorder from the TV, and plug the freeview box into the TV when I've wanted to record from a standard channel and watch a freeview channel. Which is every few days. Thanks!