TV reception question

FishPolice · 12 Dec 2010 at 20:56

At the moment our aerial plugs into an old VCR and from there plugs into our freeview Panasonic plasma tv. The picture quality seems to be pretty damn good.
Now If we run the aerial straight through to our tv missing out the VCR completely we end up with poor reception especially on terrestrial channels.

I tried looping the aerial through our old DVD player and then to the tv instead of the VCR but reception was also poor.

I'm gonna splash out on some surround sound equipment this xmas (5.1 speakers, AV receiver, Blu-ray player) and it looks like we might not have enough room in the cabinet for the old VCR.

Question is: Why does the VCR boost the aerial strength & will I get a similar reception boost from an AV receiver or Blu-ray player if I do away with the VCR?

jellybeard999 · 12 Dec 2010 at 21:15

Sounds very odd. You could try a plug in booster, but this will only boost what's already there. I'd be looking at a masthead amplifier and new aerial if required.

lucid · 12 Dec 2010 at 22:31

FYI; AV receivers and Blu-ray players don't have TV aerial connectors so they can't boost anything to do with TV signals in this context.

FishPolice · 12 Dec 2010 at 23:22

lucid said:
FYI; AV receivers and Blu-ray players don't have TV aerial connectors so they can't boost anything to do with TV signals in this context.

Ah ok. Well that solves that one then

Guess I'll just leave the vcr connected but maybe stuff it out of the way behind the tv cabinet.