I tried copying a programme to a VHS tape at the weekend using the Archive feature and only got a blank screen after the DTR generated titles, I did get audio though.

My setup is;
VHS =SCART= DTR =SCART= TV

I selected the required programme, went through the archive process and saw (and recorded) the banners, but there was no picture for the programme - to the TV or the VHS.

I actually made the tape by just playing the programme as normal, I was just wondering if I've missed something completely obvious - any suggestions?

I appreciate that with DVD recorders many folks put the recorder between the DTR and the TV, my VHS/DVD player combo may have RGB pass-through but I don't suppose it will record from an RGB signal.

Hmm, I've just tried this out on my brand new Hitachi HDR161 and I get exactly the same results to the letter. I'll investigate further when I've got more time, but evidently something is wrong here.

The same procedure on my Daewoo DSD-9502T works as expected, not that I use it.

Was anything recording at the time? Mine was for that quick check, and I'm wondering if it suppressed the video somehow.

I'm pretty certain that nothing was recording.

I'm going to play a bit more to try to narrow down the exact scenario - but asked in case it's a knwon issue (but I didn't see it on the bug list)

I may try to see if the signal is on the phono output too.

It seems to me that both the outputs (TV and Video) are the same which I suspect only seems a bit strange to me because I used to have a Pace Twin.

My friend had the same problem on a Wharfedale 250DTR (basically the same machine) which he got from Argos. He took the machine back and got his money back arguing that since the function didn't work the machine was not fit for purpose.

That was a few weeks ago and he has now bought a 250DTRHDMI (a Vestel T825 with V1.7 software) and the archiving function works OK on that. Mind you, overall it does seem to be a little less stable than the T816.

I had this same issue with my Wharfedale 250DTR when archiving (not to VHS but to my Pioneer HDD/DVD recorder). I just used the other scart socket (the one that normally goes straight to my TV). Annoying, because I'm not switching it every time I want to archive, and I'm not daisy-chaining through my DVD recorder.

I didn't need to swap the sockets - I just played the recording and set my video to record. The playback seems to go out of both SCARTs (of course you may want to do that to get an RGB signal for your box)