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Old DVD Recorder issues with Hartford/New Haven signals

KML0224

KML0224

See if somebody can figure this one out for me:

I have an old Magnavox DVD player/recorder with a digital tuner, model ZC352MW8. It was manufactured in January of 2007. I hooked an indoor antenna to it on Monday night and did a channel scan. All it could pick up was the four stations from Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington (WCCT, WEDH, WVIT and WTIC). That's important because the same antenna, when directly attached to the my 24" Toshiba LED HDTV (model 24SL41OU, manufactured in March of 2011) also gets WFSB (~80%), WTNH (~90%), WUVN (cuts outs often), WHPX (~70%) and WCTX (~70%). The antenna was in the exact same position, yet the Magnavox could only handle the Rattlesnake stations. Could it be that the tuner can't properly read the signal information which the TV stations are sending out? :(
 
The digital TV broadcast standard hasn't changed, so it's not very likely that the issue with your 2007 DVR is incompatibility with the signal being broadcast by the stations it can't find. Provided you connected the antenna the same way as you connected it to the Toshiba, what you're experiencing can most likely be explained by two factors: digital TV tuners vary in quality between brands, or even models within the same brand, and the overall quality of tuners has improved quite a bit over the years. Digital TV reception is easily disrupted by multipath (what used to show up as one or more ghosts in an analog TV picture) or other types of interference. Even though a particular signal may be reasonably strong at your location, if there is enough multipath interference the tuner will skip it as a "bad". The tuner in your Toshiba probably does a better job at filtering out multipath than the tuner in your DVR. If you'd change the direction of the antenna while connected to the DVR you might find that it could recognize the signals it's now telling you aren't there.
 
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It's the older Magnavox recorder having its issues. I hooked up my LG DVD recorder/VCR combo this morning, hooking that antenna up in the same position. It's receiving WTNH-TV (ABC) channel 8 from New Haven with no problem, despite WTNH using VHF channel 10 for their digital. It's passing through the receiver when it's off, too. WFSB-TV is showing with the full 5 green bars on the signal meter now, with me watching Miami Vs Indianapolis NFL football. :rolleyes:
 
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KML-224 said:
It's the older Magnavox recorder having its issues. I hooked up my LG DVD recorder/VCR combo this morning, hooking that antenna up in the same position. It's receiving WTNH-TV (ABC) channel 8 from New Haven with no problem, despite WTNH using VHF channel 10 for their digital. It's passing through the receiver when it's off, too. WFSB-TV is showing with the full 5 green bars on the signal meter now, with me watching Miami Vs Indianapolis NFL football. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

OK, there's your answer. Most likely the signals from those stations are less than ideal at your location and the Magnavox's tuner is not as good as the tuners in your other devices at extracting a usable data stream from them. It's not the stations.
 
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