How to Record From a TV Using a Camcorder

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Rokosz, your digital lifestyle expert. And I'm going to show you how to use your camcorder to record what's on your TV. Couple of things to go over before we can do this because you've got to ask yourself, can it be done. Couple of things. Does your monitor or your TV have an output? If it does not, you're not going to do it except for this. Pointing it at the camera and shooting it. Not the world's best way of doing it, and illegal in a movie theater. The other thing is is can your camera record? Some of the more modern ones stop it for anti piracy yadda yadda yadda. And how might we do this? So in this case here, this one does, I'm not going to put it in the camera mode, but I'm going to turn it over, because that's what we're really using it for, is a VTR. Video tape recorder VCR. Now here, this one does have a S video connector inside of it. So I'm going to take a S video cord, I'm going to connect it to the camera here, OK, and now, we will connect it to the television. But, in a minute, also, if you want to record audio, a lot of times you need a special connector here. This one will record left and right audio, and I'm going to put this into the microphone connection on this particular unit here. And some of them have special connectors that allow their own AV cables that come with it, in which case, use those, they're very handy. Alright, here's where it comes down to brass tacks, guys, is is that, a lot of times you don't want to record what's on TV. But, I do, no, I'm telling you you don't. You want to record something coming off your cable. Off your satellite system, off a video game, off your DVD player, off your DVR player, off your VCR player, that you watch on your TV. Theoretically the only thing that will come off the TV would be something that's broadcast, and which case, we can talk about that in another time. But here's what needs to happen, is is that if you don't have an output on your television monitor, then you hook it to the source that you want to. The procedure remains the same. And then in this case here the output is in on the side, so here all I've got to do is put in my S video to one side here, and y right to red, and my white to white. Or red to red, white to white, and now we're ready. All I have to do is hit the record button which is the play and record at the same time and I'm good to go. So remember, if you really want to record from a DVD player, hook these directly to the DVD player, and use this as a monitor. And you'll get some good stuff. Make sure it's not copy written, like me, Rokosz, your digital lifestyle expert saying stream you later."